To mark Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 119th birth anniversary on Saturday, while the Narendra Modi Government declassified some of the files related to the lingering mystery of the legendary leader’s disappearance, in New Delhi, Bose’s great granddaughter Rajyashree Chauduri demanded the War criminal tag be removed from his head during a press conference in Dehradun the same day.
She further said the treasure that the Indian National Army possessed should be recovered and used in national reconstruction. She also released copies of several sensitive documents related to Netaji to buttress her points.
She said Pandit Nehru was fully aware of the War criminal tag attached to Netaji and his having taken asylum in erstwhile Soviet Union after the ‘hoax’ air crash of 1945.
“Nehru wrote a letter to the then Prime Minister of England Clement Atlee dated December 26 1945, saying that Bose was in Soviet Union thanks to the initiative of Joseph Stalin. Nehru called it an act of treachery on the part of the Soviet Union as it was an ally of the Anglo American Bloc during the Second World War,” she said.
She also presented the copies of the letter purportedly written by Pandit Nehru at the press conference. “Things are clear. We need not dwell much on the mindset of the Nehru Government vis-a-vis the revolutionary leader who had sacrificed everything at the altar of the nation’s freedom,” she said.
Rajyashree said there is no justification in preserving the spurious ‘ashes’ of Netaji at Renkoji Temple in Japan at the expense of the Indian taxpayers when it is certain that the leader had not died in the air crash that purportedly happened at Taihoku on 18 August 1945.
While thanking the Prime Ministr Narendra Modi for taking the initiatives to have the hitherto classified files made public she requested the Centre to do the same to ensure that the files related to Netaji are declassified by the Governments of foreign countries like USA ,UK, Russia, China, Japan, Australia and many others.
Saying that history of the Indian freedom movement should be written afresh, giving the pre-eminent places to the legendary leaders, including Netaji, she said they have remained unhonoured and unsung in the history books years after India attained freedom.
“Subhash Chandra Bose and many others have received brusque treatment in the history books and this must be corrected and their roles should be duly recognized so that the posterity get the right perspectives of the country’s glorious anti-colonial history,” Chauduri said.