A new book on Subhash Chandra Bose’s death reveals interesting facts

The following extract is from an upcoming book, Laid to Rest: The Controversy over Subhas Chandra Bose’s Death. Authored by veteran foreign correspondent Ashis Ray, the book looks at 11 different investigations by four national governments on the death of freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.

Announcing the publication of the book on Bose’s 121st birth anniversary on Tuesday, Ray said, “I appeal to anyone interested in Subhas Bose to kindly read the book and decide for themselves where the truth lies.”

The foreword to the book has been penned by Bose’s daughter Professor Anita Bose Pfaff. “For most of those people who continue to doubt Netaji’s death in Taihoku in August 1945, one possible option for proof would be a DNA test of the remains of Netaji – provided DNA can be extracted from the bones remaining after his cremation. However, the governments of India and Japan would have to agree to such an attempt,” she remarks.

Here goes the extract:

Mahatma Gandhi, with his exalted status as ‘Father of the Nation’, also contributed to the confusion by suddenly pouring cold water over the August 1945 story, before correcting himself. In January 1946 – five months after Bose’s death – Gandhi said he believed Bose was alive and would appear at the right time.

Subbier Ayer, now back in India, called on the Mahatma to put the record straight. Thus, two months after his previous statement, Gandhi conceded in his publication Harijan that he had nothing but his ‘instinct’ to believe Bose was alive. He admitted no reliance could be placed on ‘such unsupported feeling’ and that there was ‘strong evidence to counteract the feeling.’

He went on to say: ‘I appeal to everyone to forget what I have said and, believing in the evidence before them, to reconcile themselves to the fact that Netaji has left us.’ Typically, the non-believers have only ever highlighted his original remark, not the rectification. On what would have been Bose’s fiftieth birthday on 23 January 1947, Gandhi further stressed: ‘He had sacrificed a brilliant career for the sake of the country’s service.’

He went on: ‘A lesser man would have succumbed under the trials that he went through; but he in his life verified the saying of Tulsidas that “all becomes right for the brave”.’

It can justifiably be asked why India did not probe the matter soon after attaining freedom. A way ought to have been devised even in the abnormal post-war circumstances of Japan being under Allied control and India still not a republic, especially before a key figure like Bose’s influential older brother Sarat passed away in 1950. Why did Sarat himself not take the initiative to personally investigate the matter?

He visited Europe twice (the second time, admittedly, for medical treatment in Switzerland) after Indian independence, but did not venture to Taiwan or Japan. Finally in 1956, a three-member Netaji Inquiry Committee constituted by the Indian government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru – in response to demands for this in the Indian parliament – undertook the first official Indian inquiry. The committee was chaired by Major General Shah Nawaz Khan of the INA, with Suresh Bose, another brother of Subhas, and S.N. Maitra of the Indian Civil Service as its other members.

(Laid to Rest: The Controversy over Subhas Chandra Bose’s Death is being published by Roli Books and will hit the stands on Feb 12).