Survivors of our hell
By Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy - The Guardian - June 23, 2001
For the best part of a century, the British Raj sent Indian dissidents and mutineers to a remote island penal colony in an 'experiment' that involved torture, medical tests, forced labour and, for many, death. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy have unearthed official records detailing the scandal, and heard first-hand accounts from those who survived
They came for him on the fifth day of the hunger strike, with bamboo truncheons drawn. He remembered the bell in the Central Tower ringing, so it must have been 11am when they ripped back the bolts. Rough hands grabbed his forearms and thighs, one warder riding on his bucking chest. The familiar voice of Dr Edge boomed along Levels One and Two: "Teach the terrorists a lesson."
"I was lying on the cold stone floor dreaming that I could smell masala tea wafting through the wing when five of them came and knocked the wind out of me. What chance did I stand against the gorah daktar - the horse doctor?"
Living in an apartment with no bell, in a house with no number, down a lane in Calcutta that had no name, 95-year-old Dhirendra Chowdhury hadn't wanted to be found. We had to scour Calcutta to reach him. His case file was concealed among tens of thousands of logs and reports, all long forgotten, in a New Delhi vault. It was the start of a paper trail assiduously covered over by the British authorities. >> read more
No comments:
Post a Comment