4 days ago
How the Cellular Jail in Port Blair was built to isolate
Many buildings from the past have a glorious, fascinating history . Maybe you imagine the splendour of kings and queens who lived there, or marvel over the skill of the sculptors and architects who dreamed up the building. But some buildings have a darker, much more unfortunate, history. The Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is a building that reflects the darkest phases of the colonial rule. Today, 78 years after India's independence, it stands as a symbol of the sacrifices made by freedom fighters in their struggle for an independent nation.
The Andaman Islands were first used as a convict settlement or 'penal colony' after the revolt of 1857, when political prisoners were deported here. Over time, the British sent prisoners whom they wanted to punish most harshly to the islands, which were known as kala pani or black waters, because of their horrific conditions and remote location.
The Cellular Jail, the most prominent prison in this region, was built in 1906 using prisoners. Since the colonial rulers did not want the Indian rebels to be able to interact and plot against them, the jail design was influenced by a model called the 'Panopticon' system.
Structure
This model has a central tower for a guard. Around the tower are rows of prison cells. The guard can observe the cells but the prisoners cannot see the guard. The idea was that people will behave in a certain way if they think they're being watched, even if nobody is actually watching them at that moment; almost like what a CCTV camera does today.
In the Cellular Jail, the central watchtower had seven wings radiating from it, like spokes of a wheel. There were around 690 individual cells. Each had just a small ventilator and no other basic facilities. The wings did not face each other, so nobody could see other prisoners. Many freedom fighters including Batukeshwar Dutt, Yogendra Shukla, and the Savarkar brothers — Vinayak and Ganesh — were imprisoned here.
Conditions were terrible, and prisoners attempted methods like hunger strikes to demand to be let free. Finally, around a decade before Independence, after continuous campaigns by national leaders including Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore about the rights of Indians, the prison was closed and the inmates brought back to the mainland.
Today, the jail is a national memorial. The three remaining wings are now a museum, paying tribute to the prisoners and martyrs who won us the freedom that we have today.
