Netaji Bose Papers: The Controversy over the "Bharat Ratna"

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The decision of the Government of India headed by Hon ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi to throw open the records of the Government of India relating to Subash Chandra Bose has evoked considerable interest. The records clearly show that at every step of the way Nehru strove hard to undermine the contributions of Bose and later appropriated them as part of the Congress legacy by inducing prominent lieutenants of the Netaji like Shah Nawaz Khan and Mohan Singh to defect to the Congress. Shah Nawaz rose to be a Minister in the Union Cabinet and presided over the first major Enquiry over the alleged death and disappearance of the great Patriot. 

Throughout the 17 years of Nehru's and the years of his daughter and grandson the Dynasty did not allow the contribution of Netaji to the Freedom Struggle to occupy its rightful place and after the Left took charge of the Ministry of Education after the split in the Congress in 1969, which saw Syed Nurul Hassan being crowned as the Czar of Higher Education, Netaji's stature in Indian History was deliberately slighted. One has only to read the badly crafted sentences in Bipan Chandra's Struggle for Freedom to realize the pathetic depths to which the leftist historians would go to diminish the stature of this towering figure. Throughout those long years Professor Samar Gupta kept raising questions about the disappearance of Netaji but little was done about honouring his memory. It was left to Hon ble Narendra Modi to build a suitable Museum to house the relics of the Indian National Army in New Delhi.

Why was the Nehruvian State hostile to Netaji? This questions goes right to the elephant lurking in the room. How did India get its Freedom. Dynasty friendly historians have chosen to silence the contribution of the INA and treat it as a mere embarrassing interlude in a Glorious Chapter headed by the great Troika--Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Savarkar was brushed aside as the man who wrote "mercy petitions" thereby undermining his many years of sacrifice and suffering. Bose was made to "disappear" literally and metaphorically and so his legacy remained alien to Indian political life. The Forward Bloc founded by Bose tried to carry the torch but after the advent of the Communist Party of India, the Marxist Faction to prominence under Jyoti Basu swerved leftward leaving Bose behind. 

In 1991 when P V Narashima Rao was the Prime Minister and was running a minority Government with a deft combination of inducement (bribes JMM Bribery Case) and state coercion (the Jain Diary Case), a decision was made to award the Bharat Ratna to Subash Chandra Bose. He was tagged with Abdul Kalam Azad whose standing in India was certainly not of the same stature as Netaji Bose. A shrewd political gambit to link Bose with Azad hoping that it could be sold as "secular" recognition of two outstanding individuals. 

On October 10 1991 the Prime Minister wrote to R Venkataraman, the then President requesting the investiture of the Bharat Ratna on the two individuals, Bose and Azad, in recognition for "public service of the highest order" and "outstanding contribution to the freedom struggle". As far as the dynasty friendly historians were concerned, Bose ceased to struggle for Freedom once he was expelled from the Congress and as I have shown earlier the INA was reduced to an embarrassing footnote. So what exactly was being honoured in 1991--the Bose of the Congress Days or the great Netaji of the INA. 

On 3th February 1992, A K Narayanan, Joint Secretary Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to K N Bakshi the Indian Ambassador to Austria to contact Mrs Emilie Schenkl the widow of Netaji and Dr Mrs Anita Pfaff the daughter of the Great Patriot. On Feb 21 1992 Dr Anita Pfaff wrote to the Ambassador:

           "We are aware, however, the fact that in the past Netaji's achievements and contributions have not been recognized, particularly when it could be avoided comfortably". She went on to say that "Such an honour would have been appropriate in the 1950s."

A stinging rebuke from the daughter of the Patriot. And she went on to say "Whether his achievements were so minor that he had to stand in line for so long or so great that they would be remembered even after such a long time". Obviously the Bharat Ratna to Subash Bose who is a legend in India puts him at par with Nehru, Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi and scores more and hence no patriot of India will ever like to see the legend diminished in this way. She concluded by saying that "One cannot honour Netaji today by awarding the Bharat Ratna.

The Bose Family did not accept the award and the insignia and Sanad as per the procedure are now in the Ministry of Home Affais.

 stinging 

Netaji Bose Papers An Investigation into the Funds of the Indian National Army and the Indian Independence League

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Netaji Bose Papers recently declassified by the Government of Hon ble Narendra Modi provides a wealth of details about how the Nehruvian Regime sought to appropriate the entire legacy of this great Patriot. And in so doing left itself open to the charge of mishandling sensitive political and diplomatic issues.

The INA under Subash Chandra Bose collected contributions towards the war effort from the Indian population in Singapore and Malaya. It is safe to assume that the fiscal levies were voluntary contributions though war time measures did warrant a degree of coercion. The Azad Hind Fauj and the Provisional Government headed by Subash Chandra Bose maintained distinct and separate identities. The funds collected by the Government were deposited with banks located in Singapore and Thailand. After the defeat of Japan and its surrender, the Allied Forces moved in and claimed INA assets as "enemy property" and Nehru, a trained lawyer thought it fit to allow negotiations with the Allied Command in Singapore to be carried out under the pretence that INA assets were "enemy property". Of course, the presence of Lord Mountbatten helped Nehru get the support he needed to push his policy through. Apparently a part of the funds were held in a personal account in the name of the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. 

The file F.23 generated by V M M Nair is mere 24 pages but if a historian reads it against the grain so the speak it reveals a great deal. The file begins with a Note from Nair stating that one Hardyal Singh of Singapore was keen to give the INA Gold in his custody back to the Government of India. The legal issue being that the Singapore authorities considered any asset belonging to the INA or the Government he headed as enemy property and Jawaharlal Nehru blithely walked into a trap. He conceded that Pakistan has a share in the INA Assets in the proportion 2: 1. How Nehru arrived at this strange conclusion that Pakistan was entitled to a share of the INA and Provisional Government Assets is utterly bewildering. This decision ranks alongside the other infamous decision taken by Nehru to refer to the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations. INA assets were seized as enemy property and a receiver was appointed to settle the claims, if any, of India. The claim of Pakistan did not arise as these were not National Property. Nehru was quite ignorant of law and legal precedence.

The file reveals that around Rs 10 lakhs were eventually transferred to the account of the Indian Mission in Siam now Thailand. The Ministry of Education thought it fit to use the Funds as seed capital to finance visits by Indian scholars to Thailand in pursuance of the then prevailing notions of Greater India and chose Dr R C Majumdar as its first nominee for the award. Nehru was aghast that the decision was taken without his consent and made his rebuke plain in a Note sent to one Humayun Kabir, then Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Education. R C Majumdar declined the offer and T N Ramachandran the Joint Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India was eventually nominated. The papers do not reveal if Shri T N Ramachandran availed of the fellowship.

Much of the Correspondence in the file is handled by Shah Nawaz Khan who in 1952 was a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. This Shah Nawaz was instrumental in enabling the Indian National Congress appropriate the legacy of Subash Chandra Bose.  Curiously Shah Nawaz was Minister of Food in Shasti's Cabinet in 1965 when his son was a Captain in the Pakistani Army. This individual has had several walk on parts on the stage of Indian history at a crucial juncture. As the Chief defendant in the INA Trial at the Red Fort Shah Nawaz was defended by a galaxy of legal luminaries and though he was sentenced to death for treason, the sentence was commuted and he along with Major Dhillon and another Officer was cashiered from the Army. 

The Legal Defence mounted on behalf of Shah Nawaz was a classic instance of the Rule of Law serving political goals which were quietly given the go by once the Red Fort Trials ended. Shah Nawaz himself became a Member of Parliament and was elected four times in all and lost in 1967 and 1977. The grounds on which it was argued in the Red Fort Trials that the defendants had not committed treason was on the grounds the the Provisional Government of Azad Hind headed by Bose was a legally constituted Government with due international recognition and having all elements of sovereignty, territory, population, Army Judiciary etc. And as such they were soldiers fighting on behalf of their Government against an occupation force. This argument was politically an explosive one in that it threatened to blow the entire edifice of the Nehruvian claim that the legitimate government to which power was transferred was his, and that was essentially the basis of the political consensus of Post Transfer  of Power India. The arguments presented in the Red Fort Trials make clear the fact that the Government of Bose was indeed a legitimate one and INA was not a rebel force but the legal Army of duly recognized Government that had declared war on the Allies.

Shah Nawaz in 1956 was appointed to head a Three Man Commission of Inquiry to look into the death of Subash Chandra Bose. By this time, Shah Nawaz was domesticated within the power structure of the Nehruvian regime and he gave a Report which essentially validated the contentions of the regime. It is certainly likely that Bose had indeed perished in the Crash of 18th August 1945 and by making Shah Nawaz the anchor of the theory, Nehru succeeded in completely neutralizing the political legacy of Subash Chandra Bose. Forward Bloc and the Family was now reduced to merely disputing the factual claim of the Air Crash and the Legacy of Bose was stolen clean.

Thus this file a mere 24 pages long illuminates a sordid chapter in the history of contemporary India.