A Guide to Netaji mystery

www.missionnetaji.org
By Anuj Dhar

On 18 August 1945 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was killed following a freak plane crash in Taihoku (Taipei). This was announced on 23 August 1945 by the Japanese, Bose's benefactors during the second world war. On 25th August newspapers across the India broke the benumbing news. The Hindu reported: "The Japanese News Agency on Thursday announced the death of Mr Subhas Chandra Bose in a Japanese hospital from injuries received in an air crash .... The Japanese News Agency said: Mr Bose, head of the 'Provisional Government of Azad Hind' left Singapore on August 16 by air for Tokyo for talks with the Japanese Government. He was seriously injured when his plane crashed at Taihoku airfield at 14.00 hours on August 18. He was given treatment in a hospital in Japan, where he died at midnight." It was later announced that Bose's ashes were taken to suburban Tokyo's Renkoji Temple. The timing and inexplicable delay in relaying the news raised eyebrows. Japan had surrendered only on 15 August 1945. "Death" apparently saved "war criminal" Bose from being handed over to the British, part of the victorious Allied bloc. Doubts were instantly raised and were expressed in newspapers and official papers. A report in Hindustan Times -- "'Bose dead' story not believed in London" -- said: "Today's Japanese reports of the death of Subhas Chandra Bose are taken with a grain of salt in circles close to Far Eastern official quarters. It is pointed out that reports of a somewhat similar character were put out by the Japanese two years ago, after which Subhas Chandra Bose embarked upon one of the most active periods of his career. Opinion expressed is that ... the timing is too good to be entirely fortuitous ...." A person no less than Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy of India, noted in his diary: "I wonder if the Japanese announcement of Subhas Chandra Bose's death in a air-crash is true. I suspect it very much, it is just what should be given out if he meant to go underground." Subsequently, several instances highlighted the complete disbelief in the Japanese announcement. Mahatma Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malviya told the Bose family to "not to perform sraddh ceremony". On 28 August 1945 the European members of Calcutta Municipal Council refused to abide by a condolence resolution moved by the city Mayor for someone "who is not dead". The All India Congress Committee (AICC) held on 21st September its first general session after the Quit India Movement. When it came to making obituary references in the memory of the departed leaders, Congress president Abul Kalam Azad declined to name Subhas Bose. He was asked why: "The circumstances in which the news of the death of Bose has reached us and the sources responsible for announcement don't make certain that Bose is in fact dead." Several months after Netaji was announced dead, top leaders of India made statements that he had, in fact, not died. "If someone shows me ashes even then I will not believe that Subhas is not alive," Gandhi told jailed associates of Bose on 30 December 1945. "I believe Subhas is still alive and bidding his time somewhere," Congress workers in Contai, Bengal, were told on 2 January 1946. On 30 March 1946, Harijan announced that "there was 'strong evidence to counteract the feeling' that Subhas Bose was dead."

Netaji's close relatives, who had initially been shocked by the news, in time, rejected the death news. Sarat Chandra Bose, Netaji's elder brother and closest associate in politics, thus briefed the media on 22 July 1946: "I am led to believe that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is alive. The story of the plane crash connected with his death is a myth." Sarat had found out from foreign sources India that the Allies had thrown discredit on the Taihoku crash news. A preview of official records and announcements made in the aftermath of Bose's death shows the stand of Gandhi, Bose kin and others to be sound. After they heard of the Japanese announcement, the British, with active assistance from the United States and other Allied nations, launched a series of inquiries to find out the truth or otherwise of the news. The Japanese had announced that Bose had died en route to Tokyo, where he was to discuss the Indian National Army's surrender with the Japanese Government. At the time of crash, he was accompanied by a few Japanese officers and his fiercely loyal ADC -- Lt Colonel Habibur Rahman Khan. Some Japanese officers and Rahman survived the alleged crash. The inquiries blew several holes in this version. There was no direct evidence of Bose's death. His body, or a picture of it, was never found. Japanese, Colonel Habibur Rahman were found to be drawing red herrings and telling lies. An advance military intelligence party detected evidence of systematic destruction of papers concerning Bose's last movements. In November 1945 the Intelligence Bureau (IB) figured out the big lie the Japanese had given out. Phillip Finney, a Deputy Director with the IB, discovered that Bose's destination, at the time of his "death" was not Japan, but the Soviet Russia. In time, the following emerged: * Months before the surrender of Japan, Bose started preparing to go to the Soviet Russia with a view to continuing the freedom struggle from there. Though this was known to Bose's ministers, they gave evasive answers to their British interrogators. * Bose contacted Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador in Tokyo, in November 1944 and formally sought the Russian help. It came to light in early 1990s that this letter was duly processed by the NKVD (KGB's forerunner) in Moscow. There were reports that Bose had made a secret trip to the Soviet Russia in December 1944. * A day before his death, Bose was heard saying by his Confidential Secretary Major Bhaskaran Menon that he was going on a long journey by air, "and who knows an air crash may not overtake me". * Four days after his "death", Bose was seen near Saigon by an American war correspondent. * Seven days later, Debnath Das, a top-ranking minister of Provisional Government of Free India, who remained with Bose up to the evening of 17 August 1945, was confided in by the head of Japanese intelligence that the Taipei crash was not a "real" one. * Ten days after Bose's death, the US intelligence intercepted a secret dispatch from a Japanese mission in Saigon. On the 17th August Bose had set off by air for Manchuria, not Tokyo, bordering the USSR. * The US State Department, when approached by British Military Intelligence in mid-1946, asserted that there was "no direct evidence that Subhas Chandra Bose was killed in an airplane crash" in Taipei "despite the public statements of the Japanese to that effect". The American forces had reached Taipei in September 1945. No one could have known better than them. * Inquiries by the CSDIC, a global Allied counter-intelligence organization, disapproved the story given out by Lt Colonel Habibur Rahman Khan and the Japanese.

* By April 1946 the British had picked up intelligence from several highly placed Russian and foreign sources that Bose was in the USSR. On 2 May 1946, nine months after the death story had been circulated, a dispatch was received in London. It read that Norman Smith, the then Director of Intelligence Bureau, "during his recent visit to London mentioned the receipt from various places in India of information to the effect that Subhas Bose was alive in Russia". * A July 1946 letter written by Khurshed Naoroji, Gandhi's Secretary and granddaughter of Dadabhai Naoroji, to US President's advisor and journalist Louis Fischer, who had met Gandhi a few days earlier, stated: "If Bose comes with the help of Russia neither Gandhiji nor the Congress will be able to reason with the country (India)." * Lord Louis Mountbatten was requested by then Indian High Commissioner in UK, NG Goray, to confirm Netaji's death. Mountbatten replied on 10 March 1978 that "there was no official record of Subhas Chandra Bose's death in his archives". As a result, the Governments of India and the UK never officially announced the death of Netaji Bose. On 3 October 1946 in the Council of State, Member Ahmed Jaffer asked the Home Member (Minister) Vallabhbhai Patel if the Government of India had any evidence whether Bose was dead or alive. Patel's response was: "Government are not in a position to make any authoritative statement on the subject." Free India Government did not make public the findings of the wartime intelligence agencies and the subsequent inquiries of early 1950s. Around 1955, after trying in wane for a decade, a citizens' group decided to form a non-official body under eminent judge Justice Radhabinod Pal to probe Netaji's "death". Justice Pal was one of the judges at the Tokyo trials. Justice Pal had seen Allied papers and heard from the Japanese, American and British sources that Taipei crash was a smokescreen to let Bose escape to the USSR. In April 1956, the Jawaharlal Nehru Government quickly formed a committee headed by Congress party MP Shah Nawaz Khan, formerly of the INA, and an aide to the Railway Minister. (After submitting his report, Shah Nawaz was made a Deputy Minister.) Despite passionate appeals, Justice Pal was kept out. There were two other members - the Bengal Government nominee SN Mitra and Suresh Chandra Bose, one of Netaji's non-politician elder brothers. The committee's report -- that Netaji had indeed died in Taipei -- became disputed due to several reasons. The Government was criticized for not letting the committee visit Taipei to make on the spot inquiries and ascertain whether or not a plane carrying Netaji had indeed crashed there in August 1945. Suresh Bose left the committee accusing the Nehru Government of trying to force him to sign on the dotted lines. He went on to publish on his own his Dissentient Report stating that the evidence he had come across as member the committee proved that Netaji had escaped to the USSR. While the Government never concurred with this line of thinking; in 1962, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had to admit to Suresh Bose that there was "no direct proof" of Netaji's death. The issue simmered on and made a return in late 1960s, mainly due to the activism of Professor Samar Guha, a Lok Sabha MP. The Indira Gandhi Government was most unwilling to look into the matter but had to relent when the demand was backed by President VV Giri and over 350s MPs. In June 1970 the Government appointed a one-man commission headed by Justice GD Khosla, a retired Chief Justice of Punjab High Court. Khosla Commission too upheld the Taipei crash theory and was accused of wrongly assessing the evidence. The Government, this time too, did not want the commission to visit Taiwan but was prevailed upon by Guha and others. GD Khosla, Guha later alleged, "sabotaged" his own inquiry in Taiwan. Following a "secret diktat" of the Ministry of External Affairs, he refused to contact the Taiwanese authorities to find out if there had actually been a crash in August 1945. Prolific Khosla, incidentally a good friend of former Prime Minister Nehru's, gave his report-cum-political testament against Subhas Bose in June 1974. Almost simultaneously he released a hagiographical biography of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi he had written while deciding the fate of Subhas Bose.

Guha moved a motion in the Parliament in 1977. In its course, he adduced new evidence against the crash theory and the dubious ways of Justice Khosla. On 28 August 1978 Prime Minister Morarji Desai was constrained to admit that there were "various important contradictions in the testimony of the (mostly Japanese) witnesses" to Bose's death. And that "some further contemporary official documentary records have also become available", making the Government of India think that the conclusions reached by GD Khosla and Shah Nawaz Khan were not "decisive". Bose's death issue was subject matter of 4 court case in recent times -- in 1985, 1986, 1992 and 1998. But all the time the Government remained indifferent. For instance, in 1992 the Narasimha Rao Government announced that they would be bestowing Bharat Ratna on Netaji "posthumously". A PIL filed by advocate Bijan Ghosh in the Calcutta HC, later taken by the Supreme Court, prayed how could the Government imply that Bose had died when they were unsure. The Government was called upon to furnish records which would have convinced the Apex Court that Netaji had died in 1945. Nothing was produced. The Bose mystery got a fillip in mid-1990s due to indiscreet inquiries by some Asiatic Society researchers led by Dr Purabi Roy in the Russian Federation. The researchers came across evidence that Netaji was in the USSR in 1946. This was the time when the USSR had just collapsed and the new Russian Federation was freely declassifying the Soviet-era records. The Indian researchers were told by ex-KGB operatives and Russian scholars that Russia had records concerning Bose and that those would be only declassified at the behest of the Government of India. The Asiatic Society appealed to Prime Minister Rao, Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee etc, controversy resounded in all top dailies, serious charges were made. But the Government did not take up the matter with the Russians at a proper level. Then on 30 April 1998, responding to a PIL filed by advocate Rudra Jyoti Bhattacharjee, the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Prabha Shankar Mishra, ordered a reticent Indian Government to "launch a vigorous inquiry ... as a special case for the purpose of giving an end to the controversy" surrounding Netaji's disappearance. The Court observed that "lapses have occurred from time to time" and "no serious effort in this behalf (Netaji's disappearance) has been made" by the Government of India despite clear statement of Prime Minister Desai that findings of Shah Nawaz and GD Khosla were not decisive. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government could not contest the court's order and consequently notified on 14 April 1999 that "the Central Government is of the opinion that it is necessary to appoint a Commission of Inquiry for the purpose of making an in-depth inquiry into a definitive matter of a public importance". The notification stated that the Commission would look into the following aspects related to Netaji's disappearance and report to the Government of India: a) Whether Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is dead or alive; b) If he is dead whether he died in the plane crash, as alleged; c) Whether the ashes in the Japanese (Renkoji) temple are ashes of Netaji; d) Whether he has died in any other manner at any other place and, if so, when and how; e) If he is alive, in respect of his whereabouts. Since then, the following has become known as a result of the functioning of the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry (JMCI). 1. Justice Mukhejee, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, stated several times that he got little cooperation from the Government of India. He was not given several relevant papers. From day one, the Government did not comply fully with the Commission's orders. As a matter of fact, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) was first to flout the Commission's directive. Another example of the Government's callous approach was that that despite the Commission's close pursuance for years, and excellent ties between India and Japan, a DNA test on the ashes enshrined in the Renkoji Temple was not done.

2. Eventually, the Government became openly hostile towards Justice Mukherjee. Justice Mukherjee was "humiliated" by the Government for his insistence to probe the Taiwanese and the Russian angles to the "Netaji mystery". 3. Justice Mukherjee himself announced on 17 February 2005 that several relevant Top Secret files on Netaji death mystery were unlawfully destroyed by the Government. That included the master file on Bose's death in the PMO. The "contemporary official documentary records" on the basis of which Prime Minister Morarji Desai had rejected the findings of Shah Nawaz and GD Khosla panels were not given to Justice Mukherjee despite his numerous personal appeals to Home Minister LK Advani and Shivraj Patil. 4. Late Dr Sisir Bose, his wife Krishna Bose and their son Professor Sugata Bose, the strongest votaries of "Netaji died in plane crash" theory in media, would not allow themselves to be examined by the Commission. Communist leader Lakshmi Sehgal, formerly of the INA, who had made several anti-Commission and proTaipei crash remarks, committed perjury during her deposition. Comrade Sehgal maintained publicly that Netaji had died in 1945; but during her cross-examination she was found to be holding views to the contrary. Worse, she actually fanned the charge that late Prime Minister Nehru had something sinister to do in the whole episode. 5. The Government was reluctant to let the Commission visit Taiwan, but Justice MK 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. It is important to recall here that in March 1996, lawmaker KR Malkani had asked the Narasimha Rao Government if they would press the Governments of Taiwan and other countries to make known their views on the subject. The Government point blank refused to do so, saying "no useful purpose would be served by holding yet another enquiry". 6. According to a shocking disclosure made by a paper in a Top Secret PMO file, the "ashes and other remains" of Netaji were brought to India in 1954. While one would not buy that these remains were of Netaji's, points 5 and 6 do demolish the official theory given in Shah Nawaz and GD Khosla's reports. There was no crash, and Renkoji ashes cannot be of Netaji's as "his ashes and other remains" had been secretly brought to India in 1954. 7. During the argument before the Mukherjee Commission in February 2005, the Government's counsel himself had to argue against the Taipei crash theory. The poor man hadn't been told by his client what to argue before the Commission. 8. The UK Government told the Justice Mukherjee that they would not declassify some papers on Netaji until 2021. The Japanese were not too forthcoming. 9. The Commission made attempts to find out if there was any truth in the Russian angle to the Bose mystery. This was not done by both Shah Nawaz Khan and GD Khosla. The fourth term of reference for the Mukherjee Commission was to find out whether Bose "died in any other manner at any other place and, if so, when and how". 10. The Commission collected official records, affidavits etc, all hinting that Netaji was alive in the Soviet Russia after August 1945. A former Rajya Sabha MP told the Commission on oath that during his visit to Russia in 1996 he and late MP Chitta Basu were told by a retired Russian general that he had himself seen a classified 1946 paper wherein the Soviet Russian ministers discussed Netaji's stay in the USSR. A retired engineer deposed before the Commission that he had been told in the Soviet Russia that Netaji was in a Siberian camp in the late 1940s. When this engineer went to the Indian Embassy, he was intimidated and later shunted back to India. 11. From February 2001 onwards, the Commission made repeated requests to the Government to make arrangements for their visit to Russia so that evidence could be accessed. The Government kept dilly-dallying.

12. Overlooking the Commission's demand to visit Russia, the Congress-led UPA Government abruptly apprised the Commission on 19 November 2004 of a Cabinet decision that "no further extension beyond 14.05.2005 will be allowed" and that the Commission would have to submit its report within this period. 13. Later on, the Government, under pressure from several quarters, gave the Commission another extension and allowed them to visit Russia. But, as it emerged, the Governments of India and Russia did not do much to help the Commission to verify facts. They had to return empty handed from Russia. 14. In November 2005, the Commission handed over its report to the Union Home Minister. Media reports have it that the Commission's report has rejected the air crash theory. Anytime now, the Government of India will have to make public the report of the Mukherjee Commission along with their Action Taken Report (ATR). Given the political dynamics, it seems difficult that the solution to the Netaji mystery would be found. The Government of India, track record shows, will not take right steps, unless there is pressure from the people of India.
Anuj Dhar, a Delhi-based journalist, is the author of Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery. He can be reached at anuj@missionnetaji.org.

March 2006. Mission Netaji. www.missionnetaji.org.