A section of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s descendants is questioning perceptions about the hurdles in bringing back his alleged remains, which are kept in an urn at Renkoji Temple in Japan. The family claims that they have documentary evidence to prove that the temple authorities have been willing to hand over the ashes to India. Such a wish, to recover the remains and confirm through DNA test that they are those of the freedom fighter, has long been a ‘wishful thinking’ of many admirers of Netaji seeking closure on the unresolved mystery of his death.
After years of inquiries conducted both at the national and international levels, Netaji was finally confirmed to have died in 1945 due to an alleged plane crash in Taiwan. In response to such findings, a Mukherjee Commission disputed these claims that remain are of Netaji inside the temple. Indian governments have also rebutted the commission’s findings which claimed that authorities in the temple were not very cooperative.
On the eve of Netaji’s 128th birth anniversary, Chandra Kumar Bose, the leader’s grandnephew, urged the Prime Minister’s Office and the government to respond to repeated requests from the Bose family about the return of the remains.
He called the continued presence of Netaji’s ashes in Japan ‘an act of sacrilege’. He further stated, “There is conclusive evidence that the remains are of Netaji in 10 enquiry reports. If the government feels otherwise, they must issue a statement. She referred to how the Renkoji temple earlier had no issues with DNA testing, highlighting that translation was lacking from the Mukherjee Commission report. “I was speaking on behalf of Reverend Mochizuki himself,” said Bose, grandniece of Netaji. “In fact, even the Mukherjee Commission report has that piece of evidence when it states the letter from Reverend Mochizuki (written in Japanese), which translated as: “Our temple shall certainly return them.
The eldest son of Netaji’s nephew, Surya Kumar Bose, confirmed the temple’s consistent readiness to cooperate with scientific testing on the remains. Moreover, author Sumeru Roy Chaudhury did research that uncovered government correspondences from the 1990s and later, emphasizing that no political advantage would come from returning the remains.