1. DID NEHRU KNOW MORE THAN WHAT’S KNOWN TO US?
The answer to this question is an unequivocal and resounding ‘Yes!’ Nehru certainly knew more than he let on. It explains his great reluctance for there to be a public inquiry into Bose’s disappearance as also his stubborn insistence that Bose was dead, having died in the alleged air crash that happened in Taipei. Not only did he know more than he let on, he knew perfectly well that there had been no air crash in Taipei. It was for this reason that he forbade the Shah Nawaz Commission from travelling to Taiwan on the specious ground that this could affect relations with China.
2. DID NEHRU HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE?
It is also clear now with the benefit of hindsight that Nehru and the Congress government was hiding something. It was moreover not something inconsequential that he was hiding, but a powerful secret the disclosure of which would have major international consequences. The question really should be: was Nehru hiding things in general public interest or in his own interest. We will attempt to answer this question just a little ahead but there can be little doubt that Nehru had things to hide, whatever may have been his motivations.
This wasn’t the case of an odd misplaced file, where it may have been possible to give the government the benefit of the doubt. There were hundreds of files on Bose that were available that should have been made available to the committee and commissions that inquired into his death or disappearance. Nehru himself could not have been ignorant of the existence of all these Netaji related files, but deliberately played dumb. One question that arises is: why weren’t at least a few files made available to the Shah Nawaz Committee for form’s sake, if nothing else? Most if not all material within was in any case harmless. There can be only one explanation: the prime minister’s paranoia. Just to be on the very safe side, it was decided not to give any file at all. The stakes for the Nehru were simply too high. Who knows how some wrong paper might get inserted into a file?
3. WAS NEHRU WORRIED THAT TRUTH ABOUT BOSE WOULD COME OUT?
Yes, without any doubt Nehru was extremely worried revelations concerning Bose could come to the surface. One of the main fears that played in his mind was that the truth would somehow become known that there had been no air crash in Taipei—and therefore Bose could not conceivably have died there.
Once this truth was known there would automatically be a powerful seed of doubt planted in the public’s mind: had Nehru known that there was no air crash all the while? The public would then ask a further question: what else had Nehru known? Even if he pleaded ignorance, the doubt would persist, and there would be enormous pressure on the prime minister to uncover the entire truth and disclose it to the public. What is the basis on which can we conclude that Nehru was worried about certain revelations coming to the surface? Two things confirm Nehru’s fears. Firstly, as already stated, the intriguing fact that hundreds of files existed in central government archives but these were never made available to the Shah Nawaz Committee. What was the purpose behind secreting these files away from the scrutiny of the Committee if it was not fear of certain revelations? Secondly, not only did the government not produce Bose related files before the Committee, ostensibly under Nehru’s instructions, it was also worried that some information concerning Bose could come via the post and therefore ordered the interception of all mail to his relatives in Calcutta. It is now a matter of historical record that the Jawaharlal Nehru government spied on the relatives of Subhash Chandra Bose for nearly two decades. It is clear that this was not accidental but a deliberate act on the part of the government. The spying wasn’t confined to watching the activities of the Bose family. As reported in the press, Intelligence Bureau (IB) ‘sleuths intercepted and copied letters written by the Bose family and even trailed them on foreign tours.’
When the facts around this existence of this extensive and prolonged surveillance came to light, the family members of Bose and lovers of Netaji took out a rally condemning the snooping carried out by successive Congress governments. The rally was attended by over a hundred people.
The question arises: was Nehru worried for himself, and his own political future? Or was it the case that he was genuinely worried for India’s relations with certain countries, notably Russia and the UK were some facts come to light. What were those facts?
4. DID NEHRU FEEL ‘GUILTY’ ABOUT SOMETHING?
Nehru knew that there had been no air crash in Taipei. He also knew that Bose had therefore never died in the air crash. He felt guilty for hiding this information from the general public, even though he hid this information based on his perception of where Indian interests lay.
Nehru kept Bose’s family under surveillance for decades. The fear that the truth about Bose would somehow come to light haunted him so much that he even set the Indian Embassy to spy on Bose’s nephew while he was travelling in Japan.
Tailing the Bose family and intercepting their mail was one thing but information has now leaked that Nehru asked for a report as to whether a nephew of Bose had visited the Renkoji temple where Bose’s ashes were stored. Journalist Swapan Dasgupta naively considers that a possibility could have been that ‘Nehru’s curiosity could well have been genuine and not governed by anything sinister.’ Curiosity? Yes, but what about? Curiosity about whether a certain nephew revered his uncle sufficiently to have visited the shrine where his ashes were kept? Or was it concern and fear that the nephew would somehow discover the truth that the ashes kept in the temple did not belong to his uncle Subhash Bose? Why would Nehru even bother with the movements of a stray Bose nephew in Japan? Come to think of it, why should Nehru even be aware that a Bose nephew was visiting Japan? Ah, but they had mounted that surveillance on the Bose family. So much for Harvard professor and Nehru apologist Sugata Bose’s argument that that in the absence of conclusive proof that Nehru ordered surveillance he would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. If Nehru went to so far as to enquire as to whether the Bose nephew went to the Temple, he had certainly something to hide—a terrible, dark secret.
No, the argument that it was innocent and idle curiosity doesn’t really wash. If it were an ex-lover one could be interested in knowing his or her movements. A nephew?! Not even Bose’s wife or daughter – that at least could have been remotely if not properly credible. If Nehru knew that Bose never died in an air crash did he also know where it was that Bose went? Let me go a step further here now. Yes, Nehru knew very well that Subhash had gone to the Soviet Union via Manchuria and had thereafter met with the Soviet leadership.
Nehru concealed this information from the Indian public. He felt guilty for concealing both these important pieces of information, and he also worried what the consequences would be for him, were the truth to surface.
This was the real reason the Intelligence Bureau had been intercepting all letters to the Bose family for decades? The government of the day was worried about the possibility of a letter being smuggled out of the Soviet Union by Bose or someone known to him revealing how Subhash Bose had entered the Soviet Union and met with the top Soviet leadership. That revelation would really have set the cat among the pigeons, as the English expression goes.
5. DID NEHRU BENEFIT IN ANY WAY FROM BOSE’S DISAPPEARANCE?
Bose’s appearance in India would have certainly been inconvenient for Nehru for his position as prime minister would have immediately come under threat and his own image-building exercise would have come to a halt. The numero uno in Indian politics was Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru became prime minister courtesy Gandhi the kingmaker who asked an unhappy but obedient Sardar Patel to step aside and make room for his blue-eyed Kashmiri boy. Unlike Nehru, widely seen as Gandhi’s protégé, Bose had an independent stature, position and claim to the crown.
The benefit was clearly there. This is the reason why Bose lovers and Nehru haters put forward the argument that Nehru conspired with Stalin to keep Bose in custody till he eventually died.
Nehru may have genuinely believed that the release of Subhash soon after independence would muddy the waters for his leadership to oversee the peaceful transition to socialism. Subhas Bose’s release, he may have worried, could possibly destabilise newly independent India’s relations with the British, which was not the best thing to happen—given the effort he and Gandhi had put into making sure that this did not happen.
Nehru may well have benefited politically from Subhash Bose’s disappearance, but this was happenstance and did not mean that he personally did anything to make sure that Bose did not reappear
Excerpt from the book ‘The Vanishing of Subhash Bose’ (published by Kalpaz Publications).
