Netaji mystery: Declassification holds the key

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).

You may also get the book online.

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India's Biggest Cover Up - Anuj Dhar

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When spring is short-lived

Around this time exactly a year ago, it was as if the spring had arrived in Bengal. A new government had taken over after a gap of over three decades and the change, whatever be the causal relationship, came as a gush of fresh air.

After the din and bustle of the state elections there was euphoria all around, not least because Mamata Banerjee  took over the reins of the beleaguered state but because the Communists had been thrown out of power, exposing their vulnerability.

 I remember the ray of hope I saw in the eyes of a young driver whose father lost his job following rampant and irresponsible trade unionism of the Left leaders.

The pout-faced chief ministers the people of the state were used to gave way to a leader who mingled with the masses, drank tea from earthen pots with the proverbial 'proletariat' after getting drenched in  rain, responded to phone calls even from political opponents, tried to dissolve the government's partisan position which dominated the political sphere of Bengal for decades and made it a point to prove that she was indeed a people's leader.

The late spring that sprang in the midst of a humid summer filled the air with hope even when the people of the state were despairing the torrential monsoon downpour.

The situation in Darjeeling, the favourite destination of Bengali tourists for generations, was much different from a lull before the storm. The ultra-radical Maoists of Junglemahal took a breather probably to celebrate the downfall of a regime which tried to crush them to the ground only using force without initiating any political process.

And as the newly elected chief minister relished the positive changes that came her way, Mamata Banerjee's followers gradually took the people of the state for a ride.

The ever lasting influence of the CPI-M started showing even in its bitter rival, only driving home the fact the 'party' was one of the few things which got intrinsically associated with the institution of the state in Bengal.

Some of the intellectuals who helped the Trinamool Congress supremo to get the better of the polls started smelling rat. Questions were raked up in people's minds as to whether the transformation that the state underwent actually adhered to the much aspired 'change'.  Signs of cracks started surfacing in the rock solid bond between the Trinamool Congress supremo and her intellectual backers.

Soon the waves of 'change' would turn into a Nor'wester that is very common when spring gives way to a baking summer in rural Bengal. This time it was the entire state, and to some extent the national politics, which seemed perplexed by the caricature that came along.

On the one hand, India's central government, led by the Congress, stood helpless in the face of the political onslaught launched by Mamata Banerjee to keep her image as a people's person intact, on the other she epitomised a typical politician in power who saw ghosts in her dreams.

The result was a political disarray gripping the state, and taking advantage of the overall confusion, the CPI-M supporters made full use of their imagination to ridicule and undermine the Trinamool Congress government. It was an irony that the CPI-M which once vehemently opposed the introduction of computers in the state was now trying to make full use of technology to launch a vitriolic campaign against Mamata Banerjee.

Despite some desperate efforts, which often seem mindless and trivial, the opposition is yet to cut any ice in the support base of Mamata Banerjee. The irony again is that the social media campaign of the Left hardly made any impact in rural Bengal, which once formed the crux of their power base. 

My sources say whatever impact, if any, the vitriolic campaign could achieve was mainly confined to the urban middle class.

The triviality of such mindless campaign of the Left and the way the Trinamool Congress conducted itself, by getting into a slanging match, in effect brought down the gravitas of the politics in the state to such a level that the real issues facing the people of Bengal got mired in the humdrum of naive political point scoring and brinkmanship.  

The sudden spring which ushered in the horizon of Bengal around the same time last year had been short-lived and the people of the state again got stuck in the alley of moribund politics. 

 All comments are personal.
Tirthankar.Bandyopadhyay.Blog@gmail.com 

Governance sans Democracy

Twenty-seven year old Utpal Biswas works as a car driver. He has been working for a car hire company for the the past seven years. His parents wanted him to study and do a government job, which never happened as his father lost his job when Utpal was only four years old.

Debal Biswas, Utpal's father, used to lead a team of about hundred people in Belgharia's one-time well known textile factory the Mohini Mills, which closed down permanently in 1988. Since then the Durga Puja there has stopped, most of the workers were forced to take up meanial jobs for living and some even committed suicide. Utpal can't even recollect the Durga Puja days at the mill complex. He was barely four then when it all stopped. Now the deserted mill complex stands like as if it is in ruins. Utpal's father became a rickshaw puller to sustain his family and whatever money he earned was not enough to send Utpal to a good school. As a teenager, Utpal learnt driving to relieve his father from pulling rickshaws.

On a recent trip to Kolkata, Utpal was driving us from Belgharia to Bandel. While driving past the Durgapur Expressway, near Singur,I asked him what he thought about Mamata Banerjee. From Utpal's enthusiasm and energy it seemed as though he was waiting for the question to be asked, especially near the place which built Banerjee's political fortune for years to come.

"Didi will bring about real change", quipped Utpal, the glimmer in his eyes showing the real conviction unlike the rhetoric that political elements are used to. I tried to understand what he meant by 'real change' and there was no defintive answer but only a sense of euphoria and hope.

"But how is it going to affect you, what will happen to Mohini Mills where your father worked for years and yet didn't get his dues!"

My sense of suspicion or being a devil's advocate, failed to make any change in Utpal and he said, "Didi-r kachhe khabar chole gechhe. Mohini Mill-e rail-er karkhana habe". (Banerjee is aware of Mohini Mills and will set up a railway factory there.) My questioning the validity of such an expectation was, however, not 'hopeless' enough to dampen his hopes.

Utpal was not the only one who was euphoric about Mamata Banerjee. A fruit vendor at Dunlop or a man selling cheap dresses outside Baghbazar Bata also spoke in similar vein.It seemed as if the dispossessed were more hopeful than others and I could not figure out why. A senior colleague, who has been a well known correspondent in India for years, feels, "the people of Bengal were desperate for change".

Will the people of Bengal move to a higher trajectory of democratic polity or practice? Will the new government ensure better governance?

Governance is the buzz word for Banerjee these days. Her unannounced visits to government offices, hospitals, schools, market places are making people happy although the real reason behind such happiness is not very clear to me yet. Are they happy because they hope that good days would return or they are pleased that those who were reaping the benefits of being paid their salaries for not doing enough work or extorting the ordinary man are being pulled up?

From the surface though it seems that people are pleased with the effort to ensure governance and bring it back within the public domain. The danger of expecting too much on governance is that both the government and the governed tend to confuse between 'democratic governance' and governance which is not necessarily participatory and democratic.

Democracy and governance are probably both mutually exclusive. Governance is no pre-requisite for democracy and the vice versa is also probably true. One can ensure governance without stains of democracy.(Even a military regime can ensure governance without any obligation for democracy.) The best example is probably the emergency days of Indira Gandhi. So when a US Congressional report praises Narendra Modi for governance, they tend to overlook his pluralistic credentials or lack of it, which also raises serious questions about their understanding of democracy.

I am not in any way comparing Modi and Banerjee but I can see in her a desperation to ensure governance without much concern for participatory practices. Remember the way she announced closure of schools a day after students drenched to the core celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Thakur or the way she keeps on announcing welfare projects in the state. They are definitely intended to bring about welfare but there is no mechanism or any evidence to ensure that the objectives are desired and would be achieved.

Banerjee prefers the 'top-down' approach of development but the 'bottom-up' path is a more participatory one and hence mindful of the essence of democracy. Democracy definitely has many deficits but whether governance bereft of democratic values is desireable calls for a much wider debate.

All comments are personal and have no bearing on my present or past places of work. Comments on the post are welcome at the blog site.