The Horror House of Andaman

chapter3

Between 1911-1921, the jail incarcerated the already famous freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. While studying in England, Savarkar had become involved in an Indian nationalist group called India House, which he went on to lead. He was arrested and jailed in 1910 for his connection to the group but it wasn't until the following year, after escaping from prison, that he was shipped out to Port Blair.

Following his release, he wrote extensively of the awful conditions that he had faced, including the particularly harsh treatment by the cruel Irish jailor David Barrie, the self-declared "God of Port Blair".

​Savarkar wrote that as the gates of the prison shut behind him he felt he had "entered the jaws of death". He continued: "I heard a whisper going round among the warders that Mr Barrie was coming. They seemed to have seen none more cruel and hard-hearted than he, and they watched my face to see what impression that name had made upon me."

The jailor's punishments were terrible, banishing prisoners to the living Hell of the oil mills. But while the prisoners suffered, Barrie and the other British officials lived in opulence across the water on Ross Island. Among the other buildings of their administrative headquarters they had their own tennis courts, a bakery, a swimming pool and a clubhouse for the officers.