India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  But what was all that for? Didn’t the Intelligence Bureau have anything better to do? Why bother about all those absurdities when Subhas Bose was officially dead?!

  4. Shooting star Samar Guha

  Hardly had the dust settled in isolated Shaulmari pocket in the mid-1960s when a storm began to brew in faraway Taipei city. In November 1964 former lawmaker Dr Satyanarayan Sinha landed in Taiwan on his personal quest to uncover the truth about Subhas Bose’s reported death. Standing at the spectacular Song Shang airport, with a panoramic view of mountains on three sides and the glistening Keelung river nearby, Sinha replayed Bose’s fatal air crash in his mind.

  It was from here that the bomber had taken off, only to crash, barely able to clear the runway of then Matsuyama military aerodrome. The Shah Nawaz Committee’s report had appended pictures of the wreck provided by the Japanese. Twisted metal debris lay strewn near a hill. Sinha strained his eyes; the hills were far away from the end of the enlarged runway.

  [Matsuyama aerodrome is seen in this early 1950s image taken from the Taipei Song Shan Airport website]

  Sinha frowned. Could the Japanese have fobbed off the Allied investigators with some old pictures from their records to convince them that a crash had taken place on 18 August 1945? He asked around. There were some who surely knew better. “Do you remember any airplane crash during the period of your service?” Pat came the answer from a former firefighter: “Yes, there was one in October 1944.” It had taken place up on a hill, he said. “Was there any other accident in August 1945?” Sinha put it specifically. “Never heard of any accident in 1945. If there was one, I could have known about it, because, we from the fire brigade are the people who rush to the site of the accident first.”[1]

  Sinha formed the opinion that the reason the committee members were not allowed to visit Taipei was that the Government of India was “afraid of the real truth about Netaji coming out”. He returned home to tell the Amrita Bazar Patrika of his discovering that no air crash had ever taken place in Taipei on 18 August 1945. In 1966 was published his book Netaji mystery, which detailed his case with plenty of bombast. Spurred by the inputs from German and even Russian sources, Sinha made a most startling claim—Bose was “in the Russian prison of Yakutsk in 1950-51”. [2]

  The “no-air crash” theory received a further fillip the same year with HV Kamath visiting Taiwan at the invitation of its Varanasi-educated Vice Foreign Minister Dr Sampson P Shein. Taking heed of Kamath’s request, Foreign Minister Chein Hua ordered an informal inquiry. A ministry official Kamath would remember as “Dr Lin” later briefed him that “the evidence do not confirm that Netaji or any Indian for that matter had been killed in an air crash on the 18th…. The people whom he questioned could not tell or remember any crash taking place that day.”

  Kamath held further consultations with Hua, who told him: “We have done what we can. …If your government wants to persue the matter further we will be only happy to collaborate with the Government of India in this matter.” [3] But the Government of India was not pleased with the development. Questions were raised in both the Houses of Parliament on Kamath’s finding. Each time External Affairs Minister Swaran Singh gave identical answers:

  The Government of India have no diplomatic relation with the government in Taiwan and have no connection with any investigation reportedly ordered by that government. It has been stated several times in Parliament that the Government of India have accepted the findings of the Netaji Inquiry Committee headed by Shri Shah Nawaz Khan. [4]

  A delegation of nine Indian MPs which followed Kamath to Taiwan heard Dr Lin repeat his finding. The seniormost among them were Mulka Govinda Reddy and Prakash Vir Shastri. The youngest was Dr LM Singhvi, the illustrious father of former Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Late Dr Singhvi stood out of the ordinary in many ways; as a jurist, diplomat and as a powerful speaker on spiritual matters. Pity that the only thing he never talked about—even though there were occasions when he was supposed to—was his recollection of what Dr Lin had told the delegation about Bose’s not dying in their country. Fortunately, Mulka Govinda Reddy remembered it all and went public with it:

  Dr Lin... told us after examining all relevant records, he came to the conclusion that there was no positive evidence to show that Netaji died in that air crash. [5]

  The revelation in Taiwan made Prakash Vir Shastri, supported by several MPs, raise questions in the Lok Sabha in July 1967. The reply given was that there was nothing for the Government to do as it "had not received any such intimation from Taiwan government". [6]

  When it appeared that the Government had all but weathered the political typhoon with its centre in Taiwan, up came the man of the moment. The year 1967 marked the rise of the big-framed, highly motivated Samar Guha.

  A former freedom fighter and chemistry professor, Guha set out the main agenda of his public life—recognition for Bose and resolution of the dispute over his death—with his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha on 3 April 1967. Guha made an issue of the absence of Bose’s portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament among those of the other makers of India. He charged that “it was not an omission but… a deliberate and calculated act on the part of the Congress government to minimise the position of Netaji and relegate him to secondary leadership in the history of national freedom”.

  With the Indira Gandhi government unwilling to consider his demands, Guha gathered like-minded persons—Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madhu Limaye being the most prominent—in and out of Parliament and formed a “national committee”. Together, they also sought a fresh inquiry into Bose’s fate and found ample support among the MPs from all parties. On 20 December 1967, about 350 lawmakers sent a memorandum to President Zakir Hussain. According to a secret note prepared by then Home Secretary LP Singh, it was discussed at a meeting of secretaries chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on 16 February 1968. “As far as the question of a fresh inquiry was concerned, the meeting was of the view that this was not warranted as no fresh evidence had been brought to light.” The Prime Minister backed this determination in the Lok Sabha on February 21.

  But the MPs, powered by Guha’s dynamism, would not give up. As a PMO note records, “44 MPs addressed a letter to the Prime Minister on August 7, requesting for the appointment of a fresh inquiry commission, consisting of retired Supreme Court judges and eminent public men, on the plea that a fresh probe [Jivanlal Kapur Commission] was being conducted in regard to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi”.

  The Government’s resolve in not reopening the Bose case began to shake with the Congress party beginning to undergo the throes of a split. On 1 September 1969 LP Singh prepared another note for the Cabinet titled “Disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1945”.

  It presented to the ministers a linear, dismissive version of the case, running down Suresh Bose’s dissent and censoring references to the Russian angle and the new information from Taiwan.

  Government having accepted the findings of the [Shah Nawaz] committee, have taken the position that unless fresh evidence or new facts were brought to light a further inquiry was not warranted. Rumours about Netaji’s survival and whereabouts etc. have cropped up repeatedly. Each of these, whenever brought to Government’s notice, has been investigated and generally found to be baseless. In 1962, rumour was spread that the sanyasi of Shaulmari ashram was in fact Netaji.

  …Another claim made by Dr SN Sinha that Netaji was incarcerated in Cell No 46 of the Yakutusk prison in Siberia has not been corroborated by any tangible evidence.

  Actually, no worthwhile inquiry had been made by the Government to verify Sinha’s allegation. While there was some correspondence with the Indian embassy in Moscow, the embassy never took up the Bose issue with the Soviet government.

  The Prime Minister’s Secretariat too outlined the issue in a note along the same lines, trotting out that Bose had no plan at all to go to the USSR. According to the note, prepared by Joint Secretary VP Marwaha, Bose had “left Bangkok on t
he 17th August, 1945 and reached Saigon from where he, along with his colleague Col Habibur Rahman was picked up in a Japanese Air Force bomber for being carried to Tokyo”. The note also foretold the outcome of the Cabinet deliberations:

  Any decision to order a re-inquiry would go against Government’s repeated stand in the time of three Prime Ministers, turning down such a demand. It will also have the demerit of raising an altogether new excitement over this issue which is believed to be dead except by some followers of Netaji like Samar Guha, with whom it is obviously an obsession. In the circumstances, it might not therefore be considered desirable to set up a fresh commission of inquiry into Netaji’s death. If, however, a decision is taken otherwise, the proposed commission should consist of a single judge of the Supreme Court.

  Another PM Secretariat noting dated 27 September 1969 recorded that “the matter was considered by the Cabinet at its meeting held on September 5. It was appreciated that as a number of MPs were insistent that a further probe into the cause of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s death was necessary, it would not be possible to withstand the pressure.... It was decided that no inquiry would be made now. If there is a consistent demand from a large section of Parliament, the matter can be brought up later”.

  Further, in a minute taken by the Cabinet Secretary on September 5, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi herself observed:

  After much discussion, as far as I remember, the final decision was not to go further with the inquiry. My personal view is that we might explain the position to the MPs who have signed. I doubt if many will support Shri Samar Guha once the position is made clear to them. However, if there is a consistent demand, we may consider having the matter informally examined by a competent and impartial person.

  Indira Gandhi had misjudged the MPs’resolve. First Mulka Govinda Reddy wrote to her that the demand for a new inquiry had the support of about 2/3rd Members of Parliament. Then an attempt by the Home Minister to explain the official position to the MPs in a meeting convened on 5 December 1969 backfired.

  The Home Minister spoke first; he presented the official line to a group of MPs comprising Mulka Govinda Reddy, Samar Guha, SN Dwivedi, Balraj Madhok, SM Joshi, Amiya Nath Bose, Bakar Ali Mirza, KL Gupta, Tridib Chaudhuri, Era Sozhiyan, Shasi Bhushan and future Lok Sabha Speaker Rabi Ray. The first speaker to articulate the MPs’ views was Amiya Nath Bose. Subhas Bose’s favourite nephew actually stole the Home Minister’s thunder with his exposition of the case. He recalled that Justice Radha Binod Pal had learnt from an American colleague on the International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo that “the finding of the intelligence party which went from General McArthur’s headquarters was that the evidence regarding the air crash was inconclusive”.

  According to the minutes of the meeting kept in a secret file, Amiya Nath made a stunning disclosure that Alfred Wagg, the American scribe who had made on-the-spot enquiry in Taiwan in 1945, “had told Gandhiji in his presence that the photograph of the damaged aircraft which was reported to have crashed in Taihoku airport could not have been taken in Taihoku airport”.

  Amiya disclosed that “it was on the basis of conversations with this war correspondent that Gandhiji made a statement that Netaji Bose was alive”. He countered the government logic that there was no fresh evidence to warrant a further inquiry saying “there were certain materials in the custody of the Government of India which were not placed before the Shah Nawaz Committee” and, therefore, “it should be treated not so much as a question of fresh evidence, but as the need for a fresh inquiry into the evidence available”.

  The Home Minister was rendered speechless. In March 1970 some ministers pointed out during a Cabinet meeting that the “Government should not have given the impression that it was against a fresh inquiry when millions of people were interested” in knowing what had happened to Bose and that the refusal to inquire into the matter was creating an “impression among some people that there was something to hide”. [7] Consequently, on 11 July 1970 orders were issued for the formation of a one-man commission. Nine months later, a former Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court took over as its chairman.

  GD Khosla was a newsmaker in his own right. He had graduated from Cambridge and excelled in the judicial branch of the ICS. Seen from the eyes of his best friend Khushwant Singh, the writer, Khosla used to be an archetypal brown sahib, who “made it a point to wear a dinner jacket when he sat down to dine”. [8] As a judge, Khosla had already earned a footnote in history as the sentencing judge in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case.

  Beginning 1947, when he moved from Lahore to Shimla, Khosla’s another talent came to light. He was commissioned by the Government to explain the Indian view of bloody communal riots following the partition of India. The result was Stern Reckoning, his first book, his first book, which continues to shocks readers with its graphic description of the darkest period of modern Indian history. Khushwant Singh thought Khosla justified as “legitimate retaliation” the Hindu-Sikh violence against the Muslims. “I was not aware of the anger that he harboured in his person,” [9] he wrote of the negative trait in his friend’s personality. The most infamous instance of this anger spewing out occurred soon after Khosla retired from the Punjab High Court in 1961. Denied ceremonial send-off by the Bar, Khosla gave vent to his frustration by writing a snide newspaper article titled “The snake: A fable for grown-ups”. On target were the unassuming Advocate General of the state SM Sikri and his wife.

  Cambridge-educated Sikri asked Khosla to make amends but he refused. Then, on the advice of Attorney General of India MC Setalvad—grandfather of activist Teesta Setalvad—Sikri filed a criminal complaint against Khosla. The former judge reacted by escaping to London. It was a question of his honour, so Sikri wouldn’t give up the chase. “Eventually, Khosla did apologise publicly and the criminal complaint was withdrawn” [10] by Sikri in larger interest of the judiciary. Just the sort of conduct you would expect from a man who became the Chief Justice of India in 1971.

  Post-retirement Khosla became a full-time writer, wielding his pen with equal ease with fiction, history, travelogue and mythology interpreted for the modern times. His writing style earned him many admirers, one of them being LK Advani. Above all, Khosla got to share “his literary interests with Jawaharlal Nehru at Manali where they spent a good deal of time together trekking through the forests and hills”. [11] The Prime Minister wrote the foreword for one of his books.

  For the proverbial fly in the ointment was the backdrop of a public slight Khosla had endured during his only meeting with Subhas Bose in London in the early 1920s, when both were young ICS aspirants. Young Khosla happened to be passing by when Bose was telling fellow Indian students of his decision to quit the heaven-born service. Khosla thought there was nothing unpatriotic in Indians substituting Englishmen in the service. Bose, in Khosla’s own words, gave him “a withering look of contempt”. [12] Writing in 2001, historian VN Datta commented that this experience “was bound to rankle in Khosla’s heart”. [13]

  Khosla was a thorough professional in conducting commissions of inquiry, having previously headed a dozen or so—the maximum by any judge in independent India. His last assignment before taking up the Bose probe was about film censorship. On 14 October 1970 Justice Khosla called a press conference and made a string of promises. He said he would approach the governments of the UK, USA, Soviet Union, Japan and Taiwan for evidence. He would not keep all of them.

  A public spat consumed the commission’s opening session in Delhi’s Vigyan Bhawan two days later. It looked as though a post-mortem of the Netaji Inquiry Committee was underway. A grim-looking Shah Nawaz Khan—the first witness before the Khosla Commission—said he should be “hanged in public” if it was proved that he had “played a fraud on the nation”. “Yes, you are a traitor to Netaji Bose,” [14] Amiya Bose stood up and shouted. Afterwards, his equally angry uncle Suresh characterised Shah Nawaz, once so dear to him and his children, as “a shining example of an unparallelled loyalty to
Nehru”. “He has been a traitor to Netaji by supporting Prime Minister Nehru in his report that Netaji had died which was clearly against the oral and documentary evidence adduced and for which he was awarded.” [15]

  In his counter-charge, Shah Nawaz told the commission that Suresh Bose had “appended a dissenting report relating to Netaji’s death, apparently ‘under family pressure’ to keep the issue alive for political reasons”. He claimed that Nehru had nothing to do with his committee’s skipping a visit to Taiwan. “The Government of India did not come in the way at all,” he averred. [16] Suresh Bose did not agree. He was quoted by the Times of India on 6 November 1970 telling the commission that Shah Nawaz had himself “told him that there was no diplomatic difficulty in visiting Taihoku, the Prime Minister, Mr Nehru, did not like it”.

  The former Prime Minister’s handling of the matter was just one among a host of contentious issues in the controversy that Khosla was to adjudicate on under the Commission of Inquiry Act. Lawyers representing different parties—the national committee, Forward Bloc, Bose family etc.—were eager to cross-examine the witnesses, especially Habibur Rahman. They could even ask for the summoning of official files and have relevant documents brought on record as exhibits. Over the last decade several claims of Bose sightings had been made—Khosla was to make a sense of it all. Shaulmari sadhu had still not been forgotten and the war criminal controversy was refusing to die out.

  Justice Khosla was suave in his public appearances. He allowed the witnesses to indulge in themselves. The commission worked in open sessions and its hearings in India were attended by several newspaper representatives. Sensational claims of the witnesses and reasonable-sounding announcements by Khosla made headlines in major dailies. The air was positive and it appeared that the time had come for a settlement. At least Suresh Bose believed that and so did the lawyers in the initial phase of the commission’s inquiry. Three-and-a-half years later, Suresh Bose was dead and so were all hopes of a fair deal. As Khosla finalised his report, the lawyers and deponents alike were pessimistic and anticipating a repeat of 1956.