Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose: The True Liberator, The Never Ending Mystery!
It has been a practice of Indian historians to undermine some of the greatest heroes of our nation, Netaji’s aura surpasses their theoretical suppressions. The only thing that keeps bothering me as an Indian citizen, is the mystery of his death, and the fact that not once in all these 70 years of independence, had the Indian government honestly tried to reveal this mystery. Apart from that, we’ll thoroughly discuss other dimensions of his life too. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Who is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose?
Born on January 23rd, 1897 in Cuttack (Present day Odisha State of India) to Janakichand Bose and Prabhavati Dutt, Bose went on in education till he became a graduate from University of Calcutta and the Cambridge University. He was born in quite a wealthy family.
He joined Indian Freedom Movement after the infamous Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. He was very much influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and was largely inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. His strong leadership quality, thorough knowledge of politics, science & geo-politics and his integrity towards the nationalism soon made him popular amongst the freedom fighters and he was elected as a President of the Indian National Congress in 1938.
Netaji’s Popularity and the Attempts of His Political Assassination
Subhash Chandra Bose was everyone’s favourite after the provincial elections of 1937. Result of which was, that Subhash Chandra Bose won the 1938 Haripura Congress Session Election and became party president.
Many people may not believe that Gandhiji was jealous of Netaji’s rise as a mass leader. In the 1939 Tripuri Session Elections, while Nehru was away from it, enjoying holidays in Europe, Gandhiji desperately wanted someone from his panel to contest against Netaji in that election. When Nehru returned, he wanted Nehru to do so, but Nehru suggested Maulana Azad’s name. Azad did stand for the election but withdrew the nomination afterwards. He then put Dr. S Pattabhi to contest against Netaji. Pattabhi lost. Netaji won. This is something Gandhiji said in a letter afterwards and I quote, “I am glad of his (Subhash’s) victory, and since I was instrumental in inducing Dr. Pattabhi not to withdraw his name after Maulana Azad Sahib done so, the defeat is more mine than his.”
Not only this, but when Netaji went to Wardha (Present day, in the state of Maharashtra) which was then a resident of Gandhiji, not only had he failed to restore the relations with Gandhiji, but also with Nehru, Netaji had some differences. While Netaji was in Wardha, he stayed for some days. Even after being Congress president, he considered it important to have an advise of Gandhiji to make a panel. Some mysterious things happened meanwhile. He had a severe headache. Gandhiji personally made a medicine out of local herbs and applied it on Netaji’s forehead. The headache stopped in few hours.
Netaji then left for Howrah in a train. People were welcoming him on every station. At Nagpur, he found himself having a severe 103 degree fever. After going to his home in Kolkata, he was bedridden for a lot while. He missed some very important meetings of Congress committee.
All the meetings went chaotic. Subsequently 12 out of 13 members in panel resigned and waited for the recovery of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Just for your information, those 12 who resigned in order to wait for Netaji, included Sardar Patel and the 13th one who did not resign, was Nehru. Everything quoted here has a source at the bottom of this blog. Now the question is, majority of the Congress members clearly wanted Netaji to lead but only a few and their supporters tried best to bully him. Make your conclusions readers. I only quoted what happened.
Why did Netaji Quit as a Congress President?
Now that he had the commands of freedom movements, he decided to go violent against the Britishers. In 1939, World War II started. The Britishers needed men to fight in the war. As a colony, they looked upon Indian soldiers but none of them would fight for Britishers unless Congress asks to do so. The command was held by Netaji, and he knew that Britishers desparately needed Indian soldiers. A little patience and a strong denial would definitely result in getting independence. Just look at the circumstances happened afterwards. Britishers were badly beaten by the Germans and if it weren’t for Indian soldiers’ support, they would definitely have lost to the Germans. Netaji had this foresight. He knew that Britishers will be weakened and that would have been the best time to attack them. Trust me, he would literally have Britishers flee from India maximum by 1942. Alas, Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t amused by this idea. His great values of non violence were offended by the decision of Netaji to not to help Britishers in the war.
This difference of opinion caused a vertical divide in Congress and Netaji resigned as the President of Congress. He was kept in a house arrest by the Birtish Government in Kolkata. He disguised himself as someone else and left Kolkata right under the nose of Britishers.
Netaji’s Heroic Tour
He then went on traveling in disguise towards Northwest. He went to Moscow via Delhi, Peshawar (Present day Pakistan), Kabul (Afghanistan) etc. Attention readers, he didn’t go by air, neither did he have a solid passport to go through any nation by road. All he travelled was an epic adventure. He travelled amidst a world war. He went to politically unstable and war-hit countries like Russia. He went to the most dangerous nation of that time, Germany and met with the most dangerous man in the World War, Adolf Hitler. Now think for a little while, will you risk your life to this extent even for yourself? Netaji did this, just for the nation.
Netaji stayed in Germany for around a year. Meanwhile he spread awareness about Indian freedom movement amongst the German people and he united many Indo-Europeans for this cause. Hitlerrefused to partake in Indian independence as he was busy dictating Germany and screwing around the entire Europe. He did help Netaji by offering him a submarine. Meanwhile in Germany, Netaji probably had a secret marriage with an Austro Hungarian women called Emilie Schenkl. They also had a daughter named Anita in 1942. Following are the pictures of Emilie and Anita.
Netaji left his wife along with the daughter in war time. One more big sacrifice on the list.
Netaji went till Madagascar in that German submarine. Japan, Axis powers’ another strong member agreed to help Bose with Indian independence. Japan helped him get to Singapore and Malaya. There were a lot Indian war prisoners in Singapore, Malaya and Andaman. Bose gathered them all. He restructured the INA and became the first declared supreme leader and a commander in chief for armed forces against Britishers. This news had spread amongst all the Indian soldiers in British Indian forces and now they also started to show the symptoms of rebellion. Here, INA was all set to attack the British India from North Eastern fronts with the help of Japan.
Azad Hind Fauj aka Indian National Army (INA)
{ Before you read this section, here’s a request. Kindly plug in your earphones, keep the volume moderate and listen to “Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja”, the marching song of Azad Hind Sena. You’ll feel the energy as you read.}
Formed in 1942 by General Mohan Singh, the army was made up of Indian Prisoners of War in the second world war. In 1943, Rash Behari Bose made Netaji the Commander-in- Chief of INA. Under his leadership, INA grew stronger. With the Emperor of Japan by side, Netaji planned to attack the Britishers from North Eastern fronts. The INA and Japanese Army attacked Imphal and Kohima which are the present day capital cities of Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur respectively. On 19th March 1944, the INA had captured the Moirang village in present day Manipur state. Here the history needs to be put straight. The British version, and even the Wikipedia says that it was a battle between the Japanese and Britishers or between the Axis and the Allied powers. Make no mistake readers, Axis powers and especially Japan was never interested to take on against the British by themselves while they were already busy fighting with the US. While the Britishers accept it to be the hardest battle ever fought, they fought it against the INA alongside the Japanese and not precisely against the Axis powers.
Though the Japanese lost this battle, INA was successful in capturing the Moirang village, near Manipur from Britishers and it is also said that they had captured nearly half of the present day Nagaland state.
The Japanese then fleed after the defeat. The soldiers of INA literally cried when they touched the soil and hoisted the flag of INA in Moirang. A provisional Government in Exile was already set up by the INA with Netaji being the Supreme leader, the flag hoisting made it quite clear that the INA will be unstoppable regardless of the fact that Japanese left their support, because now the soldiers of British Indian Armed Forces were also eager to call out a mutiny. With the lesson of 1857 in memories and the sheer terror of Netaji’s INA lead the British Government to seriously consider for India’s Independence and avoid any further loss. This is not my opinion. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar quoted this in an interview with BBC. Listen it here.
The context in that video is, Clement Atlee was British PM back in 1950. He said in a conversation with Former Justice of Calcutta High Court Mr. Chakraborty, that the British Government was precisely not afraid of non violent movements by Gandhiji. They rather feared for the possible violent mutiny that was about to begin after INA’s first victory against the Britishers. The mutiny was almost sure when the news of Netaji’s death and arrest of more than 16000 INA soldiers was spread in India. Justice Chakraborty quoted this in a letter and this letter was published in the Tribune of February 12, 2006. Page no. 11.
In a matter of 15 days, Axis powers’ strongest contender, the Nazi Germany weakened. On April 30th, 1945, Hitler committed suicide and Germany’s slices were shared by the allied forces. Japan was heavily aggressive against the US. On August 6th, 1945, a nuclear bomb detonated on Hiroshima. In 3 days, another one detonated on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered. Now the question arose, what would happen to the INA?
Netaji decided to discuss terms of surrender with the Emperor of Japan, that whether to surrender with them or to surrender separately. For this, he had to go to Japan.
On 16th August 1945, Netaji went to Saigon, Taiwan (Present day, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). He discussed some very important things with Japanese Military Officials. On the next day, some Japanese officials and Netaji went in a Japanese Bomber Plane. The aircraft halted at Matsuyama Aerodrome before reaching Tokyo. When the plane took off, one of the bombs blasted inside the plane and the plane crashed. Netaji died out of 3rd degree burns. His most honest official and fellow, Habib Ur Rehman was also injured. Don’t get sentimental, dear readers. Despite being on official records, this story has zero direct evidences and for sure, Netaji did not die in that plane crash. Let me put this straight, no plane was crashed at all!
Netaji’s Death Mystery and Conspiracy Theories
There are many conspiracy theories that Netaji was in Russia, or Netaji met former Prime Minister Shastri Ji in Tashkent, or Netaji was killed by the CIA etc. One of the conspiracy theories has to be true. Mostly the one which holds more evidences. Let’s take a look.
Netaji joined hands with Axis powers in World War II and the Axis were finally defeated after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now whoever fought with the Axis, was a war criminal in the eyes of US. Subhash Chandra Bose was one of the most wanted war criminals for US. The year was 1945, India was still under British Raj. Bose did not want the INA to stop. He also knew that the war was technically not over and thus he made this brilliant plan of faking his own death.
Official records say that he was going to surrender, but he knew very well that this wasn’t the option. His plan was to involve Russia (USSR) in his mission, along with Japan. He new that USSR will have hard relations with the US and the Western Europe, including the Britishers. The Cold War started right after the Second World War. This situation would definitely favour the Indian Freedom Movements as well. He did fly from Saigon to Matsuyama Aerodrome. From there, he changed the route. He went to Russia through Manchuria. He was in Stalin’s Gulag (Concentration Camp) for a few years. His plan of aligning Japan and Russia for India’s cause against the Britishers did not succeed, neither was it needed as Britishers passed the Independence of India Act in July 1947.
Afterwards he came to India via Tibet, probably in 1951. The reason that him being the war criminal, and had that been revealed that he was in India afterwards, India would definitely have faced some serious problems during the early days of independence. Thus, he never appeared before public in his entire lifetime till 1985. He was a true Hindu. He believed in Sanyastha Aashram (the phase of monkhood when you get away from the material world after your causes have fulfilled). Thus, not only had he disguised as a Sadhu (a monk), he lived rest of his life as a monk. He never showed his face to anyone. Sometimes when people doubted him of being Netaji, he left the places he lived. During his remaining life, he lived in many cities of UP such as Lucknow, Faizabad, Ayodhya etc. His last place of residence was Ayodhya. People called him by the name Bhagvant Ji, or the more famous one, “Gumnaami Baba.”
Netaji died on September 18th, 1985, at the age of 88. His dead body was burned as per Hindu rituals, right where Lord Shri Ram took the Jal Samadhi.
Everything quoted here is backed by some solid evidences. These are as given below.
Evidences
The Reports of Investigation Commissions
Like us today, many people had questioned the so called plane crash theory. To investigate into this, the Shahnawaz Committee of 1956 and the G D Khosla Commission of 1970 were established by the Indian Government. Leave about investigation, they overlooked the flaws in the plane crash theory. Just one example, one of the members of Shahnawaz Committee was Mr. Suresh Chandra Bose, elder brother of Netaji, issued a dissentient report debunking the plane crash theory. Even Pt. Nehru was convinced over this. The G D Khosla Commission also, did not properly investigate into the circumstances. The only Commission which indeed examined every aspect in detail, was the Mukherjee Commission, headed by Justice Mukherjee. Justice Mukherjee himself went to the accident spot, to Japan where the so called Asthi or remains of Netaji are kept in a temple. He himself examined the circumstances and the evidences submitted by the members of The Netaji Mission. The Mukherjee Commission concluded that
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose did not die in a plane crash. Here is the the conclusion on page no. 123 of Mukherjee Commission Report.
While the previous two commission reports were approved by the Congress Governments of 1956 and 1970, they were later rejected by the Morarji Desai Government in 1977. The NDA Government initiated Mukherjee Commission in 1999, which continued till 6 years. Apparently it was Congress Government back in power in 2005 and they rejected the report of Mukherjee Commission without any strong reason.
The Plane Crash Hoax
There are many reasons why this plane crash theory is a big hoax. Those are as follows.
- According to the Aerodrome officials, no plane crash was ever recorded anywhere near the Aerodrome in 1945
- All the witnesses told different stories of plane crash. Some said it fell on the air strip while some said it fell outside the Aerodrome.
- Not a single dead body was found. Not of Bose and not even the Japanese Military Officials flying with him.
There are a lot reasons to be explained under this, kindly look into the sources.
Netaji in Russia
From Major General G.D. Bakshi to veteran leader Subramanian Swamy, to almost every Indian in 20th century had this statement on their mouth, that Bose was not dead and was in Russia. This may or may not be true. Also if he was in Russia, it is still unknown that, for how long he was there. An Indian Engineer, working in Russia, named Ardhendu Sarkar once confronted Indian Ambassador for Moscow that his boss, Mr. B. A. Zerobin has met with Bose in Russia, in the year 1948. Netaji told Zerobin that he was returning to India for sure. This is recorded in the National Archives of India. The corresponding record is given below in the sources.
The Gumnaami Baba
When Bagwant Ji alias Parde Wale Baba or Gumnaami Baba was alive, many important people would visit him such as Chief Minister, Ex INA Soldiers & Officials, the family members of Netaji etc. Even those meetings have a lot to reveal, the greatest key to this puzzle, are the belongings of Gumnaami Baba. High Court of Allahabad ordered to open those 24 trunks containing 2760 belongings of Gumnaami Baba, years after his death. Make no mistake, almost everything of those 2760, either belonged to Netaji, or was in any connection with Netaji. Checkout the following pictures.
Many letters were found, in which the monk was the recipient and he was addressed as Netaji. Some of the prominent people who sent letters to Gumnaami Baba addressing him as Netaji, were Pavitra Mohan Roy, Leela Roy, Sunil Das, Dr. Hedgewar, M. S. Golwalkar etc. All these were either public figures or people of Netaji’s close circles.
The DNA tests of Gumnaami Baba were forged. Though they cited that the monk was not Netaji, the DNA reports lacked the most vital part, the electro pherogram. Electro pherogram is the machine developed chart of DNA examination. The handwritings of Gumnaami Baba and Subhash Chandra Bose were also the same according to the best handwriting examination expert of India, Mr. B Lal Kapoor. He examined the handwritings for no lesser than 460 times. Yet the handwriting examination report was rejected.
Conclusion
Though Mukherjee Commission made a detailed research, the government rejected it in a few seconds. There must have been involvement of politics to suppress the truth, as it always happens. Although I am personally convinced that Gumnaami Baba was Netaji, I do not compel this opinion on you people. I have cited some very rarely known facts and I’m providing authentic resources. It is upto you to decide.
Even after so much detailed analysis of Mukherjee Commission and the tireless efforts of Netaji Mission, the mystery is still unsolved.
From sacrificing a luxorious life for nation’s cause to fighting for freedom of India, from quitting as a Congress President over intellectual and operational differences to starting the first Government in Exile, from being a nightmare to Britishers to being mystery in Independent India’s history; Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose has suffered too much, only for his idea of Sampurn Swaraj i.e. Total Independence. Let’s not make this man’s history being limited to the dialogue of “Tum Mujhe Khoon Do, Main Tumhe Aazadi Doonga”. Let us read more about him. Let us tell more about him.
Jai Hind
Warm Regards,
Dnyanesh Make “the DPM”
Post Script
Our sincere thanks and tributes to the members of The Netaji Mission. Journalist Mr. Anuj Dhar and his team have worked day and night for many years to research on this mystery. Anuj Sir, hats off.
I personally recommend you to watch the movie “Gumnaami” which based on the hearings of Mukherjee Commission.
Take a look at the trailer
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