Memories of a National Memorial
August 15 : Independence Day Special

S Balakrishnan *

Dedication ceremony

The Sunday of 11th February 1979 was not a lazy Sunday for the usually sleepy little town of Port Blair which otherwise got active only when the weekly Calcutta flight touched down or ships from mainland ports of Calcutta and Madras berthed occasionally after a tiring 4-day-long voyage with rotting onion and potato cargo. The whole town stank and we knew a ship has arrived!

Even for a lazy bachelor like me that Sunday was a special day. The notorious Cellular Jail of Kala Pani, the colonial British era structure, was to be declared a National Memorial in honour of our freedom fighters who were incarcerated there and endured untold hardships.

It was not that VVIPs set their lotus feet on the remote and forsaken Islands very often. Who could be the ideal person for the dedication ceremony than Gandhian Shri Morarji Desai! He was the Prime Minister of those days heading the first non-Congress government at the Centre (1977) after the Emergency fiasco of Smt. Indira Gandhi.

As unique a person Morarji Desai was, his date of birth was also unique – 29th February (1896), that came only once in four years! He was already 83 years old then; he missed hitting the century just by 10 1/2 months.

Morarji Desai

Shri Desai landed at the Lambaline Aerodrome of Port Blair (now renamed as Veer Savarkar International Airport) by around 1 PM on 11th Feb. I was waiting outside the airport with my Agfa Isoly–II Camera loaded with a fresh roll. Just a month back I had managed to buy this box camera for Rs. 240. The B&W Indu Panchro (speed 160/27) film roll cost Rs. 7/-

In those days, it was the prerogative of the Public Sector Unit ‘Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Company Limited (HPF)’ to bring out B&W rolls. Shri Morarji Desai was the first prime minister to be shot by me; oh, don’t mistake me, with my camera, of course. Some 4 ½ years later I had a close encounter with his arch rival, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, in Sikkim by which time she had mellowed down a lot from being worshipped as ‘Indira is India’ and ‘India is Indira’.

Travelling in a ‘Made-in-India’ white Ambassador car, accompanied by Shri S.M. Krishnatri, the Chief Commissioner of the A&N Islands, Desai was waving his hand when I clicked him. It was 1.30 PM and I had to rush to Cellular Jail, the spot of action, which was being declared as National Memorial. The historical event took place at 2.30 PM in the foreground of the Jail building.

There was not much security arrangements because the Islands are generally safe, being cut off from mainland India by 1,200 kms. It was a formal official function of which I do not remember anything after all these 45 years.

I was so excited being part of the important event. Besides political netas’ speeches being boring, I had not picked up Hindi to that level during my just eight months of stay in Port Blair, having come from Madras State (now Tamil Nadu, the Land of Tamils) where Hindi was anathema.

conch-blowing girls

After the dedication function, Desai proceeded to Gymkhana Grounds to address a public meeting. There he was given the ‘conch blowing’ Bengali traditional welcome. What did he speak there? Well, with my poor Hindi knowledge, it was all blah, blah.

As I was loitering with my camera after the function and public meeting were over by 4 PM, I chanced upon an elderly couple near the Andaman Club, closer to the public meeting spot. It was Shri Shatipur Sen and his graceful wife. He was involved in the famous Chittagong Armoury Raid case but was not jailed in Cellular Jail. Shri B.M. Bose stood beside them.

Then there was Dr. Bhupal Bose, involved in the ‘Sir Charles David, Police Commissioner, Calcutta, attempt case / Dalhousie Square bomb case - 1930’, who was incarcerated in Cellular Jail. He was a veteran revolutionary and a close associate of Netaji.

Watching me clicking these veterans, another veteran freedom fighter, Shri B.K. Banerjee, who was also imprisoned at Cellular Jail, desired to have copies of those clicks, though I did not take a picture of him. How rude of me! On receipt of them, he wrote me a letter from Delhi which I received in Port Blair on March 13, 1979.

This letter is one of my prized collections and was displayed at the State-level TANAPEX 2017 philatelic exhibition in Chennai. The letter goes like this: -

A-57, Chittaranjan Park,
New Delhi – 110 019, India
March -8, 1979

Dear Young friend,

Many thanks for two copies of photos which I have received from your end this morning; it will ever remember to us.

I do hope, our cordial and sweet relationship which was established on the great historic occasion of Andaman Cellular Jail (National) Memorial Ceremony on 11th Feb. 1979, it will remain ever. This will find you & your family in good health & spirit.

With best wishes
Yours,
B.K. Banerjee

I returned to the Jail, sorry, National Memorial again by 9 PM to take a shot of the illuminated façade. But I realized it was mistake roaming around that late in the night because in those days (1979) Port Blair dozed off by 7 PM itself; It was with batted breath that I reached my room on the lonely and scary Radha-Gobind Mandir Marg, especially near the neglected Dilathaman Tank (now developed as Gandhi Park).

freedom fighters TV shoot

I was up again at the Memorial the next morning, despite being a working day, to watch with wide mouth and eyes the TV shooting of the veteran freedom fighters. They were first asked to go inside the jail entrance and come out and walk around the roundtana before the jail as the TV camera whirred to record them all. It was the first time I watched a TV shoot.

My parents, living in Madras (Chennai), later wrote to me that they keenly watched the inaugural function to locate me somewhere in the crowd but no luck. Doordarshan was the one and only channel then! After the TV shoot, I had the privilege to click Shri Prithiv Singh Azad (1892–1989), a freedom fighter interned at Cellular Jail between 1915 and 1921 for Lahore Conspiracy case. He was later honoured with Padma Bhushan.

Recently a friend of mine shared an interesting anecdote relating to this event. He was then just a temporary staff of APWD but later retired as Executive Engineer. He lamented that he had to sweep the floor of the airport lounge before the Prime Minister arrived.

I comforted him that he must feel proud that he played a role, howsoever small like the squirrel in Ramayana, in the dedication event. On my part, I can claim to have clicked the event for posterity! I even had the privilege of sharing the photos taken during that day with the official website of Cellular Jail.

The Indian Post & Telegraph Department (later bifurcated as Postal Dept./India Post) issued a special cover to commemorate the dedication of Cellular Jail as National Memorial. It showed the Cellular Jail in its original form, like an octopus spreading its vicious tentacles, along with a special cancellation of the same design.

On the Golden Jubilee of India’s Independence in 1997, a stamp depicting the present state of the jail with just three wings was also issued. A special cover that shows the single-storied façade of the Jail in Tricolour with National Memorial written on either side of the entrance in English and Hindi was also released. Needless to say, all these are part of my prized philatelic collection. In 1997, a One Rupee coin was also minted depicting two wings and the central tower of the Jail.

The Cellular Jail is in the tentative list of UNESCO for inclusion as a World Heritage Site / Monument. This has been nominated for the reason that there are no sites at national level that are comparable to Cellular Jail.

Origin of Cellular Jail-

The idea for establishing a permanent penal settlement in these islands germinated in the minds of the British rulers in 1857 to curb India’s First War of Independence. A committee of experts visited the islands for a survey in December 1857 and submitted a report to the Government in January 1858.

The first batch of 200 convicts arrived on the island on 10th March 1858 under the overall charge of Dr. J. P. Walker. The design of Cellular Jail included seven wings (now only 3 exist) with a total of 698 solitary cells radiating from a central tower and a hanging room. It was completed in 1905-06 using prisoners themselves as construction labour.

It is believed that between 1858 and 1860, about 2,000 to 4,000 freedom fighters of India’s 1st War of Independence (sepoy mutineers) were deported to the dreaded Kala Pani, the Andamans. Later, from 1909-21 and again from 1932-38, a total of 511 political prisoners were deported to the Islands for solitary confinement, including Veer Savarkar, et al.

When the political prisoners went on a 37 day hunger strike in 1937, it had its repercussion in mainland India also. Therefore, the process of repatriation to mainland jails started on 9th Sept. 1937 and the last batch of political prisoners left the shores of the Islands on 18 Jan. 1938. However, criminal convicts were sent there till 1946 when the Penal Settlement was abolished once for all.

Because the Cellular Jail is an integral part of our freedom struggle, Netaji described it as the Indian Bastille, comparing it to the Bastille in Paris. He visited the Jail in December 1943.

The latest addition is a well-equipped museum that depicts the horrific life, daily grind and punishments of those interned in the jail which in essence is their sacrifice so that we live in independence and peace.