India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  On receiving the above letter, the MEA lobbed it into the PMO’s court, the MHA clammed up and the PMO sent a reply which Justice Mukherjee described as “not compatible” with what had been asked for. The reply, he noted, “adduces no cogent reason for their inability to send their documents called for by the commission”. In plain English, the PMO was just waffling.

  Justice Mukherjee was all the more puzzled by the PMO and Cabinet Secretariat making contradictory statements. The PMO Director stated that the file 12(226)/56-PM contained agenda paper/Cabinet decision regarding its destruction, and it could be obtained from the Cabinet Secretariat “since records of Cabinet proceedings are kept permanently” there.

  But a Home Ministry affidavit speaking for the Cabinet Secretariat claimed that the Secretariat was not having in its possession any files/papers concerning Bose’s fate. Mukherjee doubted if the file was indeed destroyed.

  The curious case of missing and destroyed Bose records requires some elaboration. Is it possible for the Intelligence Bureau to destroy certain records after they have been considered as evidence by the Khosla Commission? Why are the pictures of the plane wreck in Taipei—a vital “evidence” of Bose’s “death”—not to be found in the secured government vaults today? Is it because that putting them to scrutiny will help demolish the myth of the air crash? How could the Ministry of External Affairs tell the Mukherjee Commission that it can’t find “any documents of records or files relating either to the proceedings of the Shah Nawaz Committee or the exhibits/records/documents filed before it”. [4]

  One standard excuse in all these cases would be that it is hard to locate 50 or 60-year-old records. Such a response would float easily on the waves of cynicism that surround us. “Ya, they’re right. Such old papers are bound to get lost.”

  A small human interest story about a military ruler is in order here. As former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf embarked on his India visit in April 2005, his hosts scurried to give him one gift he would always cherish—the record of his birth. When he was born in pre-partition India, Musharraf was a nobody, born in a family that had nothing special about it. And yet there was the great Indian hope that records pertaining to his birth would be found. So, nudged by the PMO, half a dozen Delhi government employees were put on the search for relevant entries in bulky 12 ledgers kept in New Delhi Municipal Council’s birth and deaths certification office. A spokesman later proudly informed the media that the NDMC “has all records from 1917 intact”. [5]

  Thanks to such meticulous record keeping, Dr Manmohan Singh was able to present General Musharraf and his siblings' birth registration records when he arrived in Delhi. Now, if the NDMC is maintaining intact all and sundry records concerning ordinary mortals born since 1917, how can you force it down your gullet that many classified Bose records maintained by the central government have gone missing or that they were destroyed to “lighten the burden of the record rooms”?

  I remember a seasoned IPS officer telling me derisively that “the PMO is not your newspaper’s office!” after I bounced it off to him that many Subhas Bose-related records from the highest office in the land had vanished. “You can’t saunter in there just like that, talk to anyone on anything, bring in anything and go out with anything! How can classified records disappear?” the officer moved his head sideways dismissively.

  Mine moved approvingly. I could see the logic behind his barb even with a scant knowledge of official procedures. This is elementary. Going by the Manual of Official Procedure, which has been in force for the last many decades, official records/files in India are divided into three basic categories. Of these the first two comprise records “fit for permanent preservation”. Category A records have value either for administrative purposes or their historical importance. Overlapping with it are Category B records—those of historical importance specifically. This is where one can safely put the Bose records.

  The manual clearly mentions that this category includes “papers relating to a well-known public or international event or cause célèbre, or to other events which gave rise to interest or controversy on the national plane”. [6] Both the Category A and B records are required by the rules to be reviewed 25 years after their creation. They are sent to the National Archives in case they are no longer required to be kept classified.

  Now what is classified information? It is what the Government has developed or received confidentially and has decided to keep out of public domain for the larger public good. Any record, file, tape, DVD etc. containing classified information is given one of the three security markings to commensurate with the damage its unauthorised disclosure will cause to India’s interests. When it is determined that the damage could be “exceptionally grave”, the file is stamped “Top Secret”. “Secret” corresponds to “serious damage” and “Confidential” to “damage” to national interest.

  Consequently, any classified information is not made public by the Government unless there is some pressing situation. Unofficially though, it happens all the time through the leaks. Remember the recent controversy about the possibility of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s office having been bugged till it was ruled out by the Intelligence Bureau? The IB inquiry was so secretive that even the Home Minister had no idea about it till he picked up the Indian Express. But for the “sources” sharing secret information and records with the journalists, the fourth pillar of democracy would collapse.

  One can question the justification of classifying a particular file under any of the three heads, but when a file has been stamped as such, it is handled, processed, stored and even destroyed with utmost care according to well laid down rules by officials who have the legitimate “need to know” to complete duties assigned to them by their superiors. These rules are framed by the Ministry of Home Affairs and detailed in the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions, which itself is a classified record. Surely our Government is dead serious about secret records it holds.

  To shatter a general perception about government record rooms, the Ministry of Home Affairs maintains the bulk of classified records, including the Bose records, in its custody in a well-guarded, probably underground, location in the North Block. It is known to the officials, but not too many journalists, as “T-Branch” or simply “Treasury”. The MEA has a section called NGO—an abbreviation for unlovely term Not to Go Out of the office—under the charge of Director (CNV), who is usually a Joint Secretary. Many years back a project was started to scan the NGO files from 1949 onwards.

  A little bird told me that the most sensitive among the Indian records are those which are under the personal custody of the Prime Minister. It sounds like the Indian version of what the CIA calls Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and American conspiracy theorists think is “Above Top Secret” information. Whatever it is called in India, it ensures absolute secrecy with no chances of a treacherous top official or minister laying his hand on it. Keeping records in the PM’s personal custody, his official residence or elsewhere, creates “safe houses” for storing information whose very existence cannot be revealed by the PM to anyone in supreme national interest.

  Sometimes to even admit the existence of a record would mean to give away the secret to be protected. For argument’s sake, and to stretch my imagination, suppose the PMO were to tell the Mukherjee Commission that the Prime Minister had the custody of a record containing the minutes of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s meeting with Subhas Bose at an undisclosed location, that very admission would have rendered the existence of the commission redundant, even if the Government were to add that the record couldn’t be declassified in national interest.

  When a court, commission of inquiry or even RTI applicant asks for a specific record, it is looked for in the PMO record room. No one can ask what is there in the PM's personal chamber or at his official residence. The intelligence agencies function beyond the peripheries of law and nothing stops the PM from entrusting them with the safekeeping of highly sensitive information. T
he Intelligence Bureau's archive is not located in either North Block or its main office adjoining a prominent 5-star hotel in New Delhi. The PMO’s record room in the South Block has nearly 29 thousand classified files at present. There is no way to know how many more are kept in the PM’s residence or elsewhere, and in what format—paper, electronic or whatever.

  I do not expect anyone will say this publicly, but there are people so prejudiced, so rabidly opinionated that they would argue in private that records relating to Bose’s death and other connected matters are not worthy of preservation for it would be a “useless and wasteful exercise” for a “poor country like ours”, which has many other, far more important things to pay attention to.

  To expose the nonsensicality behind such utterances, allow me to present to you a bouquet of notings taken from still secret files relating to Subhas Bose. What you see now was made by the late JN Dixit in 1965. Then a First Secretary at the Embassy of India in Japan, he saw a file detailing official account of Bose’s death, missing INA treasure etc. and commented:

  In case the would-be Foreign Secretary and National Security Adviser Dixit’s “inexperience” in 1965 is an issue for those who won’t agree come what may, here’s in the fine print what the Ambassador has penned below Dixit’s noting: “These papers are interesting and of considerable historical value.”

  Exemplifying that the classified files are shared strictly on the "need to know" principle is a Shah Nawaz Committee-era noting by a MEA Deputy Secretary. AJ Kidwai writes on 29 February 1956:

  I have shown all the material in the file of the section regarding the circumstances of Netaji Bose’s alleged death to Shri Shah Nawaz Khan but I have not shown the NGO files to him yet… There is a long memorandum received from the Japanese about the circumstances of Netaji’s death. This I have shown to General Shah Nawaz and Deputy Minister. FS [Foreign Secretary] has directed that it should be shown to all the members of the Bose inquiry committee.

  The Foreign Secretary under discussion on his part observed secrecy as a fetish. In a Top Secret letter to Bengal Chief Minister Dr BC Roy on 11 February 1956, Subimal Dutt could hardly conceal it:

  I send herewith, for your personal information, a copy of a note which the Japanese foreign office has handed to our Ambassador in Tokyo on the circumstances relating to the death of Netaji Subhas Bose. It is our intention to place the report before the committee which we shall be sending out shortly. Meantime, we shall be grateful if the secrecy of the document is preserved.

  When classified files move, their movements are duly noted at every stage. So strict is the procedure that even if a file changes hand in the room of Cabinet minister, the movment is recorded by the official parting with it. Let’s pick a more recent example. An MEA officer hands over a TS (Top Secret) file in the room of External Affairs Minister (EAM) Pranab Mukherjee and doesn’t forget to put down the whole thing in writing.

  The officer had better note it down and the CNV Director had to countersign it. For if the file had been misplaced by the OSD or anyone else for any unforeseeable reason, the officer would have had it. If any classified file or paper were to get out of a government office without proper permission, or go missing or stolen, it would quite naturally pose serious implications for national security. Therefore, it can lead to severe consequence for the persons responsible. The office may even lodge an FIR with the police.

  The destruction of classified records too is done according to set procedures. An official just can't tear them apart and throw the parts in a bin. When a copy of a notice—just the notice—concerning a Top Secret note for the Cabinet on Bose's fate was destroyed in the 1990s in the presence of an Under Secretary from the NGO section, due care was taken to mention how it was destroyed.

  Copy No 2 of the notice bearing…No 44/T/95 NGO dt 13.2.95 (Secy’s copy) has been destroyed by shredding in the presence of US (NGO).

  Thus, when it comes to classified records, things are as professionally managed in India as in the developed nations. The Government of India has a proper approach towards storing, moving and destroying classified files, including those concerning Subhas Bose. With that being the true state of affairs, it can be easily inferred that the disappearance and destruction of Bose-related records could only be the result of a conspiracy hatched by those within the Government.

  Moreover, I can vouch from my personal experience that the highest office in the land is still clutching several secret files on Bose close to its chest. In October 2006, I requested the Prime Minister’s Office under the RTI Act to confirm if it was holding classified records/materials on Subhas Bose, and if yes, provide me the lists of classified and unclassified files. I also enquired whether the PMO had any plan to transfer the Bose records to the National Archives. In its reply, the PMO sidestepped the issue of classified records and furnished a list of 11 unclassified files—six of which related to the disappearance controversy—and stated that “an exercise was underway to review classified files held by PMO for declassification and on declassification such files would be sent to National Archives”. If the Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for “longest-running government review of files”, here is a chance for Netaji’s admirers to get his name there.

  I brought the silence of the PMO on the list of classified files to the notice of the Appellate Authority in the PMO. I was told in December 2006 that my appeal had been “carefully considered” and on “verification of the classified files held by PMO, it is held that their disclosure will prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries”.

  In January 2007, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah heard arguments of then PMO Director and mine and decided to personally vet the list of files. In February, Habibullah was shown a list containing titles and filing numbers of 35 classified files of which seven were “Top Secret”; three were “Confidential” and the rest “Secret”. Two more files were as good as secret for they were still lying in the PMO despite having been declassified.

  Habibullah, a former top PMO official himself, directed the release of a truncated list containing details of 31 files, accepting the PMO’s contention that disclosing the titles of four files having references to foreign states would impact India’s relations with those foreign states. [7]

  And, for more than the last three years, Chandrachur has been hitting his head against the wall called Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the records/materials used as exhibits by the Mukherjee Commission. When we had first approached the MHA seeking exhibits of the Shah Nawaz Committee and Khosla Commission, the ministry feigned ignorance about them for neither the committee nor the commission had appended the list of exhibits with their reports. Another grand logic was that it was difficult to locate old records.

  Such excuses were not going to wash when Chandrachur filed request for the Mukherjee exhibits. This commission had been wound up only in 2005 and thereafter all the material collected by it, including the papers received from the Government, were properly packed in steel containers and sent to the MHA. Therefore, locating these records was as easy a task as asking the concerned official to pick out records listed on the exhibit list provided at the end of the commission report.

  Still, we are yet to get all the exhibits, though Chandrachur has managed to get more than 20,000 pages from the MHA. For all of you Bose mystery buffs out there, please be informed that the MHA is a veritable Aladdin’s Cave! But the magic lamp isn’t there.

  Before moving on to my experiences with the foreign authorities, I would do better to outline those of Justice Mukherjee. His commission made attempts to access still classified or inaccessible information held in the UK, the USA and Taiwan.

  The former judge visited London and Taipei and was quite pleased with the way he was treated there. While in London, thanks to House of Lords member Peter Archer, Mukherjee came to know about the existence of some classified records. In late September 2001 Archer met Alexander Irvine, the then Lord Chancellor, and briefed him about the case
. According to the UK’s Public Records Act of 1958, the Keeper of Public Records, under whom the National Archives functions, is answerable to the Lord Chancellor On 1 December 2001, Irvine wrote to Archer that “all the material on Subhas Chandra Bose, previously retained by the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has been passed to the Public Record Office and is open for public inspection”. He added that

  a few relevant papers from the files of the intelligence and security agencies are retained by those agencies, with my approval; however, these papers do not contain any additional information relating to Subhas Chandra Bose’s death that is not available at the Public Record Office or the British Library. They are retained as a matter of principle, because the peacetime file of intelligence and security agencies are not released, rather than because of their particular content. [8]

  At the close of his letter, the Lord Chancellor drew Archer’s attention to two recently declassified files, one of which related to the 1956 inquiry in Taiwan, which Justice Mukherjee was going to find immensely useful.

  “I am sorry it has taken so long to obtain an answer from the Lord Chancellor to our request,” Archer then wrote to Mukherjee as he forwarded him the chancellor’s letter. He informed the judge that he was not hopeful that the records still held classified could be made available to him. “If the British government were minded to dissimulate, they need not have told us of their existence. For myself, I accept the assurance that they do not contain any information which is not available already. If I can assist further, please let me know.” [9]