It’s an indispensible source for researchers to learn what really happened to Subhas Chandra Bose and how successive Congress Governments have been hiding the truth, writes NS Rajaram
While praised in some circles, Dhar’s book has not received the attention it really merits. Partly it is due to the nature of the book, loaded with immense amount of detail from primary sources including classified documents from several countries. This may appeal to serious scholars, but not the present generation of ‘historians’ prospering by peddling cartoon histories that glorify Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. When the full truth comes out, it will be found to be highly damaging to the two leaders. Buckling under pressure, they agreed to hand over Bose to the British as a war criminal if he ever showed up in India!
First the air crash story. When the news of Netaji’s death in an air crash came both Gandhi and Nehru disbelieved it, but soon reversed themselves. The truth is there had not been a plane crash in the region between August 14 and October 25; the nearest was the crash of a US transporter (C-47, Hercules) carrying prisoners of war in September, that too 200 nautical miles from the Taipei airport. Then a search in the records revealed that Netaji and others on the plane supposedly killed in the crash had not been cremated in the city as claimed in official accounts. The only person cremated in the period was Ichiro Okura, a 46 year-old Japanese soldier who had died of a heart attack. Netaji and others had not been cremated because they hadn’t died.
Here is the only certainty we have about the Netaji affair: He did not die in a plane crash in Taiwan because there was no plane crash. In fact he could not have been on the Mitsubishi Ki-21 bomber that was supposed to have carried him from Saigon, because he was seen by several people in Saigon four days later. Among them was the American war correspondent Alfred Wegg who was in Delhi later; he challenged Nehru when he announced Netaji’s death in a press conference. The story was disbelieved in British and American military circles also who had kept close track of Japanese plane movements. (Americans had broken the Japanese code.)
If Netaji did not die in August 1945, what really happenedIJ This is the real mystery that India’s Greatest Cover-Up tries to answer though in fragmentary accounts and plausible scenarios based on a wealth of material from diverse sources. One thing we do know is that with the full support of the Japanese, Netaji was planning to cross over into Russia from Manchuria and continue his struggle against the British from there. The Japanese, about to surrender to the Anglo-American forces, hoped that Bose might intercede on their behalf with the Soviets. The story of his death in a plane crash was a smokescreen to facilitate his escape to the Soviet Union.
It appears highly probable, even if not entirely certain, that he spent the next several years, perhaps 1946-50, as a guest of the Soviet Union. This was the period when the Cold War descended on the globe and wartime allies turned into adversaries. One thing that becomes clear is that internationally it was Bose who was seen as the foremost leader of India’s freedom struggle — not Gandhi or Nehru. Even after the transfer of power in August 1947, the Soviets (and Communist China) believed that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was only a front for continued Anglo-American rule of India.
This was partly because both Gandhi and Nehru were British-educated and even more because they went on to ask lord Mountbatten to continue as Governor General after Independence. (How and why this happened has never been explained.) This also helps answer the question why Netaji did not return to India in 1947: The Soviets had probably convinced him that the British still controlled India through Nehru even after Independence, which they saw as a sham. Both Indian and Soviet authorities have so far failed to cooperate with Indian researchers seeking information on this.
Both Gandhi and Nehru had reason to fear Netaji’s return to India after the War. Decades of Congress propaganda has built up Nehru’s stature to mythic heights while simultaneously diminishing Bose’s. The truth is, in 1946, it was Bose — not Nehru — who stood tallest in the eyes of the public. It was the return of Bose’s INA and the fear of mutiny in the armed forces, which did materialise in 1946 following the Red Fort trials, that forced the British to leave in a hurry. This is acknowledged by the British including by no less a person than Clement Attlee, then Prime Minister.
Had Bose been in India in 1947, Nehru could not have become Prime Minister. As it was, he was opposed by all the State leaders who voted; they preferred Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It took all of Gandhi’s persuasion to get Patel to withdraw in favour of Nehru who Gandhi felt would be more acceptable to the international community — meaning the British and the Americans. (This may be seen as lending support to the Soviet belief that Indian independence was a sham.)
This would not have worked with Bose who was much younger than both Nehru and Patel. In addition, unlike Nehru who was Gandhi’s protégé, Bose owed nothing to the Mahatma. In fact, in 1939, Gandhi had fiercely opposed Bose as Congress president and forced him to leave. So he was in no position to ask Bose to step aside in favour of Nehru. The Indian Government, however, was almost paranoid in the way it pursued every rumour about persons suspected to be Bose. Why bother if they were sure of Bose’s death in the plane crash of August 1945IJ
There is some evidence for Bose’s presence in the Soviet Union, but the next several years are a complete blank. This period was dominated by the Cold War and there is evidence to suggest that the British and the Americans kept track of Bose as a potential enemy. He was a friend of the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and was believed to be a critic of American policy. In international affairs Bose was strongly anti-imperialistic and decidedly to the left of Nehru, though he was also anti-Soviet.
The most absorbing chapter is the 10th titled ‘The ‘Dead Man’ Returns’, which recounts the life and career of a Hindu holy man known as Bhagwanji. He was widely believed to be Bose by many including those who had known him earlier, before he left India to lead the INA. Of these, Bose’s niece lalitha Bose and his childhood friend lata Roy, a distinguished freedom fighter in her own right, are the most convincing. They found Bhagwanji bore a striking resemblance to Bose including missing teeth and a surgical scar on his abdomen!
It is impossible to do justice to a work of this magnitude in a brief review. All one can say is that it opens many new areas of research that go beyond the Netaji disappearance mystery. What we need is follow up books that explore different aspects of Netaji’s post-crash career suggested in the book. They have the potential to radically transform our view of the freedom struggle. A popular account would also help.
The reviewer is a scientist and historian