Declassified Bose files: Snooping proof of Netaji being alive after 1945

(Left) A file photo of Subhash Chandra Bose. (Right) Declassified files displayed at the Police Museum in Kolkata. pic/AFP

Kolkata: While the declassified West Bengal government files may not provide "conclusive" proof of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose being alive after 1945, researchers asserted that the documents reflect that even the Indian government post Independence did not buy the ‘Taiwan plane crash' theory.

Also read: Files on Netaji declassified - 'A million myths could be busted'

(Left) A file photo of Subhash Chandra Bose. (Right) Declassified files displayed at the Police Museum in Kolkata. pic/AFP

Researchers and some Bose family members believe that the snooping was a result of the Indian government not buying the plane crash theory and believing that Netaji was still alive. "There are more than a dozen instances of reports claiming Netaji to be dead before the August 18 1945 plane crash. In fact in 1942, it was reported that he died in a plane crash," said researcher and author Jayanta Chowdhury.

"So it is quite natural for the authorities not to buy the Taihoku plane crash theory," said Chowdhury, who deposed before the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry which in 2006 concluded that Bose did not die in the alleged air crash of 1945.

A document dated July 17, 1942 addressed to the home department, government of India, states that "a newspaper Hindusthan Standard was alone of all newspapers of Bengal which appeared definitely to discredit the news of Bose death in a plane crash".

Chandrachur Ghose, founder member of "Mission Netaji, an organisation spearheading the declassification campaign, opined that snooping on the Bose family was testament of the government believing Netaji to be alive after 1945. "The Justice Mukherjee Commission has already established that Netaji did not die in the plane crash. These classified files which reveal the extensive snooping only concretise the fact that the Nehru government too believed Netaji was alive," said Ghose.

Around 130 files
CM Mamata Banerjee in her address at the declassification event, said, "There are mentions here about Netaji after 1945 which indicate that he might have been alive," Banerjee.

Among the documents debunking the plane crash theory is a report published in Blitz Bombay on March 26, 1949 which stated: "Plane Crash Theory Unconfirmed".

"It is not known whether the news of living Bose is based upon positive evidence of his whereabouts suspected to be in Red China or Soviet Russia or upon what is described as the negative evidence of the failure of the best brains to the Anglo American Security Services to dig up slightest evidence in confirmation of the story of Bose's death in a plane crash and subsequent cremation with full military honours in Tokyo."

One of the declassified files refers to a secret document by the office of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Branch Calcutta from January 1949 stating that Sarat Chandra Bose believed Netaji was somewhere in China. "Sarat Chandra Bose gave out that he was inclined to believe from information gathered during his European tour, that Netaji Subhash Bose was alive and that he was now somewhere in China controlled by the Communist Army in China," reads the document.

Netaji"s grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose, asserted that it was time for the Narendra Modi-led central government to publicise the files.