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Modi declassifies Netaji files

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Subhash_Chandra_Bose

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday declassified Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose files at the National Archives of India here.

Modi released digital copies of some of the files following the government’s decision to declassify files on the freedom fighter.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Today (Saturday) is a special day for all the Indians. Declassification of Netaji files starts on Saturday. Will go to National Archives myself for the same.”

In another tweet, Modi said: “Remembering Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his birth anniversary. His bravery and patriotism endears him to several Indians across generations.”

The release of the files “will meet the long-standing public demand” and “will also facilitate scholars to carry out further research on Netaji”, a culture ministry statement said.

The National Archives received 990 declassified files pertaining to the Indian National Army (INA) from the defence ministry in 1997.

Netaji, one of the leading lights of the Indian freedom struggle, set up the INA during World War II to take on the British Indian Army.

A former Congress president and once a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, Bose’s reported death in a plane crash in Formosa, now Taiwan, in 1945 has remained a mystery.

Bose was born on January 23, 1897 in Cuttack, Odisha.

(Agencies)

Netaji files to be declassified from January 23: Modi

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Narendra Modi being presented a Netaji portrait by his family members in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: PTI

Narendra Modi being presented a Netaji portrait by his family members in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: PTI

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced that the government will start de-classifying files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose from January 23 – his birth anniversary.

Modi said this in a series of tweets after meeting members of Bose’s extended family at his residence here.

The prime minister said the government would also request foreign governments to declassify their files on Bose, whose reported death in a plane crash in 1945 in Formosa, now Taiwan, is widely disputed.

Modi said he will begin the process involving other countries with Russia in December when he visits Moscow.

Bose, a leading light of India’s freedom movement who at one time was elected the Congress president, was said to be fleeing to Russia when his plane reportedly crashed and caught fire.

This version has been challenged for decades by innumerable Bose fans who have held varying versions of what happened to him after 1945.

Bose’s family members met Modi in the light of the West Bengal government’s declassification of official files related to the last days of Bose, who set up the Indian National Army (INA).

“It was a privilege to welcome family members of Subhas Babu to 7RCR. We had a remarkable and extensive interaction,” Modi said.

“I told Subhas Babu’s family members – please consider me a part of your family. They shared their valuable suggestions with me,” he added.

Modi said: “There is no need to strangle history. Nations that forget their history lack the power to create it.”

The prime minister had announced in September that he would meet over 50 members of Bose’s extended family living in India and abroad.

(Agencies)

Bose alive in China in 1948, indicates declassified file

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Subhash_Chandra_Bose

Kolkata: Freedom fighter Netaji Subash Chandra Bose was “alive” and “somewhere in Manchuria, China” in 1948, one of his trusted aides, Deb Nath Das, had claimed then, according to the declassified files by the West Bengal government.

Among the released dossier, file No. 22 sheds light on intelligence gathered by the Bengal government (office of the deputy commissioner of police), on INA leaders, including Das.

An extract dated August 9, 1948, says: “Deb Nath Das, an ex-INA leader who is actively engaged in anti-Congress propaganda, is preaching in political and party circles that Netaji Subash Chandra Bose is alive and is somewhere in Manchuria, China at present.”

“To rouse the curiosity and even belief of the people, he (Das) says that Netaji told him before the plane-crash that the possibility of a third world war would emerge in the wake of the second world war.”

On August 22, 1945, Tokyo Radio announced the “death” of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in an air crash in Formosa (now Taiwan) on August 18, 1945, en route to Japan.

But the crash theory has been rejected by scores of Bose’s followers and admirers and claims of the revolutionary leader resurfacing continue to intrigue and divide Indians over the years.

Adding to the controversy, the extract further states that Das had asserted that in 1948 Bose was keeping tabs on the international as well as national scenario.

“Das adds that Netaji is watching both the international and national situation, vis-A-vis India, to find out as to which among the foreign powers was her friend or enemy. There is a talk that Deb Nath Das may contest the by-election from south Calcutta constituency of the West Bengal Assembly.”

Das, according to a declassified 1948 confidential diary page of the Calcutta police, was known to give “fiery lectures” against the then Indian government.

“Except for the meetings attended or presided over by Das, in which he always gave fiery lectures against the government of India, nothing else could be known of his anti-Congress activities.”

The Bengal government on Friday made public 64 files to help unravel the mystery behind Bose’s disappearance.

Bose, once the Congress president, made contact with the Axis powers during World War II. He formed the Indian National Army in Singapore, with the help of the Japanese, and fought the British Indian Army.

Ex-INA leader Das, was a key member of the provisional government-in-exile formed by Bose in 1943.

(IANS)

Centre needs to tread cautiously on Netaji files: Venkaiah Naidu

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Venkaiah Naidu

Hyderabad: The Centre will take a decision on declassification of files related to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose only after studying its impact on India’s relations with other countries, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here today.

“The West Bengal government has made public certain confidential files related to Netaji. It is good… It needs to be studied what is there in those files before the Centre takes such a decision, its impact on the international community, our relations with other countries, neighbouring countries, needs to be studied.

“The Centre will have to take a final decision after studying that. I personally feel that people of the country have the right to know the truth on the Netaji issue. Government will think of it and decide how and when to do it,” the Parliamentary Affairs minister told reporters here on the sidelines of an event.

Seventy years after his mysterious disappearance, 64 files running into nearly 13,000 pages were declassified yesterday which shows some of Netaji’s family members were spied upon in independent India.

However, there was no clarity on whether Bose died in an air crash in 1945 as is widely believed.

Tucked away in police and government lockers for decades, the files containing 12,744 pages were declassified by West Bengal government in the presence of Bose’s family members, who have been demanding that information on Netaji be made public.

The files have been kept inside glass cases at the Kolkata Police Museum before they are made accessible to the public on Monday.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has demanded that the Centre declassify files pertaining to the nationalist leader and said that it is unfortunate that the mystery of Netaji’s disappearance has remained unresolved for 70 years.

Some of Netaji’s family members have rejected the theory that he had died in a plane crash in Taihoku airport in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.

(Agencies)

West Bengal government declassifies 64 files related to Netaji

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Subhash_Chandra_Bose

Kolkata: The West Bengal government today declassified 64 files relating to Subhas Chandra Bose which might throw some light on his mysterious disappearance as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the Centre should also make public its files on him.

The 64 files containing 12,744 pages were declassified in the presence of his family members who have been demanding that information on Bose, kept confidential till now, should be made public.

The files were displayed in glass cascades in Kolkata Police Museum here and they would be made accessible to the public from Monday, City Police Commissioner Surajit Kar Purakayastha said.

Of the 64 files, 55 were with Kolkata Police while another nine were with the state police.

Purakayastha handed over a DVD containing the files in digitised format to the family members of Netaji.

Chief Minister Banerjee, who visited the police museum, tweeted, “Today is a historic day. Our government has made all Netaji files public. People have a right to know about the brave son of India.”

Later, she said, “We made a beginning. The people should know the truth. Let the central government also declassify the files (on Netaji). Let good sense prevail on all of us. You cannot suppress the truth. Let truth come out.

“In 70 years, the mystery has not been solved. We did not know what happened (to Netaji). It is unfortunate. How long you can keep it under secrecy. You read the files in details,” she said.

Welcoming the declassification of the 64 files by the state government, Chandra Bose, Netaji’s grandnephew said, “It is a correct step. Now it is the duty of the central government to declassify 130 files it has with it.

(Agencies)

SC clears Justice Katju over Gandhi, Bose remarks

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Katju

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Monday said that prima facie comdemnation of Justice Markandey Katju by parliament for describing Mahatma Gandhi as a British agent and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as a Japanese agent did not violate his right to free speech and expression or in any way dent his reputation.

An apex court bench, headed by Justice T.S. Thakur, while agreeing to further hear the matter, appointed senior counsel Fali Nariman as amicus curiae as Justice Katju’s counsel Gopal Subramaniam told the court that he could not have been condemned by parliament without being given an opportunity to be heard.

Justice Katju , a former judge of Supreme Court and former chairman of the Press Council of India, in one of his blogs, had described Gandhi as a British agent and Netaji as a Japanese agent.

The Rajya Sabha and The Lok Sabha had passed unanimous resolutions condemning and deploring his statement.

(IANS)

Subhas Chandra Bose's family demands judicial probe into snooping

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Kolkata: Expressing shock over reported revelations that successive Congress governments had snooped on family members of revolutionary leader Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for 20 years after independence, a prominent member of the clan on Friday demanded a judicial probe on the issue.

Another family member and MP said the act amounted to showing disrespect to freedom fighters.

Family spokesperson Chandra Kumar Bose demanded that the Narendra Modi government declassify the secret files related to Netaji and the clan.

“It is shocking. It is not an issue involving merely the family, but the entire nation, because several members of the family from Sarat Chandra Bose to Amiya Nath Bose as also Sisir Kumar Bose were prominent freedom fighters,” Netaji’s grand-nephew Chandra Kumar Bose told IANS.

Sugato Bose, another grand-nephew of the leader and Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member, said a “great wrong” has been done by snooping on the family. “This act amounts to insulting the freedom fighters. But I only hope nobody now tries to do politics over the issue.”

Chandra Kumar Bose said while it was understandable that the British government would snoop on the family because of its fight against imperialism, “that the central government in post-independence India could do it, that is too shocking”.

“It is an attack on democracy, personal liberty and the spirit of the freedom movement, a betrayal of the nation,” he said.

“A judicial inquiry commission should be constituted, and a special investigative team should be formed under the commission. The commission should report to a sitting judge of the Supreme Court,” he said.

He said the probe should cover the entire sequence of events from circumstances leading to Netaji’s disappearance to the spying on the family members after independence.

He said the Modi government has been talking of transparency all along. “If they are sincere to what they claim, then they should order declassification of over 160 files still kept secret.”

Media reports have claimed that recently declassified files of the union home ministry have revealed that the family of Netaji was placed under intensive surveillance from 1948 to 1968 by the central government.

The country had three Congress prime ministers during these 20 years – Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.

(IANS)

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