THE MAN OF MULTIPLE MYSTERIES ... 1

THE MAN OF MULTIPLE MYSTERIES ... 1

The Netaji mystery is so deep and wide-ranging that it most probably will never be solved to everybody's satisfaction, for the people's perception of Netaji being a celibate, immortal-in-the-flesh hero that defies all logic, can never be reconciled with any findings or their absence. So long as public perception is directed along irrational, improbable and even impossible channels by mercenaries masquerading as Netaji researchers, it is puerile to hope for reasonableness from the lay public regarding the appreciation of any conclusion drawn about the missing leader.

Multiple aspects of Netaji's life are shrouded in mystery, and who can penetrate into the dark recesses of forgotten times by mere conjecture? Unless governments across the world come clean on this issue at whatever distant date it may be, the mystery will not be solved. Only the classified files on Netaji that are held in the vaults of the governments of the relevant countries, when brought out into the open, can reveal the truth. Till then myths and fantasies are bound to thrive in less than rigorously rational minds which feed their frustrations and aspirations on such stupendous hopes as of a homecoming of the hero in martial attire at the head of a pan-Asia army at the age of 123 years and more.

The present attempt of the author through this prospective series of essays is to rationalise the discourse and set its bearings right so that Netaji, the historical personality, is not lost to us as well and his real life and message not submerged in the sea of fantastic notions of his post-disappearance 'life'.

August 17, 1945 is technically his day of disappearance and not August 18 because it was on August 17 that Netaji was last photographed in Saigon while emplaning for an undisclosed location. We thus have concrete evidence of his station as on that date last. Thereafter, we have to rely on the testimony of 'eyewitness' for accounts of his travel to Taihoku Airport on August 18 followed by death caused by air-crash. The air-crash theory is hotly contested and has been debunked in the Justice Mukherjee Commission Inquiry Report but is still officially upheld by the Government of India. The eyewitness accounts, in the absence of credible documentary or forensic evidence to support them, have been deemed by the Mukherjee Commission and the public as insubstantial proof of Netaji's demise by air-crash. Perhaps Netaji had never visited Taihoku on 18 August. Hence, 17 August, 1945 is being marked as the day of Netaji's concretely established disappearance. What happened to Netaji thereafter, no one for sure knows, although, there are many tales that abound of his 'life' and 'activity' post-disappearance which are either accepted or rejected by the people as per their individual persuasions. We shall discuss some of these in the succeeding essays.

End of Part 1

To be serialised

Written by Sugata Bose