India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  Mukherjee wrote back: “Nonetheless, those papers in the retained files may, hopefully, furnish some materials regarding the alleged disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose and thereby remove all sorts of speculations and doubts in that regard. May I, therefore, request you to kindly impress upon Lord Irvine to give us an access to those retained papers.” [10] In May 2002 Archer wrote to Mukherjee that his “powers of persuasion have not secured their release” and advised that “there may be greater success if diplomatic representations were made between governments”. [11]

  In Delhi, Mukherjee requested External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha to take up the matter with the British government. The steps taken were not sufficient for the first truly non-Congress government. Vikas Swarup, the Counsellor (Political) at the Indian High Commission in London at that time—the celebrated Slumdog millionaire author of today’s—wrote to the head of India Section in the South Asia Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and got the same answer as Lord Archer had received.

  On Netaji’s issue, “the party with a difference” did not turn out to be much different after all. Sinha’s predecessor in the South Block was probably immersed deep in the thoughts of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and could not spare even one for Bose’s fate. When Lok Sabha MP Moinul Hassan Ahamed asked a question about Bose in Russia, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh did not tax himself much. On 1 March 2000 he parroted an answer which had been previously drafted for a Congress minister. Not a word here or there. A fine example of the continuity of official policy, no matter whichever dispensation is holding the reins of power.

  Justice Mukherjee made a push for accessing Bose-related records kept in the US archives, as well as those still classified. Subsequent official contacts brought out some bright ideas from the US side. Indians run out of them when Bose is involved. On 23 June 2003, Deputy Chief of Mission Albert Thibault advised the MEA that the commission could “select an Indian scholar or a graduate working in the United States to perform such research” [12] in NARA, the world’s largest archives. Taking a cue from Thibault’s letter, the commission requested the MEA to engage some suitable scholar in the US who, either “for the love of Netaji or some enumeration”, could pick out relevant records.

  I don’t know about love, but money talks. The ministry could have easily hired an expert researcher at the NARA as their contact details were available on the Maryland-based archive’s website. The commission repeatedly reminded the Government about finding a researcher in the US. And a wannabe superpower, would you believe, could not do this simple thing.

  The only relevant declassified records that eventually reached the commission came on the tip-off of former CBI Director SK Dutta—the seniormost former government servant ever to publicly reflect on the Bose mystery. I had the pleasure of prodding him to. Regarding the secret records in America, the MEA rested its case telling the commission that “classified documents of the US Government can be requisitioned under the US Freedom of Information Act only by giving specific details of the documents; and…this is a tardy and complicated process”. [13]

  The biggest complication was the lack of intention. A little later, I located two classified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) records sitting in Delhi with the help of Sarat Bose’s granddaughter Madhuri Bose-Gaylard. Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I sought copies of these two records. The agency turned the request down because the release was likely to harm the US interests. I appealed that they shouldbe released for the sake of Bose’s admirers world over, including in America, with necessary censorship of the names of agents and the method employed to collect information. The arguments that do not cut ice with our Government were accepted by the CIA. The two records were duly released and they showed that in 1950 rumours were in circulation at high levels in India that Subhas was alive, and probably in the USSR.

  I made another FOIA attempt to access more CIA-held information in view of a declassified, heavily redacted (sanitized) agency record California-based Friends of India Society International had obtained and sent to Indian newspapers in 1994. Hardly anyone back then cared to look at what it was, though it made quite an interesting reading, if nothing else.

  A memo dated 27 February 1964 from a Deputy Director of Security to a chief of some unknown section conveyed the assessment of an informant seeking an interview with the higher-ups in Washington, DC. The informant believed that "there now exists a strong possibility that Bose is leading the rebellious group undermining the current Nehru government".

  I did not trash this report out of hand—because intelligence reports are not based on bazaar gossips—but given its incredible content and the fact that the CIA regarded it as “unevaluated” information, the veracity of report was open to doubts. I sought to clear them through an FOIA appeal to the agency.

  To get a quick answer, I limited its scope to the “finished intelligence reports”. That is the class of high-end information used for national-level policy deliberations by the US policymakers. The idea was that if this or any other reports were taken seriously, they might have been processed further to create finished intelligence reports. But it seems they were not. The agency processed the request under the provisions of the FOIA and the CIA Information Act and “did not locate any records”, that is finished intelligence reports, on Subhas Bose created between 1960 and 1970.

  The approaches I made to different British ministries under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act yielded similar results. Both the British Cabinet Office, which includes the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) informed that they were not holding any record with any bearing on the fate of Bose. The Ministry of Defence also stated that it “does not hold the information you require; documentation of that age that has survived is held at the National Archives”.

  In fact, all the offices directed me to make the search at the archives in Kew. Following an appeal to the Cabinet Office for a review of its decision, Howell James, Permanent Secretary, Government Communication, was good enough to write personally that the Cabinet Office was not holding any relevant information and that I “could obtain good results from the records held in the National Archives”.

  Under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, any information held by a public authority is exempt information if it relates to secret intelligence service and ties with friendly foreign nations. Some information pertaining to Bose’s fate, which is a sensitive issue in Great Britain’s friend India, would naturally have been handled by the intelligence services like MI5 and MI6, which are beyond the periphery of the British FOIA. Therefore, much as I believe that the responses of the British authorities to me were absolutely truthful within the ambit of FOIA, I won’t be surprised if it turns out that the British intelligence agencies are holding some records on Bose, apart from those papers whose existence the Lord Chancellor admitted to Peter Archer.

  The British intelligence had good reasons to keep a tab on Bose. Published diaries of Guy Liddell, the head of the Security Service’s counter-espionage division during World War II, refers to rounding up of two Russian agents in Afghanistan who had been “working for” Bose, “who wanted them to facilitate his journey to see Stalin in Moscow”. [14] Post-1945, if the CIA could keep track of rumours relating to Bose years after his reported death, it is inconceivable that the British should have remained disinterested. For instance, the following Janauary 1949 CIA report I obtained under the FOIA even notes a rumour about “dead” Bose’s link with the RSS

  Anyhow, I felt privileged to be able to receive information straight from Her Majesty’s Government and the CIA. Pity I can’t make similar approaches here with my own IB or R&AW. They never declassify anything and one can’t file RTI request to seek information from the Indian intelligence agencies, unless there is some human rights issue involved.

  I want to be realistic about it. If the Prime Minister’s Office and the ministries of Home and External affairs are holding so many classified
records about Bose, would it not be silly to presume that the IB and R&AW don’t have anything shedding some light on the issue that has troubled the Indians for such a long time? The IB in particular must have generated many more records on different aspects of the Bose mystery than that are currently available in one way or the other. I have in mind the post-1947 era when it was quite obvious for the IB to keep an eye on claims about Bose being alive and a lot must have been reported on this issue.

  If the CIA could be interested in chasing rumours, the Indians had far too many reasons to go after them. I bet if our current IB chief or any of his living predecessors could publicly assert that the IB did not track such a sensitive matter from 1947 onwards.

  But what if some retired IB Director denies it?

  Well, that’s already been done. When clarifications on the Bose mystery were sought from the incumbent and retired directors before the Khosla Commission, a whole range of truthful to doubtful statements came forth. White lies were uttered by a man whose unassuming presence belied the authority he once wielded as the Director, Intelligence Bureau (DIB). No one could have thought that that fragile, bespectacled man with avuncular persona was once India’s chief spook BN Mullik. During his examination in August 1972, the legendary Bhola Nath Mullik lived up to his name in an unexpected sense. It is a curious paradox to have your first name “Bhola”—Hindi for naïve—when you are the big daddy of spies.

  A middle-ranking police officer at the time of India’s independence, Mullik joined the Intelligence Bureau in September 1948 as a deputy director. Two years later he became the director and remained in that position for an unimaginable fourteen years—at a time when there was no R&AW and external intelligence was also IB’s responsibility. Today, the DIBs change every two years or so.

  As the head of Indian intelligence, Mullik met Prime Minister Nehru virtually each day and was one of his closest confidants. Post-“retirement,” Mullik was something of a national security adviser. He finally called it quits in September 1968. Such an extraordinary man of such unrivalled experience should have known a lot, but his responses to the questions put before the commission—which are luckily on record—give impression as if Mullik had been living in a cave all the while the Bose mystery was raging in India.

  In a brilliant flash of inquisitiveness, the commission’s counsel TR Bhasin tried to extract from Mullik that the IB must have looked into the gamut of issues linked to Bose’s mystery.

  “Any matter which agitated the public mind or created a sensation or created a stir or a feeling in a portion of the public opinion, would come under the purview of your intelligence department?”

  “Not necessarily”, Mullik replied. “For example there may be agitation about the spurt in prices. But anything having an effect on the security of India would directly become charge of the Intelligence Bureau.”

  “I was not on the economic aspect,” Bhasin reminded him.

  GD Khosla intervened. “About that he has already said. Anything that agitated the public would become subversion. For example, he said spurt in prices.”

  “Very clever answer,” Bhasin complimented Mullik and resumed.

  “Now, when you joined as Director of Intelligence Bureau in July 1950 and from there onwards is it correct that the question of Netaji’s alleged death continued to agitate public mind.”

  “It did.”

  “Did the Intelligence Bureau deal with this aspect?”

  “No. During the entire period that I was Director of Intelligence Bureau, we were never asked to make inquiry about this aspect.”

  Mullik was repeatedly asked the same question and every time his answer was the same.

  “May I take that you had something to do in probing into mystery of baba of Shaulmari?”

  “We made no inquiries about the baba of Shaulmari. I am talking about my time.”

  “You were never asked by the Government, by the late Prime Minister Pandit Nehru about baba of Shaulmari?”

  “As far as I remember, I was never asked by the late Pandit Nehru about the baba of Shaulmari.”

  “On your own, did you not consider it as matter of any importance?”

  “Of my own, I did not consider it as a matter of importance.”

  Mullik remained stuck to his guns even when Forward Bloc’s counsel AP Chakravarty rephrased the same question.

  “And the Shaulmari ashram situation had created such a thing in Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and in other parts of India, here also, everything and did you not receive any report in these circumstances?”

  “I do not remember to have received any report about the Shaulmari ashram.” [15]

  What Mullik asserted on oath was not truthful because the official records now available tell another story.

  K Ram, Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister, wrote a letter to Mullik on 23 May 1963. It said: “Please see the enclosed letter which has been addressed to the Prime Minister by Shri Ramani Ranjan Das, Secretary, Shaulmari Ashram. I should be grateful if you will kindly have suitable inquiries made into this matter and let me have a report for the Prime Minister’s information.” [16] On 12 June 1963 Mullik sent Ram his reply marked Top Secret. He enclosed an investigation report received from Bengal CID on a miscreant who had attempted to kill Saradanand. [17]

  Now, what was the need to mark this innocuous letter or its enclosure “Top Secret”? If the Bose mystery or an offshoot of it were so irrelevant that Mullik did not feel the need to discuss after 1950, why make use of the highest level of security grading?

  That’s because the Bose mystery in reality was a highly volatile matter and hence a Top Secret issue—details about which could not be given out to anyone, courts of law and commissions included. Mullik could not have told the Khosla Commission that the IB was indeed trailing Bose after his death without queering the pitch of official stand that the story had really ended in 1945.

  It is for this reason of volatility that this letter of Mullik was deemed “Top Secret” till 2000, when under a “favourable” Vajpayee regime it was downgraded to “Secret”. Finally it was cleared for public disclosure in December 2007 after the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs okayed a release of selective Bose papers under the Right to Information to Mission Netaji.

  On 7 September 1963 K Ram wrote to Mullik again. This time through a Top Secret letter, asking Mullik to throw light on Shaulmari case, simple and straight. “I have just now received another letter on the same subject from one Uttam Chand Malhotra...I am sending this also to you so that you may have necessary inquiries made regarding the activities of the Shaulmari Ashram.” [18] Mullik’s reply of November 16 made five points, the last of which said:

  In his letter, Shri Malhotra has asked the Prime Minister to officially recognise the Shaulmari sadhu as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. This claim is quite false and the Shaulmari sadhu himself does not claim any connection with Netaji. Enclosed is a copy of the English translation of the Bengali leaflet published from the Shaulmari ashram in which it has been categorically stated that Shaulmari sadhu is not Subhas Chandra Bose. This should falsify Shri Malhotra’s claim. But unfortunately, there are people in India, including some in leading positions in public life, who want to exploit Netaji’s name. They have been propagating since the last 14 years that the Netaji would return. A propaganda was even started when the Chinese invaded our country last year that Netaji was coming with the invading army. [19]

  Wasn’t it Mullik who had written in his 1971 book The Chinese betrayal that “the DIB should never have anything to explain. He must ever stand self explained”? And there Mullik was, in a Top Secret letter signed by him, leaving no room for any doubt that the IB not only inquired about Shaulmari sadhu but also kept a tab on the Bose case no matter what he said on oath before Khosla.

  As any junior-level intelligence officer can tell, the IB Director’s personally signed notes are distilled from heaps of material. So for this one document there must be several reports detailing each
and every aspect mentioned in it. Like, what was the propaganda during the Chinese attack and who all were behind it.

  Grilled further, Mullik told the commission that the state intelligence units could have looked into the Shaulmari issue. He nevertheless proclaimed that the IB had nothing to do with it for it did not concern national security. “Anything concerning the security of India would bring the Intelligence Bureau into picture,” he said.

  But according to still classified records, the IB did take a keen interest in Shaulmari sadhu till he died in 1977. On 8 October 1963, the IB sent a memo to Special Superintendent of Police, Intelligence Branch, West Bengal over a criminal case against Shaulmari sadhu and his disciples. Another memo [No 6/DG/66(24)] was sent on 17 September 1966 and resend on 18 October 1966. In its response, Intelligence Branch, Lord Sinha Road, Calcutta, conveyed to IB that “Sadhu Saradanandji left Shaulmari for UP in April 1966”.

  A Secret memo No 6/DG/68(6) dated 18 December 1968 from Devendra Singh, Joint Assistant Director, IB, informed the West Bengal Intelligence Branch that the baba had been in Madhya Pradesh for six months and made this strange request:

  We would be grateful if you could please trace the whereabouts of the sadhu. A note on the recent activities of the Shaulmari ashram may also kindly be sent to us.

  What sort of concern for the “security of India” could have attracted IB’s attention to Shaulmari sadhu after the controversy around him had waned away and he was running from one place to another for survival?

  Something like this was put to Atma Jayaram, who was the IB chief when he was examined by the Khosla Commission, a day after Mullik’s deposition. But like Mullik, Jayaram was of little help in clarifying the issue. The record of his testimony indicates that the IB was not being exactly cooperative. For a start, Jayaram wouldn’t give a straight answer on the Bose mystery and initially gave the line that Shaulmari episode wasn’t looked into. All those who want to master the art of waffling may please go through the following carefully: