The Story of Prison Life

Part-1

             “The next morning we came out and washed our faces and then had for the first time the darshan of GANJI, otherwise called KANJI. It means boiled rice churned in water – one may say a sort of rice-porridge. We were given each a dabbu full of this dainty…………

        “The daily ration per meal is as follows—Rice 6 oz, flour for roti 5 oz, dal 2 oz, salt 1 dram, oil ¾ dram and vegetable 8 oz……………. .

        “Each of us was given an iron plate and an iron dish, red with rust and smeared with oil. These could not be cleansed at all.

         “A half pant, a Kurta and a white cap were provided for each prisoner. But he was not provided with any change for taking bath except a langoti which hardly covered the nudity.

          “……….The langoti we were given to put on while bathing could not in the least defend any modesty. Thus when we had to change our clothes we were in as helpless a condition as Draupadi in the assembly of the Kauravas. There was no help. We hung our heads low and somehow finished the bathing affair. Then I understood that here there was no such thing as gentleman, not even perhaps such a thing as man. Here were only convicts,”

        “After finishing the ‘breakfast’ with the ganji or kanji every prisoner had to commence the work allotted to him which kept him engaged practically the whole of the day with a short break at midday for lunch. The principal work which was also the hardest was connected with coconut.

          “To pound the coir and extract fibers out of it, to prepare again ropes out of those fibers to grind dry coconut and also mustard in the machine and bring out oil, to make bulbs for hooks from the shells-these formed the principal items of work for the prisoners,……...

          “The most difficult work was coir-pounding and oil-grinding………… Each one was given the dry husk of twenty coconuts. The husk had first to be placed on a piece of wood and then to be beaten with a wooden hammer till it became soft. Then the outer skin had to be removed. Then it was dipped in water and moistened and then again one had to pound it. By sheer pounding the entire husk inside dropped off, only the fibers remaining. These fibers had then to be dried in the sun and cleaned. Each one was expected to prepare daily a roll of such fibers weighing one seer,”

 

                                              (Extract from the autobiography of Barindra Kumar Ghosh)

 

 

                                          Part-2
Oil- grinding was the most difficult work allotted to prisoners in the Cellular Jail. This was the hardest work and caused the death of some, insanity of one and a general strike of the prisoners. It furnishes the most pathetic evidence of callousness bordering on inhumanity on the part of the authorities.

            Savarkar, describes it ………. “We were to be yoked like animals to the handle that turned the wheel .Hardly out of bed, we were ordered to wear a strip of cloth, were shut up in our cell and made to turn the wheel of the oil mill. ……….. . The door was opened only when meal was announced. The man came in and served the meal in the pan and went away and the door was shut. If after washing his hands one were to wipe away the perspiration of his body,the jamadar who was the worst of gangsters in the whole lot would go at him with loud abuse. There was no water for washing hands. Drinking water was to be had only by propitiating the jamadar, while you were at kolu; you felt very thirsty. The waterman gave no water except for a consideration which was to palm off to him some tobacco in exchange. If one spoke to jamadar his retort was,” A prisoner is given only two cups of water and you have already consumed three. Whence can I bring you more water? From your father?” we have put down the retort of the jamadar in the most decent language possible. If water could not be had for wash and drink what can be said of water for bathing?

          While describing the prison life Ullaskar Dutt narrates-

         “In our village only oxen are harnessed to the oil presses and even they can not extract more than 16 pounds of mustard –oil in one day. Here, in the Cellular Jail, I was harnessed to the oil mill with two other prisoners and were required to produce eighty pounds of coconut oil by evening. The Jamadars would make us gallop and if our pace slackened, we were beaten mercilessly. We would stumble and fall, and be beaten senseless everyday.”

                              (Based on autobiographies of  Savarkar  & Ullaskar Dutt )

                                                                   Part-3
“Who can describe the suffering –these agonies of mind and body? I may give you an instance, however to point the moral. Of all the hardships of prison-life in the Cellular Jail of the Andamans—gruelling work, scanty food and clothing, occasional thrashing and others-none was so annoying and disgusting as its provision for urinals and lavatories. The prisoners had to control the demands of nature for hours together for want of this arrangement in the cell itself. Morning, noon, evening –these were the only hours when prisoners were let off for this purpose, and at stated time only. It was an outrage to ask the jamadar for this convenience at any other moment than the stipulated hour. The prisoners were locked in their cells at six or seven o’clock in the evening and the lock was opened only after six the next morning. A sort of clay pot was given them to use it for that purpose during the night. ……… .The pot was so diminutive in size that one could not discharge into it even once during the night, as for nature’s call one had to go down on his knees to the Jamadar to let him out. …………..In the morning, Mr. Barrie would sit in judgment upon it, rebuke sternly the warder and the Jamadar for their lapse of duty. When he brayed in this fashion there was no answering him, the prisoner was also cross examined by Mr. Barrie …… But Mr, Barrie’s particular kindness to the prisoner always ended in an order to put him immediately on the oil mill !”

(Extract from the autobiography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar) 
                                              Part-4
“Most of the prisoners that had come before me in this jail form the Indian Mutiny of 1857 onwards, on transportation for life, did not return alive to India. I learnt this fact and realized the horror of it while I was myself passing through the sentence of hard labor. I often felt that I should take a rope and put an end to my life forthwith to end all my troubles. But I could not summon up courage to do it. I kept on crushing the coconut piece for oil by going round ht grinding mill patiently and without any complaint. One day, working from morn till eve, I felt my body stark and stiff like a plank of wood; I found my palms blustered over; I saw blood trickling from the cracks in my hand; and yet, at the end of it, the yield had not come to the regular quantity of 30 Ibs. A day I felt I was swooning; I heard abuses hurled at me by the petty officer in charge; I felt them like whips against my heart, and, at last, I was dragged before the jailor. He abused me downright with the choices slang and threatened me with caning. I was brought back from the office and seated in my place for the evening meal. Grief pain and insult choked my throat and I could not swallow a morsel of the food put before me.”

                                               (Extract from the autobiography of Upendra Nath Banerjee)