A return to
the theme of Subhas Chandra Bose is necessitated by the “discovery”
of two books. Both are by Lt. Manwati Arya who was born in Burma and
joined the INA's women's wing, the Rani Jhanis Regiment, in her early
20s. Patriot (2007) is a “personalised biography” of
Netaji. It is flowery and exaggerated: Bose's marriage to Emilie
Schenkl is called “the divine wedlock”.
Judgment:
No Aircrash, No Death (2010) is a compendium of records and
stories about Netaji's widely reported death in Formosa in an
aircrash. The burden of the book is that both the aircrash and the
death were figments of Japan's – and Netaji's – imagination and
that in fact Bose escaped to Russia, then made his way to India.
(With Japan collapsing in the war, the British were planning to
arrest Bose. Which would explain his eagerness to avoid landing in
Japan).
These are
not books* in the modern idiom, with style and polish making for
pleasurable reading. But they contain historically important
material. Judgment, in particular, marshalls evidence to show
that Bose lived as “Pardewala Baba” in Naimisharanya in UP and as
Gumnami Baba in Faizabad and Ayodhya until he died in September 16,
1985.
Many of the
details have appeared in newspapers and books. There have been
several commissions of inquiry as well although it was known that
Jawaharlal Nehru was ambivalent about Bose (some say hostile) and
wanted the aircrash story to stick. According to the just-published
India's Biggest Cover-up by Anuj Dhar, British intelligence
did not believe reports of Bose's death, but Indian officials
suppressed that part of Britain's input.
Judgment
says papers received by Nehru indicated that Netaji flew from Saigon
to Diren in Manchuria in August 1945 in a Japanese bomber, then
drove in a waiting jeep towards Russian territory. There is also a
letter purportedly written by Nehru to British Prime Minister Attlee
saying that “Subhas Chandra Bose, your war criminal, has been
allowed to enter Russian territory by Stalin.... a clear treachery by
the Russians”.
According to
this book, Gumnami Baba would talk at length to visitors from
behind a curtain. He would refer to little known roads and localities
in Berlin, Tokyo, Kabul, Singapore. He would mention details about
world leaders such as “Churchill could not pronounce the sound S”.
Among papers catalogued after his death were photocopies of letters
written and received by Netaji. Photographs of Netaji's parents were
said to have been in the Baba's rooms. It was said that Indira Gandhi
and Rajiv Gandhi knew all about him and the District Administration
in Faizabad took care to ensure the Baba's privacy.
The book
reminds us that it was Hitler who suggested that Netaji travel from
Germany to Asia in a submarine to avoid the risk of air travel. The
Japanese naval command objected, saying civilians could not travel in
a warship in wartime. The Germans said that Bose was “by no means a
private person, but Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Liberation
Army”. In a risky rendezvous off Madagaskar, Bose was transferred
to a Japanese sub.
.
A passage
quoted from Justice P. B. Chakraborty shows that in Attlee's
assessment, Mahatma Gandhi had “minimal” impact on British
policies. The final decision to “leave India in a hurry” was due
to the “activities of Subhas Bose which weakened the very
foundations of the attachment of the Indian land and naval forces to
the British Government” (Attlee, a guest at the Calcutta Raj
Bhavan in 1956, mentioned this directly to Justice Chakraborty who
was then the Acting Governor).
The
historical value of information pertaining to the life and death of
Subhas Bose cannot be denied. Yet there is no definitive book on the
subject. One reason is the Government's insistence that the papers
in its possession are “top secret”. Civilised countries
declassify the topmost secrets after a certain period of time.
India's policy of secrecy only leads to twisted histories. Even on
the India-China war, we only have a biased Englishman's version.
---------------------------------------------------
- Published by Lotus Press, New Delhi. The books were made available to this column by reader Channamallappa Patil Rotnadgi.