Book on Legendry Martyr Bhagat Singh titled “Bhagat Singh’s Jail Note Book” released

Ferozepur, June 2016 :  A book titled ‘Bhagat Singh’s Jail Note Book – Its Context and Relevance” edited by Malwinder Jit Singh and Harish Jain and published by Unistart Books,Chandigarh on legendry martry Bhagat Singh’s as the title itself speaks, was released on Sunday at Chandigarh, Justice Ajay Tewari, Justice Deepak Sibal, Baldev Mahajan, Advocate-General Haryana, Prof Harish Puri, Prof Ronki Ram and Prof Jasbir Singh.

He said the intention behind this work was to make Bhagat Singh’s world of books spirited and vibrant for the reader so that they might also be his fellow travellers and also got a chance to open a window into his times.

Excerpts, notes and quotes from those books which Bhagat Singh wrote down in his jail notebook reflected not only the seriousness with which he studied the books but also his intellectual sophistication and social and political concerns, said Prof Harish Puri former Head of Department of Political Science, GNDU, Amrisar who has extensively worked on Punjab’s freedom movement.

The book also carried a list of the books he consulted in jail, maintained Jain.The excerpts, notes and quotes from these books reflect not only his serious study, intellectual insight, and social and political concerns but also includes the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, William Wordsworth, John Milton, Omar Khayyam, Wajid Ali Shah, Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, and others.

Yadvinder Singh Sandhu, the grandson of the late Kulbir Singh who was the real younger brother of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, said the original jail diary has been with them ever since Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom and passed on to next generation in its original form. “After the hanging, Bhagat Singh’s clothes, letters and the diary were handed over to the family. My grandfather and Bhagat Singh’s real brother was then just 14 years,” Sandhu

Bhagat Singh was in Lahore Jail from September 12, 1929 to March 23, 1931, the day of his hanging along with Rajguru and Sukhdev. Much of the writings are in English with a few in Urdu. “There have been many biographies on him and many writers have presented their own views. In this format, there is no interpretation and that is intentional,” Sandhu says.

Sandhu cites another of Bhagat Singh’s handwritten note that perhaps tries to explains the choice of the decisions he made and its reasons. Bhagat Singh wrote: “Offences are committed through the influence of motives upon characters, and may be prevented either by a change of motives or by a change of character”.

A jail notebook of Bhagat Singh was first published in Hindi in early 1990s. It was also published in Punjabi in the late 1990s. A few years ago, the Punjab government had got it published during Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary celebrations.
Added here that the note book was written between September1929 and March 1931 but why it has not be published and made public for more than six decades which speaks that the patriot was a scholar, thinker and a writer with a pen.