My paper dwells on the autobiographical nature of prison political writing. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote extensively while in prison. Various genres of writing, namely letters and autobiographical political treatises, are illustrated by The Discovery of India(1946), Autobiography (1936) and Glimpses of World History (1934-1935), which are all exquisite illustrations of prison writing. Although these books focus on the formulation of a national identity rooted in past and present visions of pluralism, imprisonment induces the writer to disclose and reflect on intimate events. A colonial political prisoner, however enlightened and disciplined, is physically and metaphorically circumscribed, confined. Situated in jail, he is an outsider, a stranger in his own country.  Solitude intermingles the quest for a national identity and the quest for a personal identity. Political narration conjoins personal and autobiographical recounting. Nehru expounds not only on the political and social aspects of India, but voices his innermost concerns about his family. This conjunction of public and private realms in national narratives is the thrust of my paper.