Gandhi Jayanti: Dagshai jail museum has memories of Gandhi’s brief stay

The quaint and picturesque cantonment town of Dagshai brings memories of Mahatma Gandhi’s brief stay in the British era jail here where he came to meet Irish prisoners before Independence. He spent two days in the prison to show his solidarity with the Irish freedom movement when Irish soldiers of Connaught Rangers had mutinied against the British and were kept prisoners in this jail.

Gandhi admired Irish leader

A note written outside Mahatma Gandhi’s cell states that “Gandhi was a friend and admirer of the Irish leader Eamon de Valera. The Indian independence movement took inspiration from the Irish struggle against the British rule. The arrest of Irish soldiers prompted Gandhi to rush to Dagshai to make an on-the-spot assessment. On his arrival, the jail authorities accommodated him in a particular cell on his personal request”.

‘Daag-e-Shahi’

The jail served as an abode for “rogue prisoners” of British India. The prisoners’ foreheads were stamped with hot bars as a torture method and the town bears its name from “Daag-e-Shahi”, taken from this severe form of torture in this jail.

Gandhi was not a prisoner, but chose to stay in this jail in a VIP cell which has two rooms, a fireplace and a door opening outside unlike any other cell in the jail. To commemorate his visit to the jail ,the cell bears his photograph as well as his iconic charkha. Interestingly, years later Nathuram Godse, his assassin, spent a night here while being transported to Shimla for a trial at the High Court in 1948. He is believed to be the last prisoner of the jail. He was brought here from Delhi and kept in cell number six next to the entrance.

Founded in 1847 by the East India Company by securing five villages at nil expense from the Maharaja of Patiala, Dagshai houses the famous jail built in 1849 at a cost of Rs 72,873. Constructed with local stone masonry, the sturdy structure is the only other Indian museum which once housed a jail apart from the Cellular Jail in the Andamans. The T-shaped structure has 54 maximum security cells, which have a floor area of 8’x12’ and 20-foot high ceilings.

16 cells were used for severe punishments. Poorly ventilated with no source of natural light, the jail served as the abode for the “rogue prisoners” of the British India. The prisoners’ foreheads were stamped with hot bars as a torture and the town bears its name from “Daag-e-Shahi”, taken from the most severe form of torture in this jail.

It was converted into a museum in 2011 due to the strenuous efforts of a local resident Anand Sethi who has settled in the precincts of this sleepy town. He began from a scratch, as the place had been left unattended and served as a dumping yard. His interest in preserving the old legacy came from his father Balkrishan Sethi, who was the first Indian to be a Cantonment Executive Officer (1941–42). Sethi worked assiduously and sourced pictures from all over the country, besides those from Ireland and the UK while converting it into a museum. The then brigade commander Brigadier Ananth Narayanan lent all support to Sethi. Being a no-escape prison, it was constructed under the engineering supervision of Robert Napier, less than two years after Dagshai was founded as a cantonment by the British in 1847.