Inmates
Solitary confinement was implemented as the British government desired to ensure that political prisoners and revolutionaries be isolated from each other. The Andaman island served as the ideal setting for the government to achieve this.
Most prisoners of the Cellular Jail were independence activists. Some famous inmates of the Cellular Jail were Dr. Diwan Singh Kalepani, Maulana Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, Yogendra Shukla, Batukeshwar Dutt, Maulana Ahmadullah, Movli Abdul Rahim Sadiqpuri, Babarao Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Bhai Parmanand, Sohan Singh, Vaman Rao Joshi and Nand Gopal. Several revolutionaries tried in the Alipore Case (1908) such as Barindra Kumar Ghose, Upendra Nath Banerjee, Birendra Chandra Sen. Jatish Chandra Pal, the surviving companion of Bagha Jatin, was transferred to Berhampore Jail in Bengal, before his mysterious death in 1924. Savarkar brothers Babarao and Vinayak didn't know of each other in the same jail but in different cells, for two years.
In March 1868, 238 prisoners tried to escape. By April they were all caught. One committed suicide and of the remainder Superintendent Walker ordered 87 to be hanged.
Hunger strikes by the inmates during the early 1930s called attention to their imprisonment. Mahavir Singh, an associate of Bhagat Singh (Lahore conspiracy case) protested the inhuman treatment meted to the prisoners and sat in hunger strike. He was force fed milk which went into his lungs and he died. He was tied to a stone and thrown in the sea. Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore intervened. The government decided to repatriate the political prisoners from the Cellular Jail in 1937-38.
Read more about this topic: Cellular Jail