India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  Towards the end of his life, Guha, lamented that he had in his naïvety allowed himself to be trapped by his political opponents, who knew of his secret belief that Bose was alive and in India in disguise as a holy man. This was the same holy man to whom “Sukrit” had provided the dope about Khosla’s inquiry. The holy man was virtually unseen, forever holed up in a room, and had never been caught on camera by anyone in India.

  When the first-ever attempt to seek the judiciary’s intervention into the Bose mystery was made in July 1984, neither public nor media paid any attention to it. Through his writ petition in the Rajasthan High Court, Bose admirer Nand Lal Sharma prayed for a judicial inquiry. To make his case, Sharma attached a few documents along with his application and also filed an application seeking documents he wanted the Foreign Secretary to produce.

  The court ordered the Standing Counsel for the Union of India on 15 March 1985 and “directed to file reply of the writ petition within one month”. On 8 May 1985, the counsel prayed for time and the case was fixed for hearing in July. In the meanwhile, the judge hearing the matter, Justice SN Bhargava, moved to another Bench “and the case was not listed before any other Bench in spite of application for early hearing filed by the petitioner”. Justice Bhargava returned to the Jaipur Bench after some time to find that “no reply was filed by either the State of Rajasthan or the Union of India”. The government counsel submitted that he had received no instructions from the Ministry of External Affairs. The case was then ordered to be put up in November 1985, when the government counsel told the court that he had still not received any word from the government “in spite of written communication”.

  The case was taken up finally for arguments on 4 December 1985. This time too both the government counsel repeated the same story and the petitioner was heard ex-parte. In his 18 January 1985 order, Justice Bhargava took the Government to task for not caring “to file any reply of the writ petition and produce relevant material before this court”. The judge felt that “either because the Union of India is indifferent to this question...or the Government of India itself is not satisfied with the reports of the two commissions and, therefore, does not want to contest the writ petition which has been filed for ordering a fresh inquiry into the disappearance of Netaji”. The court directed Sharma to make his case before the Government and asked the authorities to “come to a definite conclusion”. The Government was given six months “to examine the whole matter afresh with open mind...before coming to a prima facie decision as to whether fresh commission is necessary or not”.

  A 1987 memo from the Joint Secretary (Coordination Division) in a secret file later said that no action was taken by the External Affairs Ministry because petitioner Sharma was “no longer in this world”, having died in July 1986. In the intervening one-and-a-half years, all that the Government could do was to touch base with Nand Lal telephonically.

  Around the same time, in September 1985, the news of the death of the unseen holy man’s passing away in Faizabad created a stir in the state of Uttar Pradesh for he was identified as Subhas Bose by his local followers and local media. For one, the Saptahik Sahara, then edited by Subrato Roy Sahara himself, in its 24-30 November 1985 edition concluded after an intense investigation that it was “quite possible” that the holy man was Bose. Letters of Samar Guha and Sunil Gupta were found from his residence. He was the man Guha had in mind when he swore in Parliament that Bose was alive.

  It was also revealed that after the picture controversy of 1979—when Bose at 82 would have been a year younger to incumbent Prime Minister Desai—the holy man severed links from all his followers in Bengal. For months he remained incommunicado and he would never ever allow Guha to contact him again. A few months later, his closest follower, one Dr Pabitra Mohan Roy of Kolkata renewed the contact by writing to him again. He begged for forgiveness, holding himself responsible for not been able to stop Guha in time, and reaffirmed his allegiance to the holy man in a letter written in Bangla:

  I wish to say something—your own words—‘You are my intelligence officer—without fear or favour must act’. Now allow me to begin in a similar way. Keeping in mind Ma Kali—Deshmata—Bangajanani—Bharatmata [Mother India] and your feet, I wanted to tell you that just like in the past, I still have the same unflinching faith and love-trust; unwavering obedience; total dedication and loyalty towards you…. [Translated from Bangla. Highlighted words appear in English in the letter]

  Interesting words were these because Pabitra Mohan Roy was a staunch follower of Subhas Bose. A copy of his 1980 Bangla book Netajeer secret service (Netaji’s secret service), which he had dedicated to the holy man, contained some snippets from his own extraordinary life. Pabitra had started out as a volunteer of underground revolutionary group Anushilan Samity, and then he went missing. “We had been inspired by Netaji’s ideals and left our wives and families and ventured out so far,” [97] he wrote in his book. Pabitra, who had first met Bose in 1933, returned to India 12 years later in 1943 as a daring INA secret service officer.

  A Japanese submarine dropped Americk Singh Gill, T Mukherjee, Mahindra Singh and him at Puri coast. They arrived in Kolkata to a cold reception. “Still I would say, in that darkness, it was Netaji’s words which inspired us to go it alone,” [98] Pabitra, in picture, wrote.

  His mission was doomed. T Mukherjee betrayed the group. Mohindra Singh was caught in Mumbai and tortured until he gave out the whereabouts of others. Americk and Pabitra were arrested. Also arrested along with them were the only people who had come to their assistance. Suresh Bose’s daughter Amita, her husband Haridas Mitra and revolutionary Jyotish Chandra Bose. The fast track trial under the Enemy Agents Ordinance against Pabitra, Americk and Haridas Mitra commenced in May 1945 and by June end their execution orders were out. However, in November the death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, “thanks to the efforts of Mrs Mitra, who lobbied Mahatma Gandhi, who in turn interceded with Lord Wavell”. [99]

  Pabitra was eventually released when all other INA men and women had to be set free under public pressure. Americk won his freedom. He fled from the custody, ran through Kolkata’s labyrinthine lanes while his handcuffs were on, went out of India and lived long as a prosperous man. Pabitra did not do badly either. He joined politics and was elected as an MLA in 1957 on PSP ticket. Then, suddenly he withdrew from the public life and went back to his secret service ways for the holy man he thought was Bose. In 1979, Pabitra sent the holy man a blow-by-blow account of the fake photo controversy.

  Pabitra’s letter said that there was a conspiracy to finish off Guha’s political career. He had been given the fake picture by some deceased INA veteran’s wife and despite reservations Guha fell for it. The explanation did not stop the holy man from expelling Guha from his close circle of disciples. Guha lived in agony till his death as a forgotten man in Kolkata in 2002.

  “If he doesn’t want to come out, what can I do,” Guha bemoaned once. His book ran into many editions, the last one being in 1997. When it was re-released in 1983, Morarji Desai made a rare public appearance after his humiliating ouster as Prime Minister in 1979.

  At the book release venue in Mumbai, the former PM appeared to be in two minds. He said he did not think Bose as alive after 1945. “Had Netaji been alive he would have definitely come to the country…No one else would have become the leader of the nation if he had come to India.” Then he said “he did not like to have a controversy about Netaji whether he was dead or alive. There was, however, a story that he was alive and had taken sanyas”. [100]

  GD Khosla too was around at that time. Obviously he did not care too much about the talks of Bose being alive. His 1985 lookback at his long, eventful life—Memory’s gay chariot—contained a passing remark that he thought nothing of what the Morarji government did to his report when it was there “for a brief period”.

  In post-Netaji commission years, Khosla kept himself busy as first president of the Authors’ Guild of India. He passed his last y
ears as a much contented man, residing at a locality where now Delhi’s super rich live. His wife outlived him and his children did well in life—one son became an ambassador, another a top civil servant and youngest a leading architect. “GD” for his friends, Gopal Das Khosla remained a part of Delhi’s high society almost right up to his death in 1996, when he was 95. He lived a life the kind of which Frank Sinatra had crooned in “My way”—especially the stanza about biting off more than what he could chew and then spitting it all out.

  5. A proper inquiry at last

  A blessing in disguise brought Subhas Chandra Bose back in national spotlight in the early 1990s. For all those years the Government did not think Bose deserved to be placed on a high pedestal, and suddenly India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna was proposed to be conferred on him. Quite possibly, the Narasimha Rao government aimed at downing two targets with one shot. A glittering ceremony at the Rashtrapti Bhavan attended by Bose’s near and dear ones would have helped the Congress blunt the charges of the party’s hostility towards him. Then, riding high on the wave of sentiments, the Government could have set out to exorcise the ghost of disappearance mystery. Perhaps this was the reason why the official communication of 22 January 1992 stated that Bose was being given the award “posthumously”.

  Acceptance of the award by the Bose family would have amounted to their agreeing with the official version of his death. This in turn would have initiated the process to bring the Renkoji remains to India as Bose’s ashes. The masterstroke, however, backfired and started a different chain of events which led to the setting up of a fresh inquiry. To Bose’s followers and family members, the conferment of the Bharat Ratna merely opened old wounds. Injustices done to him, his followers and their legacy could not be whitewashed by one belated gesture. The outrage was universal and vitriolic. Articulating the family view, Dr Anita Pfaff said that her father “should have been one of the first to receive it!” [1]

  But how could Bose be assumed dead when there was no indisputable evidence for it? Raising this point was lawyer Bijan Ghosh. He prayed before the Calcutta High Court that the Government must revoke the award. Additionally, Bijan sought that the Government should account for Bose’s fate, bring him home if he is alive and if dead "furnish full particulars of...the place and manner of disposal of his mortal remains”. [2]

  The national relevance of his writ petition made the court refer it to the Supreme Court in 1993. Meanwhile, the Government got jittery and went back on its decision to confer the title on Bose. The case continued in the apex court for four years with eminent lawyer Fali Nariman giving some support to Ghosh. The 1997 order of the Bench comprising Justices Sujata Manohar and GB Pattanaik agreed with the Government view that “the matter was closed in the sense that no further steps were taken for the conferment” of the title. The judgment also observed that the court need not

  go into the question whether the word "posthumously” has been justifiably used in the press communiqué or the wider question whether there is enough material available for reaching the conclusion that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died either in the air crash of 18 August, 1945 or at any time thereafter. This is a wider issue on which undoubtedly in future, as in past, there will be divergent views. [3]

  Bijan felt dejected for not been able to draw the Supreme Court’s attention to the disappearance and yet by the time the order came, the mystery had started making headlines once again. Russian-speaking Dr Purabi Roy, a professor at Kolkata’s Jadavpore University and widow of late Communist leader Kalyan Shankar Roy, son of Bose’s one-time adversary Kiran Shankar Roy, brought home the message that for the first time the Russians themselves were dropping the hints.

  In October 1996, Dr Roy and her Russian journalist friend arranged a meeting between Forward Bloc leaders Chitta Basu and Jayanta Roy on one side and on the other Alexander Kolesnikov, an army veteran turned academic, from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. In the lobby of Moscow’s President Hotel, Kolesnikov gave Basu written details of an eye-popping classified Russian record purportedly showing “the minutes of a 1946 discussion among Soviet Politburo members Voroshilov, Vyshinski, Mikoyan and Molotov. They were discussing whether Bose should be allowed to stay in the Soviet Union”. [4] Kolesnikov advised that the Indian government should seek access to the Russian archives. This idea was to become the leitmotif of Dr Roy’s big push.

  In January 1997, Kolesnikov wrote a stirring essay titled “Destiny and death of Chandra Bose” in the Russian newspaper Patriot. He called Bose’s disappearance “a mysterious point in Soviet-Indian relations” and wrote that “there was no definite reply from the Soviet side to the repeated statements that Bose remained alive and he was in the USSR”. [5] Strangely, Chitta Basu did not make his note public on his return to India. Maybe, like any politician, he was waiting for the right occasion. It never came. He died during a train journey in 1997. Later, a search for Kolesnikov’s note in his belongings yielded nothing.

  Plucky Dr Roy battled on, making her case through media: “I need only a letter from the Government requesting the Russian authorities to allow me to go through classified documents kept in different archives.” [6] There was no chance of the Government issuing any such letter. A 1995 Top Secret note for the Union Cabinet prepared by then Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah with the approval of Home Minister SB Chavan gave away the Government’s closed mind on the issue. The Committee of Secretaries (CoS) comprising Cabinet, Home, Foreign, Defence, Finance Secretaries averred that

  there seems to be no scope for doubt that he died in the air crash of 18th August, 1945 at Taihoku. Government of India has already accepted this position. There is no evidence whatsoever to the contrary. If a few individuals/organisations have a different view, they seem to be guided more by sentimentality rather than by any rational consideration.

  The year 1997 incidently marked the 50th anniversary of Indian independence as well as the 100th since Bose’s birth. On January 23 Bose’s statue was unveiled in the courtyard of Parliament in the presence of Prime Minister Deve Gowda. The event prompted the New York Times to comment that “the adulation heaped” on Bose “involved doctrinal gymnastics by several of India’s leading political parties that had previously condemned” him and was indicative that India had finally “officially rehabilitated” Bose. [7]

  Not yet. Somewhere in the background, the age-old hostility was still lurking. It came to fore the same day at a function in the Red Fort when Atal Bihari Vajpayee stood up to speak his mind. The United Front government, whose survival depended upon the Congress party, appeared to have got some inkling of what Vajpayee was going to say. The master orator could not be silenced, so his live TV speech was censored as he began dwelling on Bose’s ouster from the Congress. Discerning viewers realised in no time that there was more to the “transmission failure”. The next day, the Hindustan Times through its editorial “A Goebbels in DD” asked the Government to apologise.

  In August a self-defeating move was made by Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, otherwise an admirer of Bose. His proposal to bring the Renkoji ashes to India set off another round of legal battle. It was going to be decisive this time. Ashim Kumar Ganguly pleaded before the Calcutta High Court in his writ petition that “without there being a conclusive proof” India could not accept that Bose had died in Taiwan. Chief Justice Prabha Shankar Mishra and Justice Barin Ghosh agreed and consequently directed on 7 April 1998 that “before accepting the ashes...as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the Government shall obtain full particulars and evidence and satisfy itself about the genuineness of the claim”. [8]

  The Government took a note of the order. The general impression that the higher-ups don’t care much about “such an old and irrelevant issue” is a myth. Soon after the High Court order came out, the Director of Internal Security Division in the Ministry of Home Affairs informed the Prime Minister’s Office that “we have been pursuing this matter”. The ministry then sent a message to the government advo
cate through the Government’s most reliable courier—the Intelligence Bureau. Subsquently, the MHA informed the PMO about the court’s order.

  By April end, Justice Mishra and Justice B Bhattacharya had issued another, history-bending order over a similar but much elaborate petition filed by advocate Rudrajyoti Bhattacharjee at the behest of Sunil Krishna Gupta. The judges heard arguments of the government counsel and concluded that

  the official stand of the Government of India, thus, is that notwithstanding the reports of the inquiry committee and the commission of inquiry aforementioned, there are doubts as to the death of Netaji in the manner reports indicated and that there was/is a need to have further probe….

  Taking the next logical step, the court ordered what the Government ought to have done on its own much earlier:

  Respondents shall launch a vigorous inquiry in accordance with law by appointing, if necessary, a commission of inquiry as a special case for the purpose of giving an end to the controversy. [9]

  In April 1998 Atal Bihari Vajpayee had just begun his second innings as the Prime Minister of India. As the BJP-led government took its time to take a call, Bose’s kin, researchers and Forward Bloc leaders—Debabrata Biswas, Dr Purabi Roy, Subrata Bose, VP Saini and others—lobbied for fresh inquiry. “The findings (of a new commission) could prove damning for some senior leaders of the national movements in pre-Independence India,” [10] said Subrata, younger brother of Amiya Nath Bose, after emerging from a meeting with Home Minister LK Advani in August 1998. Mounting pressure on the Government was a Forward Bloc-sponsored resolution for a fresh inquiry in the West Bengal Assembly on 24 December 1998. Adopted unanimously, it said the people and scholars of India were still in dark and urged the Union Government to “make necessary arrangements for availability of records in and outside India”.