New Delhi: Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose died in an air crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945, a Union Cabinet note 50 years later said amidst the raging controversy over the INA chief’s mysterious disappearance.
However, a full five days after the air crash, a top official of the British Raj had weighed the pros and cons of “trying” Netaji as a “war criminal” and suggested that the “easiest way” would be to leave him where he was and not seek his release, suggesting that he may be alive then.
This emerged from documents that form part of 100 secret files, comprising 16,600 pages which were made public by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Netaji’s 119th birth anniversary here on Saturday.
In Delhi, Congress made a strong pitch for declassifying all files related to Bose, but said the way Prime Minister has set about the task, raises doubts about his intentions.
“Congress has already said that it would like to see all files to be declassified because attempts are being made to raise a controversy and misguide people of the country through a mischievous political campaign”, party’s senior spokesman Anand Sharma said.
Among the declassified documents was a Union Cabinet note of February 6, 1995, signed by then Home Secretary K Padmanabaiah, which said, “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.” The note further said, “If a few individuals/organisations have a different view, they seem to be more guided by sentimentality rather than by any rational consideration.” “The belief of these people that Netaji was alive and out of contact with any individual, but would appear when found necessary, has also lost relevance by now.”
The cabinet note was prepared for the government to take a stand on bringing the “mortal remains” of Netaji from Japan to India, kept in the Bose Academy in Tokyo.
In the documents written five days after the air crash at Taihoku aerodrome in Taipei, Sir R F Mudie, Home Member of the Clement Attlee government’s India Office, wrote to Sir Evan Jenkins, Home Secretary and the last Governor of Punjab, weighing pros and cons of how to treat Bose as a “war criminal” and its likely impact in India.
“In many ways the easiest course would be to leave him where he is and not ask for his release. He might, of course, in certain circumstances be welcomed by the Russians. “This course would raise fewest immediate political difficulties, but the security authorities consider that in certain circumstances his presence in Russia would be so dangerous as to rule it out altogether,” Mudie said in a letter and note dated August 23, 1945. (PTI)
