Andaman Islands and The Nationalist Movement

-Chinmay
The freedom struggle has always been of very high importance to us, but when it comes to
which places we often tend to ignore contributions of a variety of places. Andaman islands is
one of them, who’s horrors often haunts us after even listening to the stories of the living
conditions of freedom fighters who ended up there. The nationalist movement in the
Andaman islands is known to have its origin post 1858. The word Terra Nullius which has a
Latin origin means no man’s land, and also can be interpreted as the land devoid of law. This is
how the Britishers viewed it as well, so they assumed it was their duty to convert it into a penal
colony. The main purpose of this island was to withhold political prisoners, rebels, freedom
fighters and anyone who posed a threat to the British Raj. Ross island penal colony was the
main colony which had been established in 1858 . This can be viewed as the initial step towards
permanent settlement, after the failure of the Britishers to take charge of the island a century
ago in 1757 (Sen, 2017). As the movements in the mainland started taking shape and became
prominent, jails had started facing problems of overcrowding. This problem led to the
emergence of the Cellular Jail which now serves the purpose of reminding us about the
struggles and hardships our freedom fighters went through in order to annihilate the colonial
power. Cellular Jail’s main purpose was to break the spirits of the people who are being
arrested mentally as well as physically as the cells were designed in order to serve the purpose of
isolation.

The hardships the inmates had to go through cannot even be imagined by anyone in today’s
world. Prisoners had to engage in activities like clearing forests, husking coconuts, gardening
and extracting oil. They were even supposed to build places in which they can live. If the
allotted job was completed successfully by prisoners then in reward what they received was the
discomfort of isolation in shackles and that was the best case scenario. People were expected to
extract 30 pounds of oil a day or they had to husk 20 coconuts a day. This might not look very
horrifying but it drove several well known freedom fighters crazy. Medical facilities were close
to nothing, even after hurting people in such a manner, even basic amenities weren’t provided.
Water was scarce even to drink and having to use water for other purposes was just a dream for
most of them. Solitary confinement was one method used to keep people under control, which
again created mental instability in most prisoners. Hunger strikes were common, several rebels
went on it, and the authorities had a solution to that as well where they would force feed
prisoners using the nasal cavity and a tube. Even thinking about these horrific practices makes
us think about the conditions of the national fighters. (Murthy, 2006)

The key event that took place in Andamans was in 1943, when Subash Chandra Bose had
landed in Port Blair and had raised the Indian tricolor which had established the control of
India over the islands. The islands were under Japanese troops during World War II and were
later handed over to the Azad Hind Government. It later became a part of India in 1947. 1857
was the year known for the first war of independence and at this point the Raj’s main goal was
to suppress as many uprisings as possible. As noted above the Ross Penal colony was established
later. Why not any other place to establish a penal colony is what one may ask, but the answer
to this is that Britishers wanted to use India’s fundamental ideas so the use of transportation as
a mode of exile had more to it. ‘Kala Pani’ is the term which is often referred to negatively
connotated terms such as danger, dark and isolation.. "Dark Waters" is a phrase used to describe
it, this was a reference to an ancient Indian taboo that stated that anybody who crossed the
ocean away from their motherland would lose their caste and become a social outcast. So this
was one caste angle in which one can view Kala Pani as also creating social isolation for the
person.

Even if people were being humiliated and tortured, they did not lose hope and their beliefs
were mostly kept intact. Rebels still found a way to show agitation against the wrongs that
were happening to them. This can be observed in the case of the killing of Viceroy Richard
Southwell Bourke by Sher Ali Afridi in 1872. The Government in 1919 had intervened by
creating a prison overview which led to the depenalising of the colony. Which led to these
colonies being more of a rehabilitation and resettlement site. Several leaders who were arrested
were known to have written diaries or other prominent work of theirs which were published
later on. These helped their nationalist ideas flowing across the subcontinent, despite Britishers
thinking isolation would lead to stopping the flow of these sentiments. The jails were basically
the Raj’s way of dealing with the rebels.

The prisoners after their sentence was over could settle in with their families, which can be
linked to the Malabar rebellion of 1921. The revolution which had taken place while
prominent members of the struggle were being jailed is very fascinating, as they could stop one
from being free but not their ideas and beliefs. Gandhi and Tagore were also known to have
interfered with the horrific practices in jails and they were against it (Murthy, 2011). To
conclude, the articles do a fair job by putting forward the Britishers and the prisoners'
perspectives but they could have also spoken about how the locals had to struggle as well. Some
local rebellions took place as they did not want their homes to be converted into a penal colony
and they were very aware about the Raj’s policy of Divide and Rule. Mukti Tirtha is the term
used for referring to the honorable sacrifice by people who fought for the nation or also ‘Black
Waters’ which referred to the isolation, solitude and danger from the voyage. The nationalist
sentiments are still carried around via letters written back in the day or even through the walls
of the islands which speak about the sacrifice people made for their land.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
● Vaidik, A. (2014). Imperial Andamans: Colonial Encounter and island history. Palgrave
Macmillan.
● Murthy, R. V. R. (2006). CELLULAR JAIL: A CENTURY OF SACRIFICES. The
Indian Journal of Political Science, 67(4), 879–888.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41856271
● R., Murthy R V. Andaman and Nicobar Islands: A Saga of Freedom Struggle. Kalpaz
Publications, 2011.
● Sherman, Taylor C. “From Hell to Paradise? Voluntary Transfer of Convicts to the
Andaman Islands, 1921-1940.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, Cambridge
University Press, 2009, pp. 367–88, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20488087.
● Sen, Uditi. “Developing Terra Nullius: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Indigeneity in
the Andaman Islands.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 59, no. 4,
2017, pp. 944–973., doi:10.1017/S0010417517000330.