64 Netaji files declassified: Multiple theories over last 70 years

A copy of the documents handed over to Bose's family; contents likely to me made public by Monday

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It was a thrilling Friday for India, as the West Bengal government declassified 64 secret files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A copy of these files was handed over to Bose’s family members, and another was kept on display at a police museum in Kolkata.

The files on Bose, a prominent hero of India’s independence struggle, are likely to be put up for public viewing by Monday.

According to a report in The Indian Express , the files might reveal enough circumstantial evidence to suggest Netaji could have been alive until at least 1964, and not died in a Taiwan airplane crash in 1945.

The Mamata government’s take

The Mamata Banerjee government had last week announced it would make public the next 64 files related to Bose which could throw some throw light on his mysterious disappearance in the mid-1940s.

“A total of 64 files are there with us. There may be one or two more files which would also be put in the public domain. After properly reviewing all files, we have decided to put them in public domain from next Friday (September 18),” news agency PTI  had quoted Banerjee as saying.

“Everybody wants to know what happened to Netaji. He was a brave son of our soil and he was from Bengal,” she said.

Asked if the state would request the Centre to declassify the files it had in its possession, Banerjee on Friday said: “It is for the Centre to decide. We want the truth about Netaji to come out.”
 

American intelligence report

According to an American intelligence report prepared in the early 1960s, Netaji could have returned to India sometime in February 1964 — 19 years after it was claimed he died in an air crash in Taihoku, Taiwan.

Though Russia is not mentioned, researchers on Bose believe American intelligence units had learnt about his imminent return from Russia through China. He would have been 67 years old at the time.

Among the contents of the 64 files declassified on Friday is a US intelligence report on Bose’s escape from a house arrest on January 16, 1941.

While history records that Bose, disguised as a Sikh, was driven away by his nephew Sisir, the CIA report — declassified and published 50 years later in the early 1990s — says that five Sikhs had arrived at 38/2, Elgin Road, and all five had left in a wagon. One of them was Bose. But there is no mention of a relative. Intelligence Bureau records contain names of visitors to the Netaji residence on that date.

Allied powers’ take

Another indicator that the Allied powers (Britain, the US, France and the Soviet Union) did not believe Netaji died in a plane crash on August 18, 1945, is the sixth volume of the Transfer of Power document published in the UK after the War. It explored several options about how to deal with Subhas Bose — considered a war criminal for his alignment with Axis powers Germany and Japan — including court martial, deportation to a Sicilian island and a suggestion that he wouldn’t be made to surrender or tried “if he stays where he is”.

The Gumnami Baba story

Interestingly, Gumnami Baba, an ascetic from Faizabad who some believed was Netaji, had told select followers, including former Indian National Army veterans, about the difficulties he and the country would face from superior powers if his presence became public.