A young man, who killed John Saunders and lobbed a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly, is how people remember Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Harish Jain in his recently released book “Jail Note Book” portrays yet another side of the martyr who died at the age of 23 –– a young man, who spent reading and make notes while in the jail.
The book which is an important contribution in the study of the revolutionary leader tries to understand Bhagat Singh’s thinking and mind-set with Jain studying the sources of every quote and notes on the books made by Bhagat Singh while in jail. At a panel discussion in the city to mark the book release, Jain said, “Bhagat Singh was a great man, a blazing star whose brightness still attracts all of us.”
The prelude of the book mentions an important incident which took place in July 1930 when Bhagat Singh embraced death as a reward for his patriotism. Proud of his devotion to the country, he said: “They can kill me but cannot kill my ideas; they can crush my body but cannot crush my spirit. My ideas will haunt the British like a curse till they are forced to run away.”
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The book throws light on Bhagat Singh as a philosopher and an astute political activist, a fact which is often overlooked. A voracious reader, the collection of books discovered from his home and hideouts are mind goggling. It also helps in uncovering several aspects about him including his thoughts on shaping the nation of his dream. While in jail, Bhagat Singh also wrote “Why I am an Atheist” and biographies of Indian nationalists.
The book invokes several questions too. Before being hanged, he was reading the biography of Lenin and folded the page he left. A young man who knew that he won’t come back then for whom did he leave that folded page. Similarly, what circumstances persuaded him to read Sydney and Beatrice Webb’s “English Prisons Under Local Government?”
On the occasion , veteran journalist Kuldeep Nayar, shed light on the period following Bhagat Singh’s death when he was in high school and everyone kept fast to pay condolence to the martyr.
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