The Cellular Jail (also known as Kalapani, literally 'Black water', a term for the deep sea and hence exile) was built in 1906 on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India). It was called 'cellular' because its entire structure was made up of individual cells for the solitary confinement (and torture) of prisoners — mostly Indian freedom fighters. Veer Savarkar was one of the very prominent freedom fighters imprisoned here.

A portion of the Cellular Jail was later converted into the G.B.Panth Hospital, the principal government hospital in Andaman. The original structure has been mostly washed away by the sea.

The Cellular Jail has now been converted into a National Memorial with scores of valuable photographs and documents on display. Fortunately, the national memorial was not significantly damaged by the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 2004 that ravaged nearly the whole of the Andaman and Nicobar.

See also

• Communist Consolidation

External links

• http://www.andamancellularjail.org/
• A comprehensive list of revolutionaries confined in this jail
• Profiles of many of the revolutionaries
• The Telegraph article on felicitation of the past prisoners

Imprisonment and detention | Colonies | Penal imprisonment | History of Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Revolutionary movement for Indian independence | Indian independence movement | British rule in India