Project 10/3: Exile, Empire and War in the Andamans
By Gajanan Khergamker
History, if it is to retain its moral force, must be rescued periodically from the comfortable distance of textbooks and restored to the immediacy of place, memory and lived experience. Nations often remember their struggles through monuments, commemorations and official narratives. The true pulse of history, however, is encountered only when one stands upon the very ground where it unfolded, when the geography of an event begins to speak in quiet but unmistakable tones about the endurance, suffering and resolve that shaped it.
It was precisely such a moment of historical confrontation that gave birth to this book.
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| The author at Cellular Jail in Sri Vijaya Puram |
In recent months, the editorial initiative known as Project 10/3 emerged from an extraordinary journalistic undertaking by The Draft, which travelled to and remained in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to report from the archipelago with an intensity and immediacy rarely witnessed in contemporary media. In doing so, it became, quite remarkably, the first and only media house in the world to report live and continuously from these underreported islands, documenting not merely the events of the present but the historical silences that have long surrounded this remote yet profoundly significant corner of India.
The Andamans occupy a peculiar place in the national imagination.
For many Indians they exist primarily as a distant symbol of exile, associated with the forbidding walls of the Cellular Jail National Memorial, that stark architectural testament to the colonial impulse to punish rebellion by distance, isolation and psychological erasure. Still to encounter the islands directly is to discover that they are far more than the geographical backdrop of a penal colony. They are a living archive of empire, resistance, war, memory and transformation.
Ships once carried prisoners across the Bay of Bengal to these shores after the upheavals of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Decades later, the same islands witnessed the arrival of revolutionaries whose incarceration turned the Cellular Jail into a crucible of nationalist resolve. During the Second World War the archipelago became a strategic frontier contested by empires, its people enduring the anxieties and violence of wartime occupation. And in independent India, these once-feared islands have gradually evolved into a place where memory, resilience and national identity intersect.
The Draft’s presence in the islands sought to bring this layered story back into contemporary consciousness.
Too often the Andamans have been relegated to the margins of the national conversation, their history invoked occasionally during commemorative ceremonies but rarely examined in the sustained and immersive manner that serious historical reflection demands. By reporting directly from the islands - by walking the corridors of the old prison, by visiting the ruins of colonial administration on Ross Island, by speaking to residents whose lives continue to unfold within this extraordinary historical landscape - The Draft attempted to restore the Andamans to the centre of the narrative where they rightly belong.
From that journalistic journey emerged the idea of this book.
Project 10/3 represents the first literary offering arising from that engagement with the islands. It is not merely a chronological account of events, though it meticulously traces the establishment of the penal settlement, the construction of the Cellular Jail, the arrival of political prisoners, the turbulence of wartime occupation and the eventual transformation of the islands within independent India. Rather, it is an attempt to weave those episodes into a broader reflection on how places acquire meaning through the passage of time.
The title itself gestures toward a symbolic moment, March 10, a date that invites contemplation of the long historical arc that stretches from imperial punishment to national remembrance. Within that arc lies the story of the Andaman Islands, a journey from exile to memory, from isolation to recognition, from the silence imposed by empire to the voice of a nation reflecting upon its past.
In undertaking this work, the author and the editorial team behind The Draft have performed a valuable service. They have reminded us that journalism, when guided by historical curiosity and intellectual seriousness, can transcend the fleeting rhythms of daily news and contribute meaningfully to the preservation of national memory.
This book therefore stands not merely as a historical narrative but as a testament to the enduring relevance of the Andaman Islands within India’s collective consciousness.
To read it is to travel across decades of exile, resistance, war and renewal. It is to stand within the austere cells where revolutionaries once endured solitary confinement, to witness the anxieties of wartime occupation, and finally to observe the transformation of those same landscapes into sites of reflection and remembrance.
Above all, it is to understand that the history of the Andamans is inseparable from the larger story of India itself.
If this work encourages readers to look beyond the mainland and acknowledge the profound historical significance of these islands, if it prompts even a few to visit Port Blair not merely as tourists but as students of history, then Project 10/3 will have achieved a purpose worthy of its inspiration.
For in remembering the Andamans, we remember something essential about the journey of our nation.
And in telling their story anew, this book ensures that the voices once confined within the walls of the Cellular Jail continue to echo across the sea, reminding us that freedom is never merely inherited. It is remembered, preserved and renewed by each generation that chooses to listen.
The ebook, the first in its series, was made live at midnight on 10th March 2026 at Sri Vijaya Puram. Keep watching this space for a downloadable link to the ebook.
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