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CONTENTS 

Death of Subhas Chandra Bose - An enduring political mystery - Anthony Paul, Straits Times, 1 June 2005 "..In 1941 individual satyagraha for the right of freedom of speech ended in six months without achieving its aim. The 1942 countrywide struggle for freedom was never started by Gandhiji. How is it then that the British Government transferred power to the Congress and Muslim League leaders in 1947?.." more
Wikipedia on the Death of Subhas Chandra Bose
Shah Nawaz Committee Report and  The Dissentient Report
Khosla Commission Report
Mukherjee Commission Report
The Enigma of Subhas Chandra Bose - Archive
"Taiwan rejects Bose crash theory". BBC, 4 February 2005
Japanese pictures
of the reported crash in Taipei
Mystery over India freedom hero
Amartya Sen goes by Anita Pfaff's view
'I saw Subhash Chandra Bose's burnt body'
�Govt has destroyed evidence about Netaji�s death�
RTI makes Netaji rise from 'ashes'
R&AW has no information on disappearance of Netaji

 

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose 
& India's Independence

Mystery of Subhas Chandra Bose Death -
He did not die in air crash says Supreme Court Judge
- Enshrined ashes are those of Japanese soldier

Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
 The Guardian, Thursday 18 May 2006

"...Subhash Chandra Bose's life was a beacon to me, lighting up the path I should follow. His disciplined life and his total commitment and dedication to the cause of his country's freedom deeply impressed me and served as my guiding light..." Velupillai Pirabakaran, 'How I Became a Freedom Fighter', April 1994

To the British he was a traitor who joined hands with Hitler. To Indians he was a patriot who took a heroic stance against imperialism.

But the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the Indian National Army which collaborated with the Japanese and Germans against the British in the second world war, remains a mystery after a six-year investigation into his disappearance contradicted the official version of events.

Bose, known in India as Netaji or respected leader, was presumed to have died of burns in a plane crash in Taiwan shortly after the Japanese surrender in August 1945. However a commission led by supreme court judge M.K. Mukherjee said yesterday Bose did not die in the crash and his supposed ashes, kept at Renkoji Temple near Tokyo, were those of a Japanese soldier not those of the Indian hero.

"The Taiwanese have no records of the cremation of Netaji or his three companions. These included an important Japanese general Shidei which would have definitely been recorded," Justice Mukherjee told the Guardian. "As he would be 108 today, I have no doubt Bose is dead but he did not die in a plane crash."

The Mukherjee report instead contends the ashes, which are visited by modern-day Indian leaders on visits to Tokyo, are those of Ichiro Okura, a Japanese officer in the Taiwanese puppet army who died of "heart failure".

All this, the report concludes, was a "smokescreen" by the Japanese authorities to ensure "Netaji's safe passage". The Indian government issued a terse rebuttal saying that it had "examined the report ... and has not agreed with the findings".

Many in India believe that Justice Mukherjee has finally unearthed the truth about Bose. "There have been recurrent accounts of his being seen in the Soviet Union a year after the end of the war," said Anuj Dhar, author of Back from the Dead, a recent book about Bose. Mr Dhar said there were claims he later ended up in Mao's China; another report says the Vietnamese had files relating to his post-war friendship with the country's venerated leader Ho Chi Minh. A persistent theme is that Bose returned to India to live his last days as a holy man.

"But nobody could investigate while the plane crash theory was accepted," says Mr Dhar. "We need now to probe further."

Relatives of the Subhas Chandra Bose say that none of the theories can be easily discounted. Pradip Bose, a nephew of Indian wartime leader, said there were too many holes in the accepted version of his death.

"There are documents showing Stalin talking about my uncle and what to do with him in 1946. His plan was to get to Russia and regroup there. I still keep an open mind on what actually happened to him."

Bose remains an iconic figure especially in his home state of West Bengal.His statue, in military uniform, stands in the Indian parliament with those of India's two most revered leaders: Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Part of Bose's legend and enduring mystique stems from his remarkable wartime escapades. The Cambridge-educated freedom fighter rejected Gandhi's pacifism in favour of violent revolution.

Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta in 1941 travelling via Kabul to Berlin where he met Hitler. The Fuhrer advised Bose to seek help from the advancing Japanese troops in Asia and offered him passage to Tokyo aboard a German U-boat.

Bose finally arrived in Burma at the head of an 80,000-strong "Indian national army" and advanced to British India's north eastern states. He had set up a government-in-exile and inspired revolts in the British Indian army. A biopic last year showed him planting the Indian tricolour on Indian soil for the first time.

Academics have argued that Bose disagreed with the arguments of racial superiority espoused by Japan and the Nazis. Most paint Bose as a pragmatist who considered an enemy's enemy a friend.

"He was a very clever man and a good bloke. I had a lot of time for him," Hugh Toye, the former British intelligence officer whose job it was to track down Bose, told the Guardian. "If we had caught him he would have been sentenced to death though. I still think he died in the plane crash."

up Death of Subhas Chandra Bose - An enduring political mystery - Anthony Paul, Straits Times, 1 June 2005

Three days after Japan's surrender ended World War II, a Japanese Mitsubishi Ki.21 medium bomber reportedly took off from Taihoku, a Taipei airfield. The most important of several VIPs on its passenger list was a man who was then one of India's most famous sons - Subhas Chandra Bose, or Netaji (or Revered Leader), of the anti-British Provisional Government of Free India.

To this day, Indians dispute passionately what happened next.

Most accept the official version of events: For reasons unknown, the plane burst into flames on take-off. Badly burnt, Netaji Bose died later that day - Aug 18, 1945.

What are said to be his remains - bone fragments, some teeth and parts of the skull and jaw - were taken to Tokyo and housed at the suburban Renkoji Temple.

Singapore also venerates him indirectly: A modest monument to his greatest accomplishment - the Indian National Army (INA), mobilised in Singapore in the early 1940s for the purpose of driving the British from India - occupies an honoured place on the Esplanade.

But a small, persistent minority of Indians insists that the story of Netaji Bose's death was an elaborate subterfuge. They can point to some fresh support: Earlier this year, an official Indian inquiry, the third since 1956, turned up evidence in Taipei indicating that whatever happened to Netaji Bose, he did not die in a plane crash that day. According to Taipei's current mayor, there are no official records of any such crash.

The conspiracy theorists have several alternative histories, all tortuous. One of the most quoted: Those death reports were a ruse by the leader, his aides and the Japanese to have him escape from victors' justice and flee unscathed to Manchuria. From there, say Netaji Bose's fans, he most probably made his way to the Soviet Union.

Dictator Joseph Stalin, whom he may have met in Moscow in 1941, probably kept him in safe custody, they say, for the day on which he could continue his life-long struggle against the British imperialists.

Fear of the mischief the anti-British firebrand would cause if he managed to get back to India kept Britain from following up various intelligence leads to Netaji Bose's whereabouts, those sceptical about the official story claim. And Bose's political rivals - those devious accomplices of the British, Mahatma Gandhi and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru - went along with the cover-up.

The Revered Leader is unlikely to be returning to Indian politics - if alive, he would now be 108. Nevertheless, books and newspaper articles, often passionately pro-Bose, continue to be written about India's most enduring political mystery.

Author Anuj Dhar (Back From The Dead: Inside The Subhas Bose Mystery; Manas Publications, 2005) tells The Straits Times: 'People may or may not like Netaji, but they have a right to know what happened to him - how he died and where.'

Over the past few months, two developments have brought Netaji Bose back into the headlines.

First, there is a much-trumpeted three-hour-long movie with a US$5 million (S$8.3 million) budget. Bose: The Forgotten Hero took more than three years to shoot.

Second, the Indian government has extended for six more months the inquiry into the circumstances of Netaji Bose's death or disappearance. In Calcutta, on June 10, the Mukherjee Commission, named after its sole commissioner, retired Supreme Court Justice M. K. Mukherjee, will resume its inquiry, now six years long, into the affair.

Subhas Bose was born in 1896, the son of a well-to-do Bengali lawyer. After securing a Cambridge University honours degree, he returned to India and involved himself in left-wing politics.

A powerful orator, he was elected Indian National Congress president in 1938, but was soon forced to resign after a dispute with Mohandas K. Gandhi. Bose advocated the militant overthrow of British rule; Gandhi and acolyte Nehru preferred non-violent resistance.

Placed under house arrest by the British for his pro-Axis sympathies, he escaped in 1941 and, with clandestine German and Italian help, fled to Germany. From there on, as a biographer puts it, 'his life reads as though written for Hollywood'.

He saw Britain's war with Germany as a chance to wrest India from British rule. Thus in Berlin, this Indian nationalist sought an alliance with Adolph Hitler.

Their one meeting cannot have been very comfortable. In Mein Kampf, the German's racist sermon to his Nazi Party, Hitler had declared: 'Indian agitators...will never achieve (freedom from Britain).'

This view, the Fuhrer had written, was 'quite aside from the fact that I, as a man of Germanic blood, would, in spite of everything, rather see India under English rule than under any other'.

A German information officer's account of the meeting says that Hitler refused attempts by Bose to discuss Mein Kampf's offensive passage. The Fuhrer is reported also to have told the Revered Leader that India 'would not be able to rule itself for another 150 years'.

Nevertheless, Bose received permission to establish a Free India Centre in Berlin and recruit, for an 'Indian Legion', Indians in British uniform whom the Germans had captured, mostly in North Africa.

But the Nazis' racism got in the way of Bose's grander plans - for an Axis-Indian army on the European and Middle Eastern fronts. So he turned to the Japanese.

With his fellow-Asians, then promoting the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, he was somewhat more successful.

In 1943, in an extraordinarily hazardous journey across three oceans, German and Japanese U-boats delivered him to Singapore. Over Japanese-controlled Radio Singapore, he broadcast a stirring appeal to India and the Indian diaspora: 'Give me blood and I will give you freedom!'

At the Capitol Theatre on Oct 21, 1943, he proclaimed the creation of a Japanese-sponsored 'provisional government of Free India' and organised the INA, a force ultimately comprising three divisions totalling about 30,000 troops. Both government and troops hailed him as 'Netaji', an honorific many Indians still use for him today.

Singapore's National Archives' oral history files hold recordings of INA veterans who speak emotionally of those heady days. At the archives last week, I listened to Sikh intelligence officer Mohinder Singh recall with pride and affection his leader's oratory at Singapore's Padang as he addressed troops who would soon be in combat.

'He was a great man, very popular, a great orator,' the old soldier recalled. 'He had a remarkable memory. He would speak first in Hindustani. Then he would repeat the speech word for word in English...But he knew little about military matters.'

In November 1943, the Japanese and the INA captured the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Suddenly, about two million (of about 400 million then) Indians were no longer under British rule.

Netaji moved his headquarters to Yangon. Four months later, spurred by his war cry Chalo Delhi! (On to Delhi!) the INA crossed the Myanmar border and raised its flag on Indian soil.

But the moment did not last long. Unknown to the Japan-Free India alliance, the British had cracked Axis codes. When the INA infiltrated fifth columnists into India, the British picked them up. British forces also acquired air superiority.

Moreover, according to Mr Mohinder Singh, the British, playing for time, were soon joined by a South Asian ally for which the Japanese were unprepared. 'That was 'General Monsoon',' said Mr Singh. 'The Japanese were running out of supplies, and the rains turned their supply routes into mud.'

Even before two atomic bombs in August 1945 ended the war, Japanese and Indian forces in South-east Asia were effectively at a standstill. But the Japan-India axis put a brave face on events. In the war's last months, a large cenotaph dedicated to an 'Unknown Warrior' of the INA was raised on the Esplanade.(in Singapore)

Several months after the British returned to Singapore, their army dynamited the pillar. Erected on the site by Singapore's National Heritage Board in 1995, the new INA monument is thus, in the words of one tourist brochure, 'a monument to a monument'.

Mr Mohinder Singh told the National Archives that he believed the official story of his leader's death - that he perished in the plane crash. But the recording adds an intriguing detail in support of the notion that Bose might have been trying to reach out to the Russians.

The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until Aug 9, 1945. Before this had happened, Mr Singh told his interviewer, a 'Japanese admiral (in Singapore) suggested to Netaji that he might find the Soviet Union would help India'.

Of course, if Bose had been making his way to Manchuria and then Russia on Aug 18, he could not have been unaware that Moscow now stood with the British-American allies against Japan. But that has not stopped rumours of the Indian being spotted in the Soviet Union over the past half-century.

According to India's Outlook magazine, scholars from Calcutta's Asiatic Society researching India-Soviet ties in Moscow came across recently declassified Soviet files 'that hinted at Bose having been in the USSR after 1945'. One of the scholars, Dr Purobi Roy, was quoted as saying Soviet military archives mentioned Stalin and foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov discussing in 1946 whether Bose should stay in the Soviet Union or leave.

The quest for the truth continues. The Mukherjee Commission has now taken evidence from 127 witnesses and depositions.

The commission's priority will be visiting Russia. Author Dhar told The Straits Times: 'They already have evidence in the form of official papers, affidavits, depositions, etc, all hinting that an inquiry in Russia is most necessary.'

up Wikipedia on the Death of Subhas Chandra Bose
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Subhas_Chandra_Bose

The alleged death of Subhas Chandra Bose, the supreme commander of Azad Hind Fauz and Free India Legion in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945, has long been the subject of dispute. Recently an Indian central commission of inquiry confirmed one popular version, that Bose's death was staged to facilitate an escape to the USSR.

Contents


His last undisputed picture that was
taken on the morning of August 17, 1945 in Saigon

1 Introduction
2 Shah Nawaz Committee
3 Justice GD Khosla Commission
3.1 Rejection of Shah Nawaz, Khosla reports
4 Mukherjee Commission
5 Bose mystery in contemporary India

Introduction

Subash Chandra Bose, a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement against the British Raj in India and a general of the Imperial Japanese army Tsunamasa Shidei were reported to be flying to Tokyo, Japan when the alleged plane crash occurred at Matsuyama aerodrome in Taihoku, northern Formosa (now the Republic of China, or Taiwan).

The news was withheld by Japanese government for five days before it was announced by Japanese news agency Domei. The Allied forces took the Japanese news as a ploy.

The then Viceroy of India, Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, is reported to have noted in his diary that "I wonder if the Japanese announcement of Subhash Chandra Bose's death in an air-crash is true. I suspect it very much, it is just what should be given out if he meant to go underground."


A newspaper clip reporting the death of Netaji and General Shidei

The matter was looked into by several allied intelligence teams and soon holes in the Japanese version became apparent. A crack team of Intelligence Bureau found out that Bose was heading for the USSR with the Japanese assistance.

The findings of the intelligence teams seem to have not confirmed the Japanese announcement. For as late as October 1946, the Government of British India refused to confirm the death of Bose.

After India's independence, the matter was looked into by three official panels formed by the government of India following the public demands. These panels were: Shah Nawaz Committee, Justice GD Khosla Commission & Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry. The Shah Nawaz Committee upheld the Taiwan crash version, as did the Justice GD Khosla Commission, whereas the Mukherjee Commission negated it.

However, it has also been alleged at various times that the Indian government and political leadership was aware that Bose may have been alive, and according to one theory, in captivity in Soviet Union, but chose to ignore or actively collaborate to suppress this information after Independence.

Shah Nawaz Committee

In April 1956, the Jawaharlal Nehru Government formed a committee headed by Shah Nawaz Khan. Khan had earlier risen to the rank of Lt Col in the Second Indian National Army, before he was captured by allied troops after the fall of Azad Hind and was one of the three charged with treason in the the Red Fort Trial. He was thus seen as an appropriate person to head the inquiry. Two other members of the inquiry commission were SN Mitra and Suresh Chandra Bose, Bose's elder brother. The committee's report that Bose had indeed died in Taipei became disputed due to several reasons. The most important among them was the dissientient report of Suresh Bose. Suresh Bose refused to agree with the findings of his colleagues and accused them and the Government of India of trying to coerce him into agreeing with their views.

Justice GD Khosla Commission

Consequently, in June 1970 the Government of India formed a judicial commission headed by Justice GD Khosla, former Chief Justice of Punjab High Court. The decision followed years of lobbying by Indian lawmaker, most notable among them were Professor Samar Guha and Amiya Nath Bose, Subhas Bose's nephew. Unlike Shah Nawaz, GD Khosla visited but refused to interact with the ROC Government. Much before the commission's report was made public June 1974, it came under assault of Samar Guha. This report also stated that the Bose had died in Taiwan.

Rejection of Shah Nawaz, Khosla reports

After Emergency was lifted in India, Samar Guha fought a political battle in Indian Parliament, where the matter of Bose's death was debated in 1977-78. On August 28, 1978 Prime Minister Morarji Desai stated that there were "various important contradictions in the testimony of the (mostly Japanese) witnesses" to Bose's death. And that "some further contemporary official documentary records have also become available", making the Government of India think that the conclusions reached by GD Khosla and Shah Nawaz Khan were not "decisive".

Mukherjee Commission

In 1999, following a court order, the Government of India formed Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry.

It was headed by Justice (rtd) MK Mukherjee of the Supreme Court of India. The commission perused hundreds of files on Bose's death drawn from several countries and also visited Japan, Russia and Taiwan.


The copy of the death certificate in the crematorium records
which refers to the alleged corpse of Netaji as being of one Okara Ichiro

Overturning the findings of previous panels, this commission's findings were that the news of Bose's death in Taipei were a cover-up for his escape to the USSR. The Commission, however, stated that they could not confirm Bose's presence in the USSR for want of evidence.

The Mukherjee Commission submitted its report to Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil on November 8, 2005. The report was tabled in the Indian Parliament on May 17, 2006. However, the Indian Government rejected the findings of the Commission.

Bose mystery in contemporary India -Mission Netaji

Mission Netaji is a Delhi-based Indian non-profit trust that conducts research on Subhas Chandra Bose's disappearance. Some documents the organisation has dug out have information connected to Bose's disappearance. This lead to more documents that remain classified.[7] Several Indian ministries, including the Indian Prime Minister's Office, have refused to make public the documents under the Right to Information Act campaign lauched by Mission Netaji, on the ground that their disclosure will affect India's relations with foreign countries.

up The Enigma of Subhas Chandra Bose
Hindustan Times Archive

Reported death of Subhas Bose (August 25, 1945)
The Japanese News Agency on Thursday announced the death of Mr Subhas Chandra Bose in a Japanese hospital from injuries received in an air crash, says a London message ...more

Eyewitness account of Subhas Bose's death, Tokyo (November 1, 1945)
An informant who was a passenger with ten others in a Japanese two-engined bomber in which Mr Bose was flying to Japan said that there is not the slightest doubt that Mr Subhas Bose died on August 18 at the Taihoku Hospital, Formosa after the plane in which he was travelling to Tokyo crashed on the Taihoku airfield ...more

Conditions in I.N.A. camp near Jessore (November 2, 1945)
According to Mr Sassadhar Acharya, assistant secretary, Jessore District Congress Committee sanitation conditions in the caged camps are bad. There is congestion and possibility of diseases breaking out any day while, practically, there is no medical arrangement ...more

Many I.N.A. men already executed, Lucknow (November 2, 1945)
"Probably few people know that many valiant soldiers of the I.N.A have already been executed after army trials by court-martial," said Mr Ansar Harvani, president, All-India Youth League ...more

Is Subhas Chandra Bose still alive? (November 11, 1945)
The Japanese Board of Information anounced "Subhas Chandra Bose, who was on his way to Japan from Singapore for consultation with the Japanese Government, died of injuries received when his plane crashed near Taihoku." But no one was even informed where the "remains" were kept, let alone allowed access to the place ...more

Mystery of 1, 900 I.N.A. men's fate (December 12, 1945)
Nineteen hundred and sixty-three I.N.A. officers and men being detained in Bangkok were transferred last month from the concentration camp on the premises of the Anglo-Siam Corporation to several concentration camps whose location has been kept a secret ...more

Rani of Jhansi Regiment: Valuable work done by Muslim women (December 23, 1945)
How the League circles feel uncomfortable about the remarkable degree of communal unity achieved within the Indian National Army is shown in a report in the League daily this morning that there was not a single Muslim woman in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the I.N.A commanded by Captain Lakshmi. The truth is that there were several Muslim women in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment ...more

Gandhiji believes Subhas is alive (January 3, 1946)
"I believe Subhas Bose is still alive and is biding his time somewhere," said Mahatma Gandhi at a workers' meeting here ...more

When he met Bose, Calcutta (January 4, 1946)
According to one of the men from the group of released officers and men of the Indian National Army, Netaji had plans for escape if it became necessary for him to avoid being captured by the British ...more

Soviet outburst against Bose (January 8, 1946)
Soviet journalist, David Zaslavsky in an article in Pravda denounced as "a stupid fairy tale" a report that Subhas Chandra Bose, who headed the "Free India Government" during the war, is in Soviet Russia, Moscow radio reported ...more

Gandhiji's praise for Subhas Bose, Calcutta (January 17, 1946)
"My relations with Subhas Bose were always of the purest and best. I always knew his capacity for sacrifice but full knowledge of his resourcefulness, soldiership and organizing ability came to me only after his escape from India," said Mahatma Gandhi replying to a question on his way to Dhubri from Gauhati during his Assam tour ...more

"Netaji is not dead" (March 24, 1946)
Mr T.K. Nair, one of the engineers who was in charge of the municipal works of Singapore at the time of its fall to the Japanese said he did not believe the story of Netaji's death. "I was told," he said, "that the plane in which he was travelling and which is alleged to have crashed was in fact seen in Hong Kong the next day" ...more

Netaji's thrilling 1943 journey from Berlin to Sumatra (April 14, 1946)
Giving an account of the journey, Major Abid Hassan, personal secretary to Netaji, who travelled with him said, "It took us full three months to travel from Berlin to Sumatra, every minute of which was full of dangers" ...more

Subhas Bose seen at Nalanda? (April 29, 1946)
Pareman Pasla, a labourer at Nalanda believes he saw Mr Subhas Bose there a few days ago. The resemblance was unmistakable except that Mr Bose wore a moustache. He was dressed in khaki shorts and shirts and a pair of brown canvas shoes ...more

'Netaji is not dead' (September 13, 1956)
According to Mr Suresh Chandra Bose, a member of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Inquiry Committee and Netaji's elder brother said the the Japanese Government's own witnesses, produced before the committee, made such contradictory statements that it was "unbelievable" that Netaji died in an air crash ...more

Question raised in Lok Sabha (September 13, 1956)
In a reference to the Netaji Inquiry Committe Report, Mr N.C Chatterjee asked in the Lok Sabha whether the Prime Minister had received any complaint from Mr Suresh Chandra Bose that he had not been given the full report ...more

Sondhi urges expansion of Netaji commission (October 16, 1970)
Jan Sangh member of Parliament, Prof M.L. Sondhi, has urged Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that the one-man Khosla Commission set up by the Govt should include in it some well-known international jurists, military historians, war correspondents, aviation and forensic experts to enable it to come to some satisfactory conclusions regarding Netaji's death ...more

Japanese had altered Netaji's flight plan (October 20, 1970)
Appearing as a witness before the Khosla commission, Mr Deb Nath Dass, formerly general secretary of the Indian Independence League in South-East Asia said that Netaji had mentioned to him that the Japanese had changed their plan regarding his departure from Saigon at the eleventh hour ...more

Witness says Japanese killed Netaji (October 21, 1970)
Netaji's close associate Mr Deb Nath Dass, deposing before the Khosla commission said that "in 1954 he came to the conclusion that if Netaji had died it was not in the same plane and that the Japanese had played some foul game with them" ...more

'Rehman's statement on death is false' (November 4, 1970)
Deposing before the Khosla Commission, Dr Satyanarayan Sinha said Colonel Habibur Rehman had confessed to him at Patna in 1946 that he had had told a lie when he said that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in a plane crash in Taipeh on August 18, 1945 ...more

Soviet denial (November 4, 1970)
The Soviet authorities "had absolutely nothing to do with the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose," the Soviet Embassy said in a statement today ...more

Radhakrishnan met Netaji in Moscow, says witness (November 17, 1970)
Mr S.M Goswami, a retired officer of the West Bengal Govt, told the Khosla Commission that Dr Radhakrishnan had told him that Netaji had asked him (Dr Radhakrishnan) to make arrangements for his (Bose's) return to India ...more

Shahnawaz played Netaji false (November 18, 1970)
Mr Suresh Chandra Bose, Netaji's elder brother who was also a member of the Shah Nawaz Committee, deposing before the Khosla Commission charged Mr Shah Nawaz Khan with "playing Netaji false" ...more

Shoulmari Baba was Netaji, says witness (December 29, 1970)
Mr Uttam Chand Malhotra, a sub-inspector of the BSF in his deposition before the Khosla Commission said that the way in which the Shoulmari Baba talked, his appearance and other manners, he was sure that the Baba was Netaji ...more

'Note to Nehru said Netaji went to Russia' (January 1, 1971)
One of the witnesses deposing before the Khosla Commission, a job typist, said that a "hand-written note" given to him by Mr Nehru to type was to the effect that Mr Subhas Chandra Bose started from Saigon on Aug. 23, 1945 by plane and arrived in Dairen near the Manchurian border at 1.30 p.m ...more

Witness claims secret contact with Netaji (January 6, 1971)
A 55-yr-old pleader claiming to be the "only secret contact man" from India on Netaji told the Khosla Commission that Netaji through an "oral message" had told him "I am strictly watching the proceedings of the commission" ...more

Witness tells of Netaji's death in plane crash (January 21, 1971)
The Propaganda and Publicity Minister in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Fauj told the Khosla Commission about the death of Netaji after a plane crash as he had heard from Hind Fauj who was a passenger in the ill-fated plane ...more

'Gandhi, others had agreed to hand over Netaji' (January 23, 1971)
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Maulana Azad had come to an agreement with the British judge that if Netaji were to enter India, he would be handed over and charged, said Usman Patel who claimed to be a bodyguard of Netaji ...more

Shoulmari Baba is Netaji, Commission told (March 3, 1971)
Mr Madan Mohan, a clerk in Udaipur University, deposed before the Khosla Commission that he had deduced from the material already submitted by him to the Commission that the Shoulmari Baba was none else but Netaji ...more

Giri asks people to emulate Netaji (October 22, 1972)
President V.V Giri called upon the people toemulate "the illuminating example of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and spread the fragrance of his inspiring ideals..." ...more

Directive 'hindered' work in Taiwan (August 23, 1973)
The Taiwan mortuary death certificate purporting to be that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, had on translation, turned out to be that of a young Japanese soldier, Mr Samar Guha said in the Lok Sabha today, displaying a photo copy of the document ...more

Guha motions to probe Netaji mystery (August 3, 1977)
According to Mr Samar Guha, the report regarding Netaji's alleged death in a plane crash at Taihoku airport on August 18, 1945, was a plant and that Netaji had actually gone into hiding to escape being caught by the British and tried as a war criminal ...more

Netaji Bose - dead or alive (January 23, 1978)
The "top secret" British documents in the recently published book " Transfer of Power -
1942 -47" positively disclose that the British Government never believed the story of Netaji's death in the alleged aircrash at Taihoku (Taipei) on August 18, 1945. They suspected that Netaji must have escaped to Russia ...more

Netaji's portrait now adorns Central Hall (January 24, 1978)
Netaji had written a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru from Russia after the Formosan aircrash, according to Prof Samar Guha, MP ...more

Netaji letter and Nehru (January 24, 1978)
Referring to the speculation whether Netaji was alive or dead, President Sanjiva Reddy
at the unveiling of Subhas Bose's portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament, said: "Some people say he is alive. I wish I could believe it is so. If he is alive, let him come to us even for one day... to inspire us" ...more

'A wrong done to Netaji undone after 30 years' (January 24, 1978)
Mr Sailesh Chandra Bose, Netaji's younger brother, said here today a wrong "perpetuated for 30 years," had now been undone by celebrating his birth anniversary" ...more

'Follow Netaji to serve the country' (January 24, 1978)
Speaking at a symposium on "Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Vision of New India", Union Home Minister Charan Singh said there was not much difference between Gandhiji and Netaji ...more

Netaji alive, coming any day (January 23, 1979)
Mr Samar Guha, MP, released a photograph of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose which he claimed portrays "Netaji in a temple in India". He is living in intense tapasya for the fulfilment of the unfulfilled mission of his "divine motherland," he said ...more

Let's close Netaji issue: Shah Nawaz (April 14, 1978)
Mr Shah Nawaz Khan, a former Minister of State, who headed the three-member commission to probe into the death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and submitted report in 1956, has demanded to close this issue for ever ...more

Netaji was an Indian first (January 23, 1983)
In a message to the Netaji Birthday Celebrations Committee in Calcutta, Mrs Gandhi said Netaji was an Indian first and always and "that is what we must all try to be" ...more

Netaji's life will serve as a beacon (January 24, 1983)
President Giani Zail Singh said Netaji's life and teachings should be written in gold and books containing his teaching should be translated in different languages and distributed among all for guidance ...more

UK told not to re-run film (March 7, 1984)
The television documentary which contains interviews of several of Netaji's associates is considered disparaging to the leader's personality, portraying him as a war-monger ...more

Netaji's kin plead to PM on ashes (May 13, 1990)
Members of Netaji's family are not convinced about Netaji's death in a plane crash and say that the ashes kept in a Japanese temple are not his remains ...more

'Rarest of rare' exhibition, New Delhi (June 27, 1984)
The sword of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which remained sealed for nearly thirty years in the reserved collection of the National Museum, will be displayed for the first time in August in New Delhi ...more

Bose niece wants mystery solved, New Delhi (October 24, 1989)
Ms Lalita Bose, niece of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, demanded to know why the Government was not serious to find out whether "Gumnami Baba" of Faizabad was Netaji as a section of the press had suggested before the Baba's death in 1985 ...more

Nehru suppressed facts? (August 16, 1998)
City-based researcher Purabi Roy has stumbled upon "clinching evidence" that Netaji did not die in 1945. In a meeting held at RSS headquarters she tried to impress upon leaders that it was Nehru who had tried to "hush up the case" ...more

Govt may order fresh probe into Netaji's 'death' (August 18, 1998)
"The Centre is contemplating to either order a fresh probe or publish a 'White Paper' on the dramatic disappearance and subsequent demise of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose allegedly in an aircrash at Taihoku airport in Japan" ...more

 

 

 

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