The report that the IB had carried surveillance on Subhas Chandra Bose’s family for two decades between 1948 and 1968 is very misleading. There could be many reasons why the surveillance was done.
But it is preposterous to assume that Pandit Nehru was insecure and feared the return of Netaji. The small and petty minded can’t understand a great statesman of history. If this logic is applied, then Home Minister Sardar Patel would have been equally worried about Bose’s return to India as that would have meant both the PM and the Deputy PM losing their position. And the subsequent PMs, who succeeded Nehru after his death in May 1964, and the Home Ministers might have been even more worried about his return. As usual, Subramanian Swamy jumped the gun: “I have known all this along. This proves that Nehru was scared …how paranoid Nehru was about Subhas Chandra Bose.” The selective leak of so called surveillance is yet another exercise in Nehru bashing.
During the general election in 2014, the BJP said the papers relating to China war would be declassified and made public. But Arun Jaitley maintained that the disclosure of the highly classified Henderson Brooks report on the 1962 Sino-Indian war “would not be in national interest.” Similarly, Rajnath Singh had declared that all papers relating to Netaji would be released. However, Narendra Modi told Parliament that the Netaji files would not be released as it would impede the relations with foreign countries. Yet slanderous allegations and innuendoes are made against a national icon. On both the counts, the NDA government took a U-turn. It is a sinister design to derive political dividends — a willful distortion of history. The author has tried to understand the troubled legacy of Netaji and burst the myth surrounding him.
Bose’s attempt during the World War II to get rid of the British rule in India with the help of fascist forces of Nazi Germany and Japan had left a troubled legacy. There is no denying the fact that he was a great patriot and that he did all he could to secure independence for India. However, the means he adopted were highly questionable. At the Tripura Congress session in 1939 he said ‘‘The country was internally ripe for a revolution than ever before and that the coming international crisis would give India an opportunity for achieving her emancipation…” When he was placed under house arrest by the British, he escaped to Germany, met Hitler and pledged his allegiance to him. He had formed the ‘Free India Legion,’ funded by the Nazis, with the sole object of invading India. And when that became untenable, in the light of Japanese victories in South East Asia, he had decided to join hands with Japan.
He had formed the ‘Provisional Government of free India’ with the help of Japan in Andaman Nicobar Islands, under its occupation. He revived the Indian National Army (INA), christened as the ‘Azad Hind Fauj’ in 1943 and allied with Japan to wage war against the British. During the wars in Burmah, Impal and Kohima, some 26,000 INA soldiers and the Japanese forces were killed. In a Radio Broadcast from Rangoon in 1944 he said, ‘‘I am convinced that if we do desire freedom we must be prepared to wade through blood.” If Netaji had his way, India would have been enslaved by the ‘yellow race,’ replacing the ’white race’ and he would have been a puppet in the hands of fascists. Subash Chandra Bose misread the forces reshaping the history of his time. To Gandhiji, Bose had been “foolish in imagining that by allying himself with the Japanese and the Germans, who were not only aggressive Powers, but also dangerous Powers, he would get India freedom.”
When Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers on August 16, 1945, he wanted to seek refuge in Soviet Union as he believed it to be anti-British. He requested Field Marshall Hisaichi, head of the Japanese forces in South East Asia, to arrange a flight to Soviet Union. The Japanese didn’t give him the permission to fly to Soviet Union, as, according to Historian Joyce Chapman Lebra, they felt it “would be unfair of Bose to write off Japan and go over to Russia after receiving so much help from Japan… unreasonable for him to take a step which was opposed by the Japanese.” On August 18, his over loaded plane had crashed in the Japanese occupied Formosa (Taiwan). His body was cremated in Taihoku two days later on August 20 and the ashes were taken to Tokyo. On August 23, a Japanese newspaper reported his death. Many Historians have confirmed his death. And his wife and daughter had accepted that he died in the plane crash.
The Shah Nawaz Committee (1956) of three members had inquired into his death. The Committee had concluded that he died in the plane crash. It interviewed Dr. Yoshimi, the surgeon at the Taikhoku Military Hospital who treated him in his last hours. However, Netaji’s elder brother, Suresh Chandra Bose, a member of the Committee, having signed the final report, had accused the other members and the Chief Minister of West Bengal B C Roy of pressurizing him to sign the report. The Centre appointed another committee in 1970 head by Justice G.D. Khosla to probe the circumstances leading to his death. The Khosla Committee, while concurring with the Saha Nawaz Committee’s findings, had questioned the motives of some people who deposed before it. Of this, Historian Leonard A Gordon said, “Justice Khosla suggests the motives of many of the story-purveyors are less than altruistic. Some have clearly been driven by political goals…” The Mukherjee Commission, appointed by the NDA government in 1999, while agreeing that the original accounts were in favor of the plane crash , said they could not be relied upon. These never appeared to contradict the evidence that he died in the plane crash. But the vested interests would not allow the myth surrounding his death to bury.
It is interesting to observe that Sugata Bose, a grand-nephew of Netaji, a TMC MP, is raising hue and cry about the so called surveillance. Many members of the Forward Block that Nejtaji founded and his supporters had political interest to protect.
Dr.G.Ramachandram
The author is a professor of Political Science and a retired Principal
