DECLASSIFY NETAJI FILES 2

69 years have rolled by since the mysterious disappearance of Netaji and even today the Government of India is apprehensive about the repercussions it will have to face from the people of India if it declassifies the 130 odd Netaji files in its custody and 64 more such files in the custody of the Government of West Bengal. The Russian KGB files on Netaji are classified as well and  so are all such files on the hero in Great Britain, China and Japan. What is the real reason behind such secrecy? Did Netaji then not die in the reported air-crash at Taihoku Airport on the 18th of August as has been consistently maintained by the Government of India? Was the air-crash report an elaborate hoax to help Netaji escape to a safe destination once the INA had surrendered to the British at the end of World War 2? Did the men in political power in India then gain anything from such a disappearance of Netaji from the national scene and did they thereafter connive with the powers that be to keep Netaji away from India for good? After all, Netaji’s return to India post-independence, in the hypothetical case of his survival till and beyond 15 August, 1947, might have spelled the political doom of many a shrewd contriver in the then Congress Party including its top leadership. So, did anyone within the hierarchy of the ruling party then play foul with Netaji and, with the help of foreign powers such as the erstwhile Soviet Union, prevent his return to his Motherland to take his rightful place at the helm of national affairs? If so, who? Where did Netaji go after 18 August, 1945 for we all know that there had been no air-crash on or within a few days of 18 August, 1945 at Taihoku Airport nor is there any crematorium report to validate the claim of Colonel Habibur Rahman and company that Netaji had succumbed to third-degree burn injuries subsequent to the crash and had been hurriedly cremated there in Taihoku, and this we know on the basis of the Government of India instituted Mukherjee Commission investigating into the Netaji disappearance? The Mukherjee Commission has categorically rejected the Air-Crash Theory and has thrown the doors of investigative research into the disappearance case wide open for serious students of history and political thinking to come up with plausible alternative theories aided especially as they today are by the Right to Information Act which allows them to be privy to many an erstwhile inaccessible State document. But here the researchers are facing the stumbling block of the Netaji Files being held as classified by the Government of India and so long as this impasse continues there is absolutely no chance of the truth to surface. The BJP Government is likely to be more helpful in unearthing the truth as opposed to the last Congress Government which rather unceremoniously had rejected the Mukherjee Commission Report without citing any sufficient reason for such summary dismissal and, therefore, it is being urged that all those who admire, love and honour Netaji should today join hands to press on the demand for declassification of all Netaji files so that truth may at last prevail as to what happened to our missing hero. After all, he was truly the liberator of India from British subjugation as Clement Attlee, the Labour Party British Prime Minister who had presided over the Transfer of Power leading to Independence, had later confided to a legal luminary in India. Attlee had said that it was Bose’s INA offensive that had started a train of revolts among the armed forces serving the British in India that made British rule untenable beyond August 1947 and the British quit in a hurry. They found Gandhian non-violence much easier to negotiate but the nation-wide repercussion of Bose’s armed struggle impossible to contain for the very armed forces they had historically used to suppress the Indian freedom struggle had now turned on them. History ought to be re-written in India whereby Netaji and his INA’s epic struggle to successfully liberate India will be given its due place and rightful honour. And for all this the Netaji Files must be immediately declassified so that truth may shine on our country and shed its lustre for the progress of the Motherland. Jai Hind!