Jail Notebook of Shaheed Bhagat Singh -The Hanging of Bhagat Singh, Vol. V

Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ‘Jail Note Book’ opens a window into his exploration of ideas of distinguished thinkers and philosophers. Well-known among his comrades as an avid and voracious reader, Bhagat Singh managed to procure during his imprisonment in jail a large number of selected books by prominent authors of his choice. The excerpts, notes and quotes from those books which he 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. However, the perfunctory reference to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken left a rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source i.e. from exactly which editions of which books by which particular authors were these taken. As a result, fantastic claims and wild speculations came to be made by admiring scholars as to the number of books and the kind of original works of great thinkers that Bhagat Singh was able to study in the jail.