BOSE MYSTERY: AN OVERVIEW

Anuj Dhar

It’s amazing how Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose continues to be in news *60 years after his disputed death. In a way, this has been in defiance of successive Indian governments who would rather want the people to sideline him as they have. A recent BBC online poll named Bose the third most popular leader in South Asia after Jinnha and Gandhi. Strikingly, as per the same poll, the stalwarts like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the inimitable Atal Bihari Vajpayee don’t even blip on the radar anymore.

Psst …Top Secret!
Let this impression be trashed at the outset that the Netaji mystery belongs to a different era. No doubt it started in 1945; but it has been simmering till date. The controversy is a bombshell and that’s what the official records hint at. Netaji is supposed to have died at the end of Second World War, and yet the Indian Government continues to sit on files about him. And they are wary of approaching the British and Russian Governments to release the papers they are keeping to themselves.

But why so much of precaution over some details about man who ceased to be a problem to his adversaries in and outside India decades back? This is for you Gen-X dudes: Some of the classified Netaji files maintained by the Government of India are of mid-1990s vintage! That is, post-Rajiv Gandhi period. Perish the idea … “Oh, such an old story, what is the fuss now!” The Government of India wouldn’t agree. They think there is something about Netaji that can spell big time trouble even now. That’s why they refused to hand over several Top Secret files to the Mukherjee Commission and later to Mission Netaji. Why would they be doing so? Well, in the case of two Narasimha Rao period files, they reasoned that the “disclosure of the nature and contents of these documents would … hurt the sentiments of the people at large and may evoke wide-spread reactions …. Diplomatic relations with friendly countries may also be adversely affected if the said documents are disclosed.”

To Mission Netaji, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the documents are so sensitive, their public disclosure may lead to a serious law and order problem in the country.

Should not we demand to know what these documents have to say? How on earth some bits about a dead man affect India’s relations with other countries, or sparking unrest within the country? Should not we ask our Government to state facts? Don’t we have a right to know what happened to the man who liberated us?

Pre-conceived notions
It’s cynicism exemplified when people say, “How long we can go on inquiring?” If Americans, for instance, were to be besotted with same defeatist thinking, they would not have become the great power they are. Indeed they don’t give up. How can one leave out in cold those who fight for one’s country? Last year only the US Government asked the Indian Government to help them trace out their missing WWII airmen. Netaji went missing while waging war for freedom for us and we don’t want to know what happened to him. What is it if not brazen ungratefulness?

Those who dismissively say that “there have been commissions after commissions” have no idea whatsoever what sort of frauds were played on the nation by the previous “commissions”. In 1956, Shah Nawaz Khan, a Congress MP and a secretary to then Railway Minister, headed a committee – a puppet on a string, actually. There are reasons to believe that he did what he was told by Nehru government. After his “command performance” Shah Nawaz was made a minister. GD Khosla, who headed a commission in early 1970s, was a friend of Nehru’s to start with. He wrote the biography of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi even as he inquired into Netaji’s disappearance. Can you imagine such things happening now? Both these panels declared that Netaji had died in a plane crash in Taiwan. Never mind that they did not bother to know what the Taiwan Government thought much as people wanted them to.

“But the issue is dead!” Ok, for argument’s sake, if that was the case a few years ago, it is ALIVE NOW. A Commission of Inquiry headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court of India handed over his report to the Government of India, stating clearly that Netaji did not die in the so-called plane crash. The Government rejected it in one sentence, and killed the debate in the Parliament to prevent its ramifications.

Perplexing past
Funny how people jump to conclusions. “My grandfather was in the INA and he said Netaji died and therefore I believe so.” This is how some give their verdict on the issue the nation is debating for 6 decades. If only it were that easy. There were over 50,000 people aligned with the Provisional Government of Free India and only a handful knew what happened to Netaji in his last known days. The rest were in as much dark as the Indians back home. They all heard stories … Netaji died or Netaji escaped. The truth, or inkling of it, came out after interrogations and inquiries, whose reports are not in public domain.

On August 25, 1945 the Indian newspapers broke the news that Netaji had died in a freak plane crash in Taipei (then Taihoku) on August 18th. He had been flying to Tokyo to work out the INA’s surrender when this happened. The British would believe none of it. Viceroy Wavell noted in his diary on 23 August that “I wonder if the Japanese announcement of Subhas Chandra Bose’s death in a air-crash is true. I suspect it very much, it is just what should be given out if he meant to go underground…” They dispatched their crack intelligence teams to South East Asia. The findings were bewildering. Netaji was not heading to Tokyo. Months before the world war staggered to a halt, he had begun planning a new chapter of his war on colonialism. He saw the Cold War coming and reached out to the USSR. The British intelligence got clear information that Subhas was going to Russia at the time of his death. The Japanese had given out a false story about his destination. The survivors of the crash were rounded up and records were captured. The pictured that emerged was of deceit. Eyewitnesses were found to be lying and records appeared as if they had been planted.

Americans chipped in with help. In fact it were they who had the best knowledge. They reached Taiwan in September 1945 and guess what they found. ” … there is no direct evidence that Subhas Chandra Bose was killed in a airplane crash … despite the public statements of the Japanese to that effect.” This, stated the State Department, ten months after Netaji’s “death”. What really happened? “The D.I.B. during his recent visit to London mentioned the receipt … of information to the effect that Subhas Bose was alive in Russia.” This is from a May 1946 report and D.I.B. means, the Director of Intelligence Bureau Sir Norman Smith.

The Government of free India knew about the Soviet connection to the Netaji mystery. But all they did was to dilly-dally and state that no inquiry was required. It took ten years of pressure before Prime Minister Nehru agreed to inquire into the matter. This must be hammered: the Government never wanted to probe Netaji’s fate. From Shah Nawaz to Manoj Mukherjee, each time they were forced to. Isn’t it revolting?

Present perfect
Thank God for Mukherjee Commission! Or shall we thank Mikhail Gorbahev? The fall of the USSR brought the Netaji issue out. In mid-1990s the Russians themselves began saying that Subhas was with them after his death. The matter reached India and the press did rake it up. But Narasimha Rao, with Pranab Mukherjee in tow, would not say a thing. A patriotic fellow moved to Calcutta High Court and the court found the matter to be wide open for inquiry. The Government was chided and told to form a commission of inquiry to find out where and how Netaji had died. Mercifully, at the time the verdict came, the NDA was in power.

The inquiry of the Mukherjee Commission has been pathbreaking. The commission found out, among others, that the Government of India, at the PMO level, indulged in systematic, unlawful destruction of evidence concerning the Netaji death case. The Government did not want any inquiry in Taiwan, which is precisely what Justice Mukherjee did. The result: the Republic of China Government ruled out the very occurrence of the crash that we had been told over decades had killed Netaji.

Indian Government also did not want any inquiry in Russia; but after much pulls and pressures, the Mukherjee Commission visited Russia. However, that wasn’t a good enough development. The Government’s didn’t do anything to help the Commission access security and intelligence related classified papers in Russia, said to be containing definite information about Netaji’s “post-death” life. Time has come for us, the people of India, to demand from our Government something that they should have done decades back: For God’s sake, request the Head of the Russian Government to state facts. The people of India must know what happened to their liberator.

* Note:  This Article Was Written in the year 2005

Source : http://subhaschandrabose.org/disappearance/overview.html

Know More : http://subhaschandrabose.org/index.html

PMO has a secret report on Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death but won’t release it

The Government of India seems to have a knack for fermenting unwarranted mysteries. Nearly forty-five years after Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away in the erstwhile USSR, the Prime Minister’s Office has refused to declassify a report throwing light on how its former boss died. If that’s not enough, the Ministry of External Affairs office on the Raisina Hill has no record sent by the Soviets offering details about the circumstances leading to the controversial death of a most eminent guest.

An RTI application seeking details about the former Prime Minister’s death in Tashkent way back in 1966 has for the first time revealed that the PMO is holding one classified record on the issue and that it cannot be declassified under the clause 8(I)(a) of the RTI act. The clause essentially lets the government withhold information/records whose release could harm foreign relations, cause disruption in the country, lead to incitement of an offence, etc.

Mercifully, no record connected to Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death has been destroyed by the PMO or gone missing, as was the case with certain records related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s reported death.

Our straight and simple queries were submitted to the PMO, which handled the two and forwarded the rest to the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

The controversy

There are two conflicting views on Lal Bahadur Shastri’s sudden death at 1:32 am Tashkent time at a Soviet government villa. The official version is that it was due to a heart attack. It has been vouched for by his eldest son and senior Congress leader Anil Shastri. Shastriji had a history of heart ailment. In fact, he nearly died following a heart attack in 1959.

The major proponent of the conspiracy theory were/are from the family itself. Anil’s mother Lalita Shastri was rather vocal that she did not think that her husband died a natural death. She suspected that the water in his thermos flask kept at his bedside had been spiked. Her younger son Sunil Shastri still holds that his father’s death was a mystery and has been raising demands for an inquiry to clear doubts.

How Shastri died

At the week-long, hectic Indian-Pakistan summit at Tashkent, Lal Bahadur Shastri reportedly showed no sign of illness. Following the signing of the agreement at 4pm and a public reception at 8pm on 10 January 1966, he reached the villa at 10pm. Later, he had a light meal prepared by Mohammed Jan, the personal cook of T N Kaul, the Indian Ambassador in Moscow, and Russian butler Akhmed Sattarov. At about 11.30pm, Shastri had a glass of milk. When his personal staff took leave of him, he was all fine.

But at 1:25am, Shastri was awakened by a severe coughing fit. He ran from his room yelling “Doctor, doctor.” His personal doctor R N Chugh and personal staff came to his aid. Shastri was unable to speak and pointed to a flask kept nearby. A staffer brought some water from it, which the Prime Minister sipped a bit.

Shortly afterwards, Shastri became unconscious. Dr Chugh tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and an injection. But it was no use.

At 4am, Sattarov was arrested on suspicion of poisoning Shastri. He was later absolved of the charges.

Source: End The Secrecy

China to attack India by 2012: Defence Expert

Bangalore: China will attack India by 2012 to distract the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country, according to a leading defence expert.

“China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century,” said Bharat Verma, Editor, Indian Defence Review.

According to Verma, the recession has “shut the Chinese exports shop”, developing an “unprecedented internal social unrest” which in return, was severely jeopardizing Communists grip over the society. Rising unemployment, flight of capital worth billions of dollars, depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and growing internal dissent are several other reasons for this assessment.

“The growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness,” adding, the U.S. President Barak Obama’s Afghan-Pak policy was basically a Pak-Afghan policy that has “intelligently set thief to catch the thief”.

“Beijing was already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India.” The assessment also states that China is worried over the India’s growing alliances with the U.S. and the West, because it has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

“All these three concerns of Chinese Communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives,” said Verma.

As China allowed North Korea to test underground nuclear explosion is a hidden manner, and carry out missile trials, it was also “increasing its naval presence in South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands,” the expert said.

It would be inexpedient for recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan, at this point of time. “Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast,” said Verma.

On ground, India is least prepared to face the Chinese threat, he says. Verma puts a series of questions on India’s response to repulse the Chinese game plan or whether Indian leadership would be able to “take the heat of war”.

“Is Indian military equipped to face the two-front wars by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian civil administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare? “The answers are an unequivocal ‘no’. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front,” he opined.

Source : Siliconindia news bureau

Maoists & Writers’ Marxists are ideological comrades

It does not matter whether Lalgarh is 170 km from Writers’ Buildings or just 17 feet away. The attitude and the apologetic defence of the central

forces show it all.

First, Marxist rulers resisted banning the Maoists. Then, the ruling front is at pains to issue daily statements that the central forces will not be allowed to commit excesses on the tribals (read CPM workers). Does the chief minister think that the security forces love to commit excesses on tribals that he had to state in public about being vigilant on them? Was he vigilant against the excesses of the Maoists in the last 10 years? Did he ever issue any statement against their violence and reign of terror? Did he ever think of banning the organization before the Centre exerted pressure on him? Has he issued any one-liner appreciating security jawans for the excellent work they have done risking their lives?

The fact of the matter is, there is hardly any difference between the Maoists and the Marxists ruling from Writers’. Both are invariably ideological comrades one operating from the jungles and the other enjoying urban amenities. Both have alien heroes and adore Lenin, Stalin and Mao, who were responsible for the killings of millions of people. They all have an extra amount of love and loyalty for the alien powers and have no qualms accepting their support. They have never condemned China for 1962 and still have no clear policy on its claim over Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin. And the poor tribals remain cannon fodder for demonstrations, with half-clad villagers wielding indigenous weapons and singing international for a CPM magazine.

One has to go and see the abject poverty and nothingness in areas adjoining Lalgarh. Jungle, soil, leaves, small huts completely synchronizing with the nature and tribal men and women, semi-clad, working day and night to eke out an existence. You will be amazed, what meticulous design it takes to keep your own people so low? It becomes a vested interest for the Red revolutionaries and their art-paper magazine producers to keep people poor, backward, so that they are always ready to provide the crowd and the boys for mass struggle and revolutionaries zeal while the leaders enjoy Padma’s Ilish. And then the usual page 3 clique in metros, would say with an oomph: “Oh, these Marxists are fighting for the poor, like Buddha ji, a very nice man’.” If votes were not diverted in this Lok Sabha election to other non-CPM parties, the CPM tally would have come down from 30 MPs to just one under Mr Nice.

Trinamool, Congress and BJP kept Kolkata Corporation out of CPM’s reach by a clever strategy in 1995 and with a Congress mayor; BJP had its deputy mayor. One must revive that spirit in national interest and make sure that CPM is ousted in the next Assembly election. Only then will Bengal begin to regain pride, ending the era of goli and garibi.

It’s interesting to know how the Marxists reacted to Lalgarh. Was it in consonance with the way they had reacted to other such incidents of violence? It was a sort of a battle to recapture the lost ground by the CPM from local tribals, who had formed a committee against police repression aided by Marxist workers. Hence the ghost of Maoists helped. The newspapers writing fearlessly against Buddha’s partisan regime were stopped ads and the other Bangla paper had to proclaim it feared none but god and hence it will continue to expose Buddha’s helping hand to the Lalgarh’s red Stalins. The historical truth is Marxism has always been rude to its own people and deceit and doublespeak have been ingrained in it since the early formations of the Bolsheviks when bread and dictatorship of the proletariat were assured.

Now, what will happen to the tribals when the security forces leave Lalgarh? Someone needs to ask what has been the contribution of the government in West Bengal swearing by an ideology that binds it into a psychological camaraderie with Maoists both promising the rule of the proletariat? What the poor got except bullets and backwardness?

(The writer is director, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation)
Source From: Times Of India