De-classify documents more than 50-yr-old: Sugata Bose
15 April 2015 11:47 PM GMT
“I believe that all files which are more than 50 years old including those on Netaji should be de-classified. Also the fact that our family was shadowed even 20 years after India’s independence is a reflection on the quality of democracy and is an affront to all freedom fighters. We need to know who ordered this snooping on our family and when it was really lifted”, Sugata Bose(also a Trinamool Congress MP) told Millennium Post.
Bose recalls how his father, Sisir Kumar Bose(Netaji’s nephew) was travelling to the US in 1958 on a Rockafeller fellowship and his passport wasn’t being delivered till the last minute. “We were told that the delay was due to my father being blacklisted by the UK intelligence. We now know that the Intelligence Bureau in India was tracking him as well and had noted the fact that he had written to Emilie Schenkel(Netaji’s wife) that he would be visiting her in Vienna” Bose recalled.
Also, when Sugata Bose was going to study in Cambridge in 1978, the police verification revealed that they had kept a detailed account of his debating activities at Presidency college! The cop confessed to Bose how his father(also in the IB) had copied a letter to Sarat Chandra Bose and delivered the copy instead of the original letter by mistake.
So what could be the reason why Sisir Kumar Bose –who drove Netaji to his great escape from Kolkata in 1941– was being shadowed by the IB in the 50s and 60s, long after India won freedom?”The file doesn’t reveal any legitimate reason. My father set up the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957 and started collecting relics and information from Netaji’s associates in Japan, Malaya, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and even Europe and Germany. He was trying to put together the history of the Indian freedom struggle. He was in touch with INA officers who knew Subhas Chandra Bose well.. That may have made him suspect in the eyes of the Centre”, says Bose.
“If we do not work with a view to impartialialising and giving some permanent form to uncle’s and father’s life-work, nobody else will. If you were in India today, you will get the feeling that in India’ struggle two men mattered---Gandhi and Nehru. The rest were just extras. But I have faith that truth will ultimately prevail”, wrote Sisir Bose to Emilie Schenkl(Netaji’s wife) in 1955 fro m his Woodburn Park home. A copy of this letter, was with the IB, West Bengal.
Bose recalls how his father, Sisir Kumar Bose(Netaji’s nephew) was travelling to the US in 1958 on a Rockafeller fellowship and his passport wasn’t being delivered till the last minute. “We were told that the delay was due to my father being blacklisted by the UK intelligence. We now know that the Intelligence Bureau in India was tracking him as well and had noted the fact that he had written to Emilie Schenkel(Netaji’s wife) that he would be visiting her in Vienna” Bose recalled.
Also, when Sugata Bose was going to study in Cambridge in 1978, the police verification revealed that they had kept a detailed account of his debating activities at Presidency college! The cop confessed to Bose how his father(also in the IB) had copied a letter to Sarat Chandra Bose and delivered the copy instead of the original letter by mistake.
So what could be the reason why Sisir Kumar Bose –who drove Netaji to his great escape from Kolkata in 1941– was being shadowed by the IB in the 50s and 60s, long after India won freedom?”The file doesn’t reveal any legitimate reason. My father set up the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957 and started collecting relics and information from Netaji’s associates in Japan, Malaya, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and even Europe and Germany. He was trying to put together the history of the Indian freedom struggle. He was in touch with INA officers who knew Subhas Chandra Bose well.. That may have made him suspect in the eyes of the Centre”, says Bose.
“If we do not work with a view to impartialialising and giving some permanent form to uncle’s and father’s life-work, nobody else will. If you were in India today, you will get the feeling that in India’ struggle two men mattered---Gandhi and Nehru. The rest were just extras. But I have faith that truth will ultimately prevail”, wrote Sisir Bose to Emilie Schenkl(Netaji’s wife) in 1955 fro m his Woodburn Park home. A copy of this letter, was with the IB, West Bengal.
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