by SUHRID CHATTOPADHYAY
Subhas Chandra Bose
With the declassification of the 64 secret files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose that have been lying with the West Bengal Police and the Kolkata Police, the first steps have been taken towards unravelling one of the best kept secrets of the nation and arguably the biggest mystery of independent India: the date and the circumstances surrounding the death of Netaji. It is claimed that Bose perished in a plane crash on August 18, 1945, in Taihoku (now Taipei in Taiwan), and that subsequently, his ashes after cremation have been preserved at the Renkoji temple in Tokyo. However, 70 years hence, and three commissions of inquiry later, the theory that the great Indian revolutionary may not have died in the supposed plane crash and could have been alive for a considerable time after India’s Independence has been increasingly gaining credence. The theory gained some acceptability particularly after the findings of the Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry led to the conclusion in 2006 that Bose had not died in the plane crash. The report was rejected by the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, once again fuelling rumours that there were secrets surrounding the death of Netaji that were being suppressed.
Though the larger question of Bose’s death remains unanswered even after West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government declassified the files it had on September 18, the contents of the files, nevertheless, served to add weight to the theory that Bose was alive even after Independence. Moreover, the constant surveillance on Netaji’s family members, particularly on his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose’s family, by the intelligence authorities and the police until as late as 1971, as disclosed by the files, also indicates that there was something relating to Netaji that was keeping the successive Congress governments uneasy. Besides issues relating to Subhas and Sarat Bose—“Brothers against the Raj” as they were popularly known—the declassified files are a goldmine of information and historical nuggets that further illuminate the sociopolitical milieu prevalent in those years. The files, comprising over 12,744 pages of material, cover a period between 1939 and 1971. The bulk of the files relate to the period between 1942 and 1949.
DOUBTS ABOUT DEATH
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