Explainer: What five different panels about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose have found so far
Government committees set up over the decades to investigate the freedom fighter's death have only deepened the mystery.
On Friday, the West Bengal government released 64 files on the death of Subhas Chandra Bose. But the public will have to wait till Monday to learn of the contents of the files. For now, they lie behind glass cabinets at Police Museum in Kolkata, 12,744 pages heavy with secrets.
Scraps of information have already escaped. Reports of documents revealing that British and American intelligence agencies believed him to be alive in 1949, inciting communist uprisings in Southeast Asia. Letters from a Swiss journalist, Lilly Abegg, to Bose’s brother, written in 1949, reporting that he had been sighted in the city then known as Peking, and that the Japanese knew he was alive in 1946. These letters had been intercepted at the Elgin Road Post Office.
The files, held by the Kolkata police and the West Bengal police for decades, are said to confirm what Intelligence Bureau files declassified in April have already revealed – the government snooped on Bose’s family for 20 years after his death. Letters flowing in and out of the Bose family home and Netaji Bhawan in Kolkata were regularly intercepted at the Elgin Road Post Office.
Now it’s all eyes on Delhi, which still refuses to declassify most of the files in the possession of the Central government. The family want a new committee to investigate why they were spied on for decades and to establish whether documents containing information on the leader’s death were destroyed.
But governments have been forming committees since the time Bose reportedly died in that plane crash in Taipei in 1945. Instead of answering questions for the public, these committee reports have only set off new ripples of mystery.
The Figges Report, 1946
The British government in India, naturally, took a lively interest in Bose’s whereabouts and activities. Prime Minister Winston Churchill is even said to have hatched a plot to assassinate him back in 1941. Bose was the master of disguise and subterfuge, escaping under the nose of British authorities in Kolkata. So when the first reports of his death started emerging, the British were having none of it.
Samar Guha, a close associate of Bose and later a member of Parliament, describes the Biritsh probe in his book, Netaji – Dead or Alive? (1978). Three separate intelligence teams were dispatched to find out where he really was. These teams spread out to Saigon, Bangkok, Tokyo and Taipei, raided war offices, arrested Japanese officials and officers of Bose’s Indian National Army. Officers of both nationalities were interrogated, in Tokyo and at the Red Fort.
Colonel Figges submitted his report in July 1946 and in October, a military intelligence report was submitted. Kanailal Basu, author of Netaji: Rediscovered (2009), records the various discrepancies between the two reports. They produced separate medical certificates, signed by two different doctors, giving different accounts of the patient’s condition, time of death and of the process of identification.
The Figges report stated that Bose had indeed perished in a hospital in Taipei. But like every other report, it was sucked into the mystery around Bose’s death. Kanailal Basu asks why it took so long for the report to be submitted: “Was a conspiracy being hatched?”
The Figges report was part of work done under Indian Political Intelligence, a partly secret branch of the colonial government. In 1997, the British released most of the IPI files, but not the Figges report. It was anonymously made public later. Why did the British government find it necessary to keep the document classified after all those years?
Shah Nawaz Commission, 1956
After Independence, the Indian government seemed unusually reticent about Bose’s death, even reluctant to set up a committee of inquiry. But when some eminent citizens decided to start an unofficial probe headed by Radha Benode Pal, Nehru suddenly announced the formation of an official committee, headed by Shah Nawaz Khan. Bose’s elder brother, Suresh Bose, was also part of this committee.
Members of the committee listened to the testimonies of witnesses at military hospital and survivors of the plane crash. The Indian government apparently produced some of its secret documents to the committee, including sections of the Figges report, Mountbatten’s diaries and interrogations of Habibur Rahman, Bose’s aide and a traveller on that plane, conducted by British counter-intellligence in the 1940s.
The Shah Nawaz report confirmed the official version: Bose died in Taipei. But Suresh Bose filed a dissenting report, alleging that Khan had been influenced by Nehru to stick to the official line. Khan had also said he, Suresh Bose, could become West Bengal governor if only he would agree to the findings. In 1970, Khan refuted these allegations before the Khosla Commission, set up in 1970.
Khosla Commission, 1970
The Indian government later set up a one-man inquiry commission, consisting of Justice GD Khosla, a retired judge of the Punjab High Court. He only submitted his report in 1974. Once again, Khosla concurred with the earlier reports. According to Bose’s biographer, Leonard B. Gordon, he also questioned the motives of those who held up alternative theories: “Justice Khosla suggests the motives of many of the story-purveyors are less than altruistic. Some, he says, have clearly been driven by political goals or simply wanted to call attention to themselves.”
Khosla reportedly showed remarkable patience in listening to a range of stories, some of which verged on the fantastic. But he seems to have been curiously lacking in curiosity about other aspects of the investigation.
Once again, the government had made secret documents available for the probe. But tacked to one of the dossiers was a note listing 30 secret files that were either missing or destroyed, Guha says. These were part of Nehru’s own collection of confidential papers. The missing files had all been handled by Mohammed Yunus, who was later appointed Indira Gandhi’s special envoy. They had contained British and American reports produced in Tokyo and outposts in Southeast Asia. One of the destroyed files was entitled, “Investigation into the Circumstances leading to the Death of Subhas Chandra Bose”. A large part of the Habibur Rahman interrogations were reportedly not submitted either.
Why did Khosla never pursue the case of the missing files? They would surely have yielded a more complete picture?
Mukherjee Commission, 1999-2005
For decades after that, the government seems to have lost interest in Bose. Until, that is, the Justice Mukherjee commission was formed in 1999. The commission produced a report that ran into three volumes and thousands of pages, and was made public in 2006. The commission raised the matter of the missing documents and interviewed 131 witnesses. Its probe took its members to archives in London, to Russia, where it went through more papers and interviewed witnesses, and to Taiwan. It also visited the Renokji Temple in Japan, where Bose’s ashes are apparently kept, and recommended a DNA test of the remains. This was no longer possible, it was told.
The Mukherjee Commission report concluded that Bose did not die in the place crash of 1945. His death and cremation were engineered with the cooperation of the Japanese military authorities and of Habibur Rahman himself.
The government rejected the report.
Cabinet Secretary's Committee, 2015
Too much time has perhaps gone by to hold a direct investigation into Bose’s death. The documents which contain the facts of his death have become a mystery in their own right and the focus has shifted to the question of declassification.
In April 2015, after it became evident that the government had snooped on the Boses for decades, the Centre set up a committee to explore whether the files could be declassified, and to review the archaic Official Secrets Act, which is impenetrable by the Right to Information in many cases. It would be headed by the cabinet secretary, Ajit Seth, and include officials from intelligence agencies.
What this committee found is not known. But the Centre has found its reason not to declassify the documents and is sticking to it: revealing them will affect national security.
The plot thickens.
http://scroll.in/article/756493/a-plane-crash-in-taipei-and-other-stories-about-netaji-subhas-chandra-bose
Declassification of all Netaji files is the only way to stop propagation of fantasies as fact
These files do not contain anything of real substance about Netaji and could only reveal a few dishonourable things done by some senior officials in post-Independence governments, writes his grand nephew.
I received a touching email from a young academic friend offering me profuse apologies. He had discovered to his horror from recently declassified files that his grandfather-in-law, a high-ranking police officer in the years after Independence, had been conducting surveillance on my father Sisir Kumar Bose from the Kolkata Intelligence Branch and relaying that information to New Delhi. Sisir had driven his uncle Subhas Chandra Bose during the great escape of 1941 from Calcutta to Gomoh and suffered imprisonment in Presidency Jail, the Red Fort, the Lahore Fort and Lyallpur Jail between 1942 and 1945. I wrote back appreciating my friend’s sentiment and assuring him that neither he nor his wife was responsible for his grandfather-in-law’s deeds. It was the tragedy of colonial rule that the British were able to use Indian agents against Indian freedom-fighters. The post-Independence government unfortunately continued that awful practice. My father became a renowned paediatrician after Independence and also set up the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957. The surveillance on him continued until 1972.
Mamata Banerjee made the correct decision to release 64 hitherto closed historical files held by the West Bengal government to the public. There is an urgent need for a proper archives policy in our country as is the case in well-functioning democracies of the world. Most government files should be thrown open after 25 or 30 years and all files after the lapse of 50 years. The central government should declassify forthwith all old files that are still under wraps. The argument about relations with foreign governments being adversely affected is a specious one. Churchill’s government had ordered the assassination of Subhas Chandra Bose in 1941. We do not hold Cameron’s government responsible for that decision.
The 64 files opened by the West Bengal government confirm what had been revealed in two files available in the National Archives earlier this year. For more than two decades after freedom, the post-Independence governments of India and West Bengal were snooping on freedom-fighters, including members of the Bose family, in clear violation of the privacy of law-abiding citizens. File number 63, for example, contains a letter written by Sisir Kumar Bose in Kolkata to his aunt Emilie Schenkl, Netaji’s widow, in Vienna dated June 1953 and other evidence of intrusive surveillance that continued until 1972. The media has already highlighted the report on an intercepted letter from Emilie to Sarat Chandra Bose in 1946 expressing her sense of shock at Netaji’s death in the August 1945 air crash. But that was before Independence; the colonial tradition of opening letters in the Elgin Road post office continued in the post-colonial era.
What the files reveal
The recently declassified files contain nothing substantially new about Netaji. In any case, history is not about what one police informer says to another. It is part of their job to report rumour and speculation, and sometimes freedom-fighters successfully fed them deliberate disinformation as Sarat Chandra Bose did in January 1941 to cover the trail of Netaji’s great escape. Well-trained historians know how to read colonial sources – the prose of counter-insurgency, in Ranajit Guha’s words – against the grain and between the lines. The files throw no new light on either the life or the mortal end of a deathless hero. I had quoted an intelligence agent in my book His Majesty’s Opponent who wrote in February 1946 how anxious they were to know that Netaji was “actually and permanently dead” (War Office File No. 273 in The National Archives of the United Kingdom). Files containing the same materials, classified in Delhi and Kolkata, have been open for quite some time now in London.
Just as Netaji’s admirers hoped he was alive, some of his detractors in the government may have feared his return. One or two recently opened files contain reports of speculation from the late 1940s that he may still be alive at that time as there was scope for doubt for at least a decade after 1945. The eye-witness testimonies of the air crash at Taipei were systematically collected by the Shah Nawaz Enquiry Committee in 1956. There is strong historical evidence that Netaji laid down his life fighting for his country’s freedom on August 18, 1945. Nothing can be more insulting to his memory than to turn him into some obscurantist baba or other.
It is a misnomer to describe the just-released documents as the Netaji files. I have read thousands and thousands of Netaji files in various archives, in addition to the treasure trove of all of Netaji’s letters, writings and speeches collected painstakingly at the Netaji Research Bureau since the 1950s. There are two points to be made about the relatively small number of files that are still closed. First, they should all be thrown open without any further delay. That is the only way to stop the propagation of fantasies as facts. Second, there needs to be an understanding that these files may not contain anything of real substance about Netaji and could only reveal a few dishonourable things done by some in the upper echelons of India’s post-Independence government. I hope the younger generation will choose to learn from Netaji’s book of life that was more fascinating than the legend.
Appropriating Netaji's legacy
A final word is in order about the question of family and political misappropriation of Netaji’s legacy. Netaji was one of 14 siblings and so his extended family is quite large. He had one daughter, my aunt Anita, who lives in Germany. Netaji himself always said his family and country were co-terminous. So anything to do with him should be treated as a national issue and not a family matter. This is exactly what I said in Parliament last April when addressing the question of the declassification of files. I received support across party lines when I said that in dealing with this sensitive issue we must be respectful towards all three iconic leaders of the freedom struggle – Gandhi, Bose and Nehru – who may have differed on occasion, but also shared a deep bond of mutual affection and admiration. It is not necessary to do down one to honour another.
The media needs to do due diligence in checking the individual qualifications, credentials and antecedents of so-called family members. Those making wild allegations without an iota of understanding of history should not be given any credence. Without genuine individual accomplishment, family membership counts for nothing. It is odd that Narendra Modi, who keeps his own family at arm’s length, should be so keen to be seen rubbing shoulders with certain members of Netaji’s extended family. I had heard he was opposed to family-based politics. Some political parties have tried to appropriate Netaji by distorting what he really stood for. Netaji’s greatest contribution was to unite all the religious communities by winning the absolute trust of the minorities. The best way to honour Subhas Chandra Bose today is to live up to that great ideal.
Sugata Bose is Subhas Chandra's Bose's grand nephew and a member of Parliament.
Mamata Banerjee made the correct decision to release 64 hitherto closed historical files held by the West Bengal government to the public. There is an urgent need for a proper archives policy in our country as is the case in well-functioning democracies of the world. Most government files should be thrown open after 25 or 30 years and all files after the lapse of 50 years. The central government should declassify forthwith all old files that are still under wraps. The argument about relations with foreign governments being adversely affected is a specious one. Churchill’s government had ordered the assassination of Subhas Chandra Bose in 1941. We do not hold Cameron’s government responsible for that decision.
The 64 files opened by the West Bengal government confirm what had been revealed in two files available in the National Archives earlier this year. For more than two decades after freedom, the post-Independence governments of India and West Bengal were snooping on freedom-fighters, including members of the Bose family, in clear violation of the privacy of law-abiding citizens. File number 63, for example, contains a letter written by Sisir Kumar Bose in Kolkata to his aunt Emilie Schenkl, Netaji’s widow, in Vienna dated June 1953 and other evidence of intrusive surveillance that continued until 1972. The media has already highlighted the report on an intercepted letter from Emilie to Sarat Chandra Bose in 1946 expressing her sense of shock at Netaji’s death in the August 1945 air crash. But that was before Independence; the colonial tradition of opening letters in the Elgin Road post office continued in the post-colonial era.
What the files reveal
The recently declassified files contain nothing substantially new about Netaji. In any case, history is not about what one police informer says to another. It is part of their job to report rumour and speculation, and sometimes freedom-fighters successfully fed them deliberate disinformation as Sarat Chandra Bose did in January 1941 to cover the trail of Netaji’s great escape. Well-trained historians know how to read colonial sources – the prose of counter-insurgency, in Ranajit Guha’s words – against the grain and between the lines. The files throw no new light on either the life or the mortal end of a deathless hero. I had quoted an intelligence agent in my book His Majesty’s Opponent who wrote in February 1946 how anxious they were to know that Netaji was “actually and permanently dead” (War Office File No. 273 in The National Archives of the United Kingdom). Files containing the same materials, classified in Delhi and Kolkata, have been open for quite some time now in London.
Just as Netaji’s admirers hoped he was alive, some of his detractors in the government may have feared his return. One or two recently opened files contain reports of speculation from the late 1940s that he may still be alive at that time as there was scope for doubt for at least a decade after 1945. The eye-witness testimonies of the air crash at Taipei were systematically collected by the Shah Nawaz Enquiry Committee in 1956. There is strong historical evidence that Netaji laid down his life fighting for his country’s freedom on August 18, 1945. Nothing can be more insulting to his memory than to turn him into some obscurantist baba or other.
It is a misnomer to describe the just-released documents as the Netaji files. I have read thousands and thousands of Netaji files in various archives, in addition to the treasure trove of all of Netaji’s letters, writings and speeches collected painstakingly at the Netaji Research Bureau since the 1950s. There are two points to be made about the relatively small number of files that are still closed. First, they should all be thrown open without any further delay. That is the only way to stop the propagation of fantasies as facts. Second, there needs to be an understanding that these files may not contain anything of real substance about Netaji and could only reveal a few dishonourable things done by some in the upper echelons of India’s post-Independence government. I hope the younger generation will choose to learn from Netaji’s book of life that was more fascinating than the legend.
Appropriating Netaji's legacy
A final word is in order about the question of family and political misappropriation of Netaji’s legacy. Netaji was one of 14 siblings and so his extended family is quite large. He had one daughter, my aunt Anita, who lives in Germany. Netaji himself always said his family and country were co-terminous. So anything to do with him should be treated as a national issue and not a family matter. This is exactly what I said in Parliament last April when addressing the question of the declassification of files. I received support across party lines when I said that in dealing with this sensitive issue we must be respectful towards all three iconic leaders of the freedom struggle – Gandhi, Bose and Nehru – who may have differed on occasion, but also shared a deep bond of mutual affection and admiration. It is not necessary to do down one to honour another.
The media needs to do due diligence in checking the individual qualifications, credentials and antecedents of so-called family members. Those making wild allegations without an iota of understanding of history should not be given any credence. Without genuine individual accomplishment, family membership counts for nothing. It is odd that Narendra Modi, who keeps his own family at arm’s length, should be so keen to be seen rubbing shoulders with certain members of Netaji’s extended family. I had heard he was opposed to family-based politics. Some political parties have tried to appropriate Netaji by distorting what he really stood for. Netaji’s greatest contribution was to unite all the religious communities by winning the absolute trust of the minorities. The best way to honour Subhas Chandra Bose today is to live up to that great ideal.
Sugata Bose is Subhas Chandra's Bose's grand nephew and a member of Parliament.