Sep 19, 2007 04:06 PM Vignettes from the Cellular Jail posted by Anirban

Recently  on  a  visit,  I  had  the  opportunity  to  visit  a  monument  which  is  part  of  the  myth  of  the  Indian  freedom  struggle-  the  Cellular  Jail  at  Port  Blair.  It  is  said,  that  no  one  ever  escaped  alive  from  this  jail.  Cellular  Jail,  located  at  Port  Blair,  is  a  mute  witness  to  the  tortures  meted  out  to  the
freedom  fighters,  who  were  incarcerated  in  this  Jail.  The  Jail,  completed  in  the  year  1908  acquired  the  name,  Â‘cellularÂ’  because  it  is  entirely  made  up  of  individual  cells  for  the  solitary  confinement  of  the  prisoners.  It  was  home  to  hundreds  of  freedom  fighters  whose  names  are  now  engraved  on  the  walls  of  its  watch  tower,  the  Cellular  Jail  stands  as  a  symbol  of  colonial  oppression,  cruelty  and  untold  suffering.

Daily  work  routines  for  the  prisoners  included  the  crushing  of  thirty  pounds  of  coconut  and  mustard  oil;  being  unable  to  meet  the  quota  would  result  in  severe  punishment  shackling  and  flogging.  There  are  no  records  of  how  many  died  or  were  executed.  The  Jail  now  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  all  freedom  loving  people  has  been  declared  a  National  Memorial.

Construction  of  the  Cellular  Jail  started  in  1896  and  was  completed  in  1906  �  a  massive  three-storied  structure,  shaped  like  a  starfish,  seven  wings  radiating  from  a  central  watchtower,  the  standard  design  of  most  British  jails,  a  facility  where  698  souls  could  be  kept  in  solitary  confinement.  The  plaques  bearing  the  names  of  those  incarcerated  in  the  Jail  reads  like  a  "whoÂ’s  who"  of  the  freedom  movement.  Prominent  among  them  are  the  names  of  Vinayak  Damodar  Savarkar,  Barindra  Kumar  Ghosh  (brother  of  Shri  Aurobindo),  Bhai  Parmanand  of  the  Ghadr  Party,  and  many  more,  convicted  in  various  Â’conspiracy  cases.Â’  A  Â’mustÂ’  on  the  itinerary  of  all  tourists  is  the  Â’Sound  &  Light  ShowÂ’  every  evening,  which  brings  to  life  a  dark  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Islands  as  a  penal  settlement.

While  it  is  easy  to  condemn  the  British  for  the  treatment  meted  out  to  those  whom  they  saw  as  terrorists  and  whom  we  see  as  freedom  fighters,  it  is  not  possible  for  the  serious  thinker  to  reflect  on  whether  the  state  has  become  a  gentler  and  kinder  entity  since  the  colonial  times  and  whether  the  kind  of  persecution  and  torture  has  ceased  in  free  India.  Unfortunately  it  has  not  Â–  not  in  the  least.  The  British  tortured,  killed  and  maimed  but  they  kept  adequate  records  and  were  fair  and  transparent  in  whom  they  tried  and  imprisoned  and  hanged.  They  are  damned  by  the  evidence  and  transparency  that  they  themselves  provided.  We  in  free  India  however  have  taken  recourse  to  encounter  killings  and  such  without  any  records  being  kept  or  any  trials  being  carried  out.  The  British  carried  out  Jalianwala  Bagh  but  they  also  tried  and  court  martialed  General  Dyer  its  architect  but  we  make  heroes  of  people  like  K.P.S.Gill  ,  who  was  responsible  for  crushing  terrorism  yes,  but  also  for  numerous  extra  Â–  judicial  killings  and  encounters.  It  is  great  to  declare  the  Cellular  Jail  at  Andamans  a  National  Monument  and  honor  all  those  incarcerated  in  its  walls  but  a  greater  tribute  still  would  be  to  create  a  society  where  the  spirit  of  British  colonialists  which  still  permeates  the  Indian  state  is  really  history.