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A Hero, A Plot, An Escape

The enigma endures. Did Subhas Chandra Bose die in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945, or not? Inquiring into this, the Mukherjee Commission will table its 'heretical' report soon. Plus, a new biopic brings Netaji centrestage.

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A Hero, A Plot, An Escape
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Main Findings Mukherjee Commission: Mystery Thickens

  • Why doesn't the Taiwan government have any record of a plane crash at Taihoku on August 18, 1945?

  • Why did Dr Yoshimi, who was supposedly present when Bose died from his plane crash burns, later say that he was forced by an 'Indian officer' to draw up a death certificate for Bose?

  • Why do "most secret" Russian documents refer to Stalin and Molotov discussing Bose's plans in 1946, when he was apparently dead?

  • Why is the British Foreign Office stonewalling the Mukherjee Commission's requests for Bose-related papers?

  • Why has the Indian government, despite long-standing demands from historians, never asked the Russians to release Bose-related documents?

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Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose—The Forgotten Hero
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Yoshimi had said as much to the earlier commissions. "But this time he added something new," says Subrata Bose, Netaji's nephew and Forward Bloc MP, who went along as a deponent. "Yoshimi broke down and admitted that he had been forced to draw up a death certificate for Bose, at the instructions of an 'Indian officer'. He had never let on about this because he feared losing his job." On the same trip, the commission visited the Renkoji temple in Tokyo, where Bose's "ashes" are kept in an urn, and contacted dna experts to carry out a test of the remains. But the experts said there was no way they could do the tests post-cremation. The commission is now banking on some new findings from Russia. In 1995, a team of scholars from Calcutta's Asiatic Society, researching Indo-Soviet ties in Moscow, came across a host of recently declassified intelligence files that hinted at Bose having been in the ussr after 1945.

According to Dr Purobi Roy, who was part of the team, she found a document (stamped "most secret", and dated 1946) in the military archives of Paddolosk, near Moscow, which mentioned Stalin and Molotov discussing Bose's plans— whether he would stay back in Soviet Russia or leave. Alexander Kolesnikov, a former major general, also told her that in 1946, Stalin and other cabinet members were thinking of putting Bose up. "I'm very certain that Subhas Bose managed to go to Soviet Russia in 1945 and lived there for at least a decade after," says Dr Roy. "I've met several officials, and they all point me in the direction of the Federal Bureau of Security, saying it has papers to prove this fact. But these will be released only if the Indian government asks for it." There are KGB documents that Roy is convinced would give some indication about Bose's activities after he disappeared.

Despite telling the Centre about this repeatedly, Roy claims nothing has been done. "If we get an extension, Russia is the first place we will head for," says a hopeful commission representative. According to Debabrata Biswas, secretary of the Netaji Probe and Research Foundation, his organisation is also waiting to hear back from Britain. When the commission visited England a few years ago, it found, in the British Public Library, a 1956 report from the Taiwan government reiterating that they had no police records of the crash. Britain officials said they would open up some of the files, but not before 2020.

It's hard to predict—even for the commission's 127 witnesses and deponents—which way this will go. "But they haven't really got any clinchable evidence yet," says historian Hari Vasudevan, who was part of the Asiatic Society team. It certainly seems that way. The clues that have reinvigorated the hunt are mostly a relook at old evidence rather than new discoveries; counter-assumptions (if the Taiwan authorities have no record of the crash, it must not have happened; since the KGB and MI5 papers are not being disclosed, they must contain something) and some inferential leaps. None of it is foolproof.

Says Mihir Bose, author of The Lost Hero, a biography of Bose: "There is a cottage industry that's developed in India now of trying to resurrect Bose. This debate about whether or not Bose survived the crash is fantasy of the worst kind. It has completely obscured what the man stood for and what he wanted for India." There are some irrefutable truths here. For instance, the present Taiwan government came to power only in the 1950s, and may not have documents from the time of Japanese occupation in 1945. That means they don't have records of the crash, not that the crash didn't happen.

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Similarly, till DNA tests can be carried out on the Renkoji remains, there is no reason to either believe or disbelieve that the urn contains Netaji's ashes. It's also possible the commission may not find anything in Russia. Given the international situation of the time, it's unlikely the Russians would have welcomed a man who sided with Germany. But Roy thinks otherwise. "Bose had kept in touch with the Russians all along, through the Gadar Party. Also, when the Japanese announced the crash three days after it happened, it's possible they waited to hear he was safely in Soviet-occupied Manchuria before they went public."

Some scholars believe the whole Netaji question has seen too much "kite-flying and conspiracy theories". Lately, it has also got embroiled in mud-slinging and the hazy world of foreign affairs. Bose's niece Chitra Ghosh alleges the UK government refused to open up its secret files because it would jeopardise India's international relations. In a meet in February, Justice Mukherjee alleged that several documents relating to Bose and the INA, kept in different government departments, were destroyed, and no reasons were given. Roy, on the other hand, believes that the "final decision" on Bose was taken by Jawaharlal Nehru and Khrushchev. Bose and Nehru's rivalry is an open secret. But Roy thinks the KGB papers may have some incriminating things that the present Congress government is trying to suppress.

On the other hand there are some question marks. For instance, Capt Lakshmi Sehgal's recent testimony where she says she thinks Bose died in the crash—and totally contradicts her earlier memoirs. It's also popularly believed that loyal soldier Habib was merely trotting out a cover-up tale for his commander-in-chief.

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Closer home, members of Bose's family—mostly his nieces and nephews—are divided. Of the eight children of Bose's elder brother Sarat Chandra, only Sisir Bose (and now his widow Krishna, a former Trinamool Congress MP) believe he never survived Taiwan. In 1999, a petition by the family to press for a probe garnered 15 signatures of the Bose's relatives, including two of Netaji's sisters. Sisir held back. Says Krishna Bose: "Till the 1960s, my husband and I thought Subhas Chandra would come back. But after we spoke to Habib, and to other witnesses in Japan, we were convinced he had died in the crash after all." She adds: "The nation sees him as the man who will rid them of their problems, and I respect that sentiment. But there are people who are trying to cash in on that. Those who are trying to bring him alive again are simply denying him a hero's death."

To that extent the Mukherjee Commission underscores the fact that Bose's disappearance wasn't an open and shut case after all. "There is a complacency that we know everything there is to know about Netaji," says Partha Sengupta of the Probe and Research Foundation."The commission has just proved that wrong." It can at least hope to tie up some loose ends, if not actually come out with some startling revelations.

To a whole younger generation who will have their views about Netaji shaped not just by textbooks but also from the new film and possibly the commission findings, getting to the bottom of this muddied plot is imperative. The question of relevance, for them, takes on a whole new meaning. Many of them will be meeting the hero who inspired their fathers and their grandfathers for the first time ever. They may take to him. Or wonder what the fuss is all about. But they do deserve to know the truth.

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