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Book Name: Light on the PathPrevious     Next
 

image of democracy. It was a high-risk thing.

One of the sheriffs of a jail I was in -- the first jail I was in -- became very friendly and he told me, "I should not tell you, but thousands of telegrams, thousands of phone calls, thousands of flowers from all over the world, thousands of protests... the government is shaken.

"They had not expected that, in touching a single man, they were playing with fire. So one thing I can tell you -- they cannot harm you. They will not even touch your body. On the contrary, instructions are that you should be given absolute security, that nothing should happen to you; otherwise we will not be able to show our face to the world."

And it was strange that they had to give me the same kind of security as they give to the president of America: five cars following me, five motorcycles following, and the roads blocked. They were afraid that anybody could do any harm to me under their protection -- they would be responsible for it.

This man said to me, "This is for the first time in my life that we are not concerned about your escaping. We are concerned that nobody harms you, otherwise that harm will be on our heads."

On the first day -- just two or three hours after I had arrived -- somebody from Australia called him: "You must be worried because so many phone calls will be coming, telegrams coming."

The sheriff said to the man, "No, we are accustomed... this is a very special jail and we have had people of importance, of cabinet standing -- that is, from the highest political structure. So there is not much of problem."

But after three days, with tears, he apologized to me. He said, "What I said to that man will remain heavy on my heart. I don't know his number; otherwise I would have apologized to him. You had been here only two or three hours, so I did not know about you. But now, after three days, I can say with absolute certainty that we have never had such a man in the jail. The whole jail is for you! Five hundred inmates are for you, the whole hospital department is for you -- I am for you. And the whole world is focused on you. If something happens to you it will be really dangerous

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