History of Cellular Jail
Kala Pani, the Andaman penal settlement and India's freedom struggle
The Penal Settlement Before Cellular Jail
The history of British transportation to the Andaman Islands began before Cellular Jail existed. After the uprising of 1857, the British established a penal settlement in South Andaman. The first batch of 200 convicts arrived on 10 March 1858 under Dr J. P. Walker.
Prisoners were initially held in barracks and open enclosures. As the settlement expanded, colonial administrators sought a prison designed for stricter discipline, surveillance and solitary confinement. A committee led by Charles J. Lyall and A. S. Lethbridge recommended the new penal facility.
Construction and Architecture
India's submission for the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List records that construction began under a settlement order issued in 1893 and was completed in 1905-06. The Ministry of Culture records completion in 1906.
The prison had seven unequal, three-storey wings radiating from a central watchtower. The layout followed the Separate System, under which every prisoner was confined individually, and was influenced by the Panopticon idea of surveillance from a central point.
Each cell measured about 13.5 feet by 7 feet and had no toilet. The wings were positioned so that cells faced the rear of the opposite wing, restricting communication between prisoners.
Official sources do not use one consistent total for the number of cells. India's 2014 UNESCO submission records 698 cells. A Ministry of Culture account records 663 cells by 1905-06 and 30 additional cells in 1909. A PMML research paper based on archival and oral-history material records 689. The difference appears to reflect construction stages and the records being counted. It is therefore safer to describe the completed prison as having about 700 solitary cells.
Political Prisoners
The first major group of political prisoners sent to the newly completed jail included people convicted in the Alipore Bomb Case. They arrived in December 1909. Later prisoners included Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Ganesh Damodar Savarkar, Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Ullaskar Dutt, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Batukeshwar Dutt, Bhai Parmanand, Mahavir Singh, Mohan Kishor Namadas and Mohit Moitra.
David Barry served as a jailor during the early twentieth century, not during the establishment of the 1858 penal settlement. Ministry of Culture records identify him as a jailor from 1905 to 1919 and describe complaints by prisoners about his treatment of them.
Hard Labour and Punishment
Prisoners were subjected to solitary confinement, restraints, flogging, poor food and severe work quotas. Labour included oil grinding, coir pounding, rope making, husking coconuts, weaving, hill cutting and cleaning drains and swamps. Colonial records and prisoner memoirs document repeated protests against these conditions.
The Hunger Strikes
Political prisoners undertook a major hunger strike in 1933. Mahavir Singh, Mohit Moitra and Mohan Kishor Namadas died after being force-fed. The strike ended on 26 June 1933 after 46 days and some concessions were granted.
A second mass hunger strike began on 24 July 1937. PMML records state that 187 political prisoners joined the hunger strike and 72 joined a work strike. The wider campaign sought repatriation to mainland prisons and the end of transportation. Repatriation followed in phases, and the last batch of 109 political prisoners left the Andamans in January 1938.
Japanese Occupation
Japanese forces landed in Port Blair on 23 March 1942 and occupied the Andaman and Nicobar Islands until October 1945. They initially released the prisoners held in Cellular Jail, presenting themselves as liberators from British rule. Later, the jail was used to detain and interrogate island residents accused in so-called spy cases.
Subhas Chandra Bose visited Cellular Jail on 29 December 1943 as head of the Provisional Government of Free India and referred to it as the Indian Bastille. The islands nevertheless remained under Japanese military occupation during this period.
From Prison to National Memorial
Only three of the original seven wings and the central tower survive. The history of the other four wings involves wartime damage and later demolition. Government and scholarly accounts differ on the precise chronology, but archival records show that demolition continued after independence.
Former political prisoners campaigned to preserve the remaining structure. Cellular Jail was declared a National Memorial on 11 February 1979.
Why It Was Called Kala Pani
Kala Pani means Black Waters. In the context of colonial punishment, the phrase referred to transportation across the sea to the remote Andaman Islands, separation from family and society, and the terror associated with exile and imprisonment. The prison's isolation and harsh conditions made the name inseparable from Cellular Jail.
This page does not claim that disputed historical totals are settled facts. Sources are linked below so readers can examine the underlying government and archival records.