www.bosefiles.info - a website aimed at providing documentary evidence of the last days of Subhas Chandra Bose, the charismatic President of the Indian National Congress in 1938 and 1939 and thereafter Supreme Commander of the Indian National Army (INA) formed in South-East Asia, was launched in London on Friday.
The website, which is created by Bose's grand nephew and a veteran journalist Ashis Ray from Monday 14 December is providing a weekly installments of documentary evidence revealing what really happened to Bose.
One of the latest releases with supporting documents, from Ray said 'people misled to believe Bose escaped to Soviet Union. (If he did) British would have probably put him on trial'. It went on to say, “There is acceptable proof Bose wanted to seek refuge in the Soviet Union at the end of World War II in August 1945 and was even in the process of implementing a plan to do so. Indeed, he was on a flight, which was scheduled to stop at Dairen in Manchuria (near the Russian border) en route to Tokyo. It was not unlikely he would disembark there and then attempt to enter the Soviet Union.
“At the same time, the report emphasises there has never been any evidence to substantiate that he actually made it to the Soviet Union, thereby dismissing speculation on the subject that's been in vogue for 70 years.
“The report further exposes that the British would probably have put Bose on trial and the Viceroy of India Lord Archibald Wavell had been given a "TOP SECRET" note by the Home Department in New Delhi in August 1945 to discuss the matter with the Secretary of State for India during a visit to London.”
In another, it was elaborately justified 'documents explain why people suspected Bose escaped to Soviet Union'. It concluded saying, “Bose wanted to seek refuge in the Soviet Union. He was on an aircraft that was scheduled to stop in Manchuria, which is near the Russian border, and the possibility of him disembarking there with Gen Shidei wasn’t ruled out.
“The truth is there is no evidence to establish Bose ever made it to Dairen in Manchuria. Consequently, one can safely infer without any fear of credible contradiction that he never entered the Soviet Union in August 1945.
“The persons most likely to have received confirmation about such passage, namely his brother and mentor Sarat Chandra Bose and his wife Emilie Schenkl (with whom he was in touch throughout his stay in East Asia between 1943 and 1945), never received any message from him directly or indirectly on the matter. Neither did they during their respective lifetimes ever publicly say Bose had gone to or was in the Soviet Union.
“Thus, it is only logical to dismiss the 70 year speculation about Bose escaping to the Soviet Union.”
But activists in the UK and India have dismissed these documents published in the website. Members of London-based Netaji Subhas Foundation and Delhi-based Mission Netaji have released official records created in 1996, overturning the contention made by Ray on the basis of records of 1991 to 1995 vintage.
Anirban Mukhopadhyay of Netaji Subhas Foundation, UK told Asian Voice, “Copies of records available on Ray’s website show that requests for information on whether Subhas Bose went to the Soviet Union in or after 1945 were made by the Congress party government in India of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.
“This is a partial disclosure which distorts the real story. Documents with us show the full chain of communication between the two countries and what comes out is quite different from what Mr Ray is claiming,
“All this was gone into great detail by us when Mission Netaji researcher Anuj Dhar was invited to deliver talks across the UK in June this year on our invitation,” Mukhopadhyay adds.
Dhar’s 2012 best-selling book India’s biggest cover-up, which triggered the demand for declassification, contains a fuller account of the India’s approaches to Russia over the Bose issue.
Anuj Dhar, whose latest book What happened to Netaji? was released in London in November, says that the copies of records produced by Ray constitute “low-level communication, known as note verable in diplomatic parlance”.
“It would be naïve to accept these as evidence. There have been instances in past when Russians gave misleading statements even at the high level and eventually came out with truth as pressure mounted.”
Mukhopadhyay has also questioned timing of release of documents by Ray, asking why did he not place them before the Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry (1999-2005).
“He should have cooperated with the commission as Dhar did,” he added.
