Nehru should be stripped of Bharat Ratna: Netaji's descendant

A descendant of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on Monday said former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru should be stripped of the Bharat Ratna in the light of recent revelations alleging snooping on family members of the revolutionary leader by successive Congress governments.

Family spokesperson Chandra Kumar Bose said Nehru's character is now open before the public eye since the revelations.

"Bharat Ratna is a civilian award and the character that Nehru has displayed... he doesn't deserve the award. The people of this country demand that Nehru's Bharat Ratna should be stripped. His Bharat Ratna should be taken away," Chandra Kumar, Netaji's grand nephew, told IANS.

According to documents accessed by author and researcher Anuj Dhar, Bose's close relatives, including his two nephews Sisir Kumar Bose and Amiya Nath Bose, were purportedly spied upon for 20 years between 1948 and 1968. Nehru was the prime minister for 16 of those 20 years.

The clamour for publicising over 150 secret documents too has been gaining ground with the Narendra Modi-led central government setting up an inter-ministerial committee headed by the cabinet secretary to review the Official Secrets Act in the context of such files.