A couple of weeks back I was in Andaman Islands and luckily visited Cellular Jail where the right most cell that was cut off from other cells by all means and had least permissions and facilities belonged to Vir Savarkar (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar). The story about the building of jail was quite heart touching as the freedom fighters labelled as criminals by British Government had been sent to Andaman during 1896 to 1906 during which this jail, also termed as Kaala Paani, was built. The torture that was given to them was beyond any limits and extremities. If you look at the prisoners of this jail you will find no bifurcation in caste among them who all were fighting for the freedom of India from Britishers.
The long list of these prisoners include - Vir Savarkar, Batukeshwar Dutt, Dr. Diwan Singh, Maulana Khairabadi and so on. When freed - these freedom fighters settled in either Pakistan or India keeping the pain in their hearts, of this separation between the two, intact forever. As a common man of India or Pakistan, we still feel a touch for each other, celebrate festivals almost in same manner, follow similar kind of customs and do think about each other at the time of celebrations and sorrows.
It is the politics of British Government that created this separation and now it is the politics of both our countries that keeps doing something or the other to keep generating hatred between the two.
A couple of weeks back I was in Andaman Islands and luckily visited Cellular Jail where the right most cell that was cut off from other cells by all means and had least permissions and facilities belonged to Vir Savarkar (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar). The story about the building of jail was quite heart touching as the freedom fighters labelled as criminals by British Government had been sent to Andaman during 1896 to 1906 during which this jail, also termed as Kaala Paani, was built. The torture that was given to them was beyond any limits and extremities. If you look at the prisoners of this jail you will find no bifurcation in caste among them who all were fighting for the freedom of India from Britishers.
The long list of these prisoners include - Vir Savarkar, Batukeshwar Dutt, Dr. Diwan Singh, Maulana Khairabadi and so on. When freed - these freedom fighters settled in either Pakistan or India keeping the pain in their hearts, of this separation between the two, intact forever. As a common man of India or Pakistan, we still feel a touch for each other, celebrate festivals almost in same manner, follow similar kind of customs and do think about each other at the time of celebrations and sorrows.
