First day Visit to the Andaman Islands : Serene, yet immensely touching experience.

First day Visit to the Andaman Islands : Serene, yet immensely touching experience.

India’s tryst with destiny has been inextricably intertwined with the turbulent history of its freedom struggle, and the cellular Jail - at the Port Blair in the Andaman Islands - declared as the national monument, is one of the standing testimonies and an important edifice to the unending struggle that the freedom fighters endured, during the British Raj.

It was my first ever visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the serenity of the Islands was revealed to us as a picturesque birds eye view of the nature’s wonders, while landing at the Veer Savarkar, Airport, Port Blair. My wife - seated on the window seat - was awe struck by the magnificent aerial view of the lush green islands with turquoise beaches, which appeared seemingly unending. She was overly excited that during our brief visit to the islands (vacation that we hardly had the luxury to enjoy until 2016), over the next six days, we will have a close encounter and date with some of these beaches that abound the islands , at close proximity. Our first day itinerary at the Port Blair included visit to the Carbyne’s beach followed by the visit to the Cellular Jail.

While my wife was craving to see the beaches, I was anxiously looking forward to our visit to the Cellular Jail, which as a school student, I knew as the Kala Pani. The “Kala Pani”, an epithet symbolising black waters of certain death, is an integral part of India’s freedom struggle, which inanimately narrates untold miseries of hundreds of freedom fighters struggle and endurance to survive in the most inhospitable, inhuman conditions at this dreaded Jail manned by the most inhuman Jailors. Freedom fighters unending never say die attitude, in the most adverse of conditions, to fight for their country was a folklore story often talked about in Sainik School, Bijapur (now Vijayapur) -where I had the privilege to study - to instil patriotic fervour has remained etched in my memory from school days. We were told the heroic stories of the freedom fighters, many of whom were martyred in the cellular jail resisting not just the incomprehensible torture and miseries thrust upon them by the Jailors but also the hellish experience that they had to endure yet continue with their freedom struggle at the cellular jail. Not withstanding their unspeakable miseries, they offered all possible resistance to the inhuman atrocities meted out to them at the Cellular jail and continued to lend their support for the freedom of their mother land, often times at the peril of their lives. These and such other patriotic and war heroes stories were part of our daily experience at the school, which helped us in cementing our deep rooted national pride and instilled in us, at a very young age, the honour and sacrifice that each one of us are expected to make while serving our motherland as commissioned officers in the military. Most unfortunately, as fate would have it, I was deprived of the honour to serve in the military because of the so called heart murmur that I was diagnosed, post my clearing the enjoyable SSB (Service Selection Board) at Mysore, during my medical examination at the Command (military) hospital in Bangalore. If there are any regrets that I may have in life, not serving in the military is and will always be on top of the list.

Cellular Jail (name derived from the solitary cells which prevented any prisoner from communicating with any others) is situated on the South Andaman Island, one of 572 islands forming Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India. Inhabited since 2000 years, the islands were occupied by Europeans in the middle of the 18th century. Few years later, British established naval base and a penal settlement on the Chatham Island which was later shifted to the Viper Island.

The Cellular Jail building is quite unique in its architecture and originally had seven straight wings each connected to a central tower in the middle, which looks something like a bicycle wheel with each of the seven wings attached to the centre tower like a spoke of the wheel. This design of the building was based on English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon. Bentham, in the mid-1700s, invented a social control mechanism that would become a comprehensive symbol for modern authority and discipline in the western world and this prison system was called the Panopticon. The basic principle involved in this design, which Bentham first completed in 1785, was to monitor the maximum number of prisoners with the least possible guards and other security costs. The layout consisted of a central tower for the guards, surrounded by a ring-shaped building of prison cell. This concept formed the genesis for the design of the Cellular Jail.

Even today, more than a century later, the architecture of the Cellular Jail building remains majestically elegant with its puce coloured bricks that were brought from Burma to construct the building. The tower in the centre that formed the point of intersection of all the seven wings served as a watch point for the guards of the jail to keep vigil on prisoners. The tower had a large bell for raising alarm. The seven wings, each of which had three storeys, were constructed in such a manner that the front of one wing faces the back of another so that one inmate in a wing cannot see or communicate with another inmate in any of the adjacent wings. Even of the cells in a wing were in a row so that inmates in the same wing also cannot communicate or see each other. Each of these cells housed only one prisoner ensuring minimal chance of communication among inmates thus isolating them from each other. This feature of solitary confinement in individual cells earned the jail its name, “Cellular”. There were a total of 693 cells, each measuring 4.5 m by 2.7 m in size with a ventilator located at a height of 3metres.

Our visit to the Cellular jail, the accompanying museum and the experiential light and sound show has been a very touching experience that will remain etched in my memory. The serenity of the islands, which had occupied our mind while landing at the airport was pushed back to be overwritten by this indelible experience that the cells, the solitary confinement chambers, the gallows hall, the roll of honours of the freedom fighters, whose names are listed, and the well curated exhibits at the museum including the memorabilia and artefacts that are on display is something, which will remain in my memory unto my last.

The Cellular Jail silently narrates the minimal triumphs and often the tribulations that the selfless freedom fighters experienced - shedding unending sweat, blood and just about managing to keep their mental faculty alive, amidst the horrendous, inhuman incarceration that all the freedom fighters, including Veer Savarkar, in whose honour the Port Blair Airport is named after, faced at the cellular jail while sacrificing their present hoping for a better tomorrow for their countrymen. Several of the prisoners - laid down their life and faced their martyrdom at this historic national monument.