That is the funny part. The courts could not find Veer Savarkar Guilty of anything. They could not prove his guilt in Any crime whatsoever.
Even his arrested was Illegal. He escaped from his ship and swam to France, but the british followed him and illegally arrested him in france and illegally forced him back into the ship. France protested his invasion and the case went to Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague where british used political pressure to get a favourable judgement even though, legally France was right.
Which is why they had to exile him and could not jail him in India. You see the law did not permit them to Jail and innocent man. So they "exiled" him to the equivalent of Guantanamo Bay of the past. What we call Andaman Island. (In fact the US govt. got the idea for Guantanamo Bay from the British)
Back the it was called "
transportation for life". A mild sounding name that basically meant he was going to be enslaved in a dungeon on a god forsaken island where there was no law except what the tyranical warden said was law. It was so horrific that the place was called "Kala pani" , a place where even the water was black.
Torture and flogging were frequently resorted to on iron triangular frame, bar fetters, crossbar fetters and neck ring shackle, leg iron chains and gunny bag uniforms, unhygienic diet.
"punishment" included ‘standing handcuffs’: i.e. for seven days, prisoners were hung by his wrists from a peg hammered into the wall.
Torture using electricity and shock was common.
The tortures were so horrific that suicides were common.
On arrival, Savark was immediately put in solitary confinement for 6 months.
After that he was categorized as
class 3C’ prisoners (dangerous political prisoner) which basically meant he had to get up at 6 am, and was yolked to the oil mill and had to work till they had extracted 30 pounds of mustard oil.
If anyone got ill, the medical officer would declare them "Fit for flogging".
If they failed to produce that much oil before nightfall , they would be "punished" i.e. tortured. Punishments for failing to do so ranged from caning to being put in iron fetters and hanging from the walls.
Jail records show that Savarkar was given a total of eight punishments separately which included standing handcuffs for seven days and four-month relegation to the ‘chain gang’ (prisoners with neck-ring shackles and cross-bar iron fetters who were forced to do hard labour).
He was put in a jail which faced the gallows from where he got to see multiple Hangings of Indian political prisoners which took place every month.
NO CELL in the cellular jail had Toilet Facility, so the prisoners had to piss and $hit in the jail and live and sleep in the muck.
Hindu prisoners had Muslim wardens assigned to them. Savarkar's warden was a Muslim man called
Gulmir and he was the most hated man in cellular. Even more than the british.
Warden Gulmir took pride in torturing hindu prisoners and making them lick his spit or his shoes. He took pleasure in torturing Hindus for any petty reason and the only way you could escape the torture was to "convert".But records will show that not a single Hindu prisoner in Cellular jail ever converted to islam.
Its easy to understand that why after coming out of Prison, Savarkar distrusted the muslims and wanted India to be free of muslims. Ironically Savarkar was an Atheist.
Savarker was in this HELL HOLE for almost 11 Years.
Compared to this, Nehru and Gandhi had a picnic during the british raj for being such model political activists.
CONgress has successfully managed to brainwash the Indians about the "sacrifice" of Nehru and make everybody forget the ugly reality of Guantanamo Bay of India.
