Kolkata : Hailing Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s contribution towards the independence movement, noted filmmaker Shyam Benegal on Friday laid stress on celebrating the leader’s life instead of worrying on conjectures about his disappearance.
Participating in a panel discussion on Netaji’s mysterious disappearance at the Kolkata Literature Festival here, Benegal also rubbished claims by certain quarters of Bose having lived incognito as the “Gumnami Baba” in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad.
“We should celebrate the life of Subhas Chandra Bose rather than constantly worry about what happened to him after August 18, 1945. “Unfortunately, all the achievements of Netaji have been completely submerged under this unnecessary mystery about his death, disappearance, whether he died in the crash or not whether he escaped to Siberia and all,” he said.
Calling as “mere conjectures,” the various theories surrounding Netaji’s disappearance following the alleged air-crash of August 18, 1945, Benegal also disapproved suggestions of Nehru being behind Bose’s disappearance. “I am also against this automatic assumption of Nehru being the villain in the whole story. If he was really so, why did he defend the three INA officers during the Red Fort trials,” said Benegal referring to the joint court-martial of Col. Prem Sahgal, Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Maj. Gen. Shah Nawaz Khan of the Indian National Army (INA). Benegal, who directed the award winning movie “Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero”, rued that people are more concerned about mystery about his disappearance rather than “celebrating the man’s contributions, his achievements and how he and his INA gave the final push to oust the British”.–IANS
