Let the truth be known: What really happened to Netaji?
Like many of you, I have often wondered how India’s present would have looked if Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had lived (and led) an independent India.
Last week I was alerted to this site dedicated to finding the truth behind Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s tragic disappearance from the national freedom struggle in 1945 (Thanks a lot, Mohan). Specifically it deals with the Mukherjee Commission (which was the third official proble into Netaji’s disappearance) and what came out of it.
The site mentions how the government tried hard to stall the work of Justice Mukherjee Commission and avoided cooperating wherever it could. It also mentions some very interesting facts which I felt we should all be aware of:
- The UPA Government was overtly hostile towards the Commission. Justice Mukherjee was “humiliated” by them for his insistence to probe the Taiwanese and the Russian angles to the Netaji mystery.
- The Government was against the Commission visiting Taiwan, but Justice Mukherjee prevailed. Justice Mukherjee’s January 2005 visit to Taiwan and his direct interaction with Taiwan Government yielded the disclosure that there was no evidence of any air crash in or around Taipei around 18 August 1945. The Commission also found out that despite the claims of the previous panels, and so called eyewitnesses, Netaji and other victims of the “crash” were not cremated in Taiwan.
- It was established that the Governments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s either hushed up or destroyed several records pertaining to the reported death of Subhas Bose.
- The British Government told the Commission that they would not declassify some papers on Netaji until 2021. The Government of India would not help the Commission in accessing these papers.
- With the evidence hinting at no crash, the Commission made attempts to find out what had happened to Netaji after 1945. Starting February 2001, the Commission asked the Government to make arrangements for their visit to Russia so that the evidence could be assessed. The Government kept dilly-dallying. In September 2005, the Commission was (finally) allowed to visit Russia (after much dilly-dallying by the government) , but it never got access to major intelligence and security-related archives of Russia. One major witness did not turn up and others apparently turned hostile. As a result, the Commission’s Russia sojourn failed.
What did the Commission find? Amongst other things, it noted that:
- (Netaji)…did not die in the plane crash, as alleged
- The ashes in the Japanese temple are not that of Netaji
Getting into the details, the Commission didn’t just nix the air crash story; it paved the way for further inquiry, maintaining that Subhas had disappeared while heading towards the Soviet Russia.
A secret plan was contrived to ensure Netaji’s safe passage to which Japanese military authority and Habibur Rahman were parties.
The purpose of his (Netaji’s) flight was to go to the Soviet Union and with the aid of the Soviet Union he was to continue his independence movement.
The departure of Netaji from Saigon on August 17, 1945 along with Habibur Rahman and some Japanese officers for going to Russia via Manchuria is … not in controversy.
It stands established that emplaning at Saigon on August 17, 1945 Netaji succeeded in evading the Allied Forces and escaping out of their reach and as a camouflage thereof the entire make-believe story of the air crash, Netaji’s death therein and his cremation was engineered by the Japanese army authorities including the two doctors and Habibur Rahman and then aired on August 23, 1945 ….
Whether Netaji thereafter landed in Russia or elsewhere cannot be answered for dearth of evidence.
Read the full report here.
What does the government know that it does not want us to know?
Why is it that the Government believes: “disclosure of the nature and contents of these documents would … hurt the sentiments of the people at large and may evoke wide-spread reactions …. Diplomatic relations with friendly countries may also be adversely affected if the said documents are disclosed.”? [link]
As Anuj Dhar asks: “Should not we demand to know what these documents have to say? …Should not we ask our Government to state facts? Don’t we have a right to know what happened to the man who liberated us?
Some of you would of course know the history of tension and disagreements between Gandhi, Nehru (on one side) and Bose…Might that have something to do with the Government’s unusual (and almost hostile) attitude towards this issue?
More on this bit of history in Part II tomorrow…
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Related Post: Reassessing Mahatma: Did Gandhi-giri really worked?
