The nationalistic zeal of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose - my patriotic hero, has inspired many Indians. Netaji's disappearance is still shrouded in mystery. Journalist and author Anuj Dhar has been relentless in his effort to untangle the jigsaw. Anuj Dhar's latest book: India's Biggest Cover-Up , has created flutters in many quarters, both within India and outside. In his guest post for Stray Thoughts, Anuj Dhar argues that "Declassification holds the key to cracking the Netaji mystery." This guest post is Stray Thoughts' tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
"In 2007 my friends and I were in the middle of an RTI (Right to Information) quest to seek release of over 200 secret records used by the Khosla Commission to support the official theory of Netaji's reported death in Taiwan at the close of the World War II (WWII). The Ministry of Home Affairs was refusing to declassify them and the Information Commissioner AN Tiwari (later Chief Information Commissioner) was left with no option but to ask them point blank why it could not be done.
After a while, Tiwari, a former Secretary to the Government of India, received a letter from his friend, the then home secretary. The letter was marked "Secret" but Tiwari could hardly conceal his sense of bafflement after going through it. He told us that the home secretary was not in favour of the disclosure of the records because doing so "may lead to a serious law and order problem in the country, especially in West Bengal".
In 2012 if there's any issue concerning Subhas Chandra Bose that requires our urgent attention it is of the gratuitous state secrecy around him. As you read this, heaps of classified records and files relating to Netaji are lying in different ministries and agencies. I do not think apart from Bose any other pre-independence national icon of ours has had the dubious distinction of having so much of classified material about him. Often there are claims, some of which are right, that secret files about Netaji exist in other countries. But then, how are we going to ask foreign governments to release them when our own is sitting on a pile of its own making?
Just to give you an illustration, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is holding 35 classified files concerning the man, a large number of Indians think was the main reason the British left India in 1947. Most of these files are about the reported death. Nearly 10 of the PMO's Netaji files carry the "Top Secret" stamp.
The situation is more or less the same across the government. The Ministry of Home Affairs, I came to know during my RTI-related efforts, is holding secret thousands of pages about Bose's fate. This has got to be joke because most "enlightened" people of the country -- senior journalists and eminent Bengali thinkers included, I have the gumption to say-- have made up their minds that the Bose mystery is just gas.
But gas it surely is not. The Ministry of External Affairs has secret files about Netaji and so has the Intelligence Bureau, some 76 of them. In fact, only a former Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB) can actually tell how many files are there exactly and where they have been kept. That is such a shame, you would say. Yes, that is, and this is precisely the issue our generation must confront before it's too late. Those before us failed miserably for a variety of reasons.
Thus far, the Netaji mystery has been dominated by two contrasting outlooks. The first is the views of conspiracy theorists, Bose's blind followers and Jawaharlal Nehru's fiercest critics. The scenario projected by them hasn't escaped the notice of any of us. The other side is that of the intellectuals, especially the "I know it all", many of whom cannot stand any talk of the possibility that Bose might have lived on after the date of his reported death. That's why we find that in last six decades there's not been any proper research by any reputed researcher into the matter. Those who did touch upon the issue ended up giving sketchy details.
So, like it or not, the controversy remains in circulation, unresolved. Therefore, it is high time we did something to cap the controversy for once and all. The accepted wisdom that "there's no use of raising this issue now" must be re-judged in the context of transparency, vital for any great democracy. This country needs openness in the realm of history as well. Irrespective of the views one holds about Netaji or his fate, to ask for comprehensive declassification of all records about him would be a sensible thing to do.
It would be most appropriate if this demand is first raised from the states where Netaji was born and lived. In January this year, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself made public statement that it was such a shame that the last word on Netaji's death was yet to come out. Well, a great shame it indeed is and the root cause of it is the inexplicable stand of our government in keeping records about Netaji secret and our inability to ask it to release them.
For argument's sake, if it were to emerge tomorrow that the Government of West Bengal was holding a secret file into the possible killing of Rizwanur Rahman, I'm sure the media and people would lunge at the throats of the officials, demanding its immediate release. So what stops them today from seeking release of Netaji files? No, this is not an issue of the past. The Mukherjee Commission upholding the public view was rejected by our Government in 2006 without assigning any reason, and we simply watched the spectacle.
In last few years we have seen people hitting the streets seeking justice for ordinary people, never posing any of the questions that have been raised by Netaji's admirers since 1950s. "What is the use of it since he is not going to come back alive?" And so we have wasted 50 years and files have piled up in North and South Blocks. Let's end this farce now. As of today, I think there won't be anything better to signal its end than to request the honourble Chief Minister of Bengal to call for an end to the secrecy that has made Subhas Chandra Bose an even bigger enigma than he really was."
Anuj Dhar is a New Delhi-based independent researcher. His latest book "India's Biggest Cover-Up" is available through Reader's Service outlets in Kolkata, such as One World Book Stop (Park Street), Dey's Book Store, Dasgupta and Company, Chakraborty & Chatterjee (College Street).
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