The Hindu : National : Cellular Jail turns 100

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 11, 2006

National

National

Cellular Jail turns 100

Meera Mohanty

Port Blair celebrates the moment — almost all alone

The Cellular Jail

Port Blair: The Cellular Jail here, a national memorial, completed a century on Friday. The occasion saw tributes being paid to the memory of hundreds of fighters who gave up their lives for India's independence.

To mark the occasion, more than a hundred freedom fighters and their kin were flown in from Kolkata, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Delhi and Tripura.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lt. Governor Madan Mohan Lakhera, freedom fighters, family members and others laid wreaths at the 1857 Martyrs Memorial at the Marina Park. Three who spent time in the jail, their spouses and relatives were felicitated.

It was a simple ceremony in front of the gates of the prison where the freedom fighters had spent some years of their youth. Karthik Chandra Sarkar, too frail to sit through the occasion on Friday, for instance, was 20 years old then. He was sent to the jail for "writing letters about killing the Magistrate and the Assistant Magistrate." He said: "I was here from 1935 to1938. There are many stories I have to recount, but I don't remember any. I'm too old now. ... I had to struggle a lot."

According to Anup Dasgupta of the Ex-Andaman Political Prosoners' Fraternity Circle, only nine people who were in the jail survive today. All of them are above 90. He mentioned that there were "shocking omissions" in the light and sound show conducted regularly at the Cellular Jail. He wondered why the park opposite the national memorial, which originally called Shahid Memorial, came to be known as the Savarkar Park.

A musical concert was organised in the evening where Shubha Mudgal and Suresh Wadkar performed at the Island Tourism Festival ground. But with the conspicuous absence of busy TV channels, and equally busy national leaders, it seemed Port Blair was celebrating the moment all alone.

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