'Controversy over Netaji's death should end'

KOLKATA: The meaningless controversy over Netaji's death should end, said grandnephew of the Independence movement leader, professor Sugata Bose, who is also former MP and Gardiner Chair of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University and author of several scholarly works on the leader.

He made the statement while speaking at a virtual seminar, organised to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Azad Hind Government by Netaji by the Indo-Japan Samurai Centre in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs. Prof. Bose said Netaji and his mortal remains were a national issue and not merely a family matter. Pointing out that Netaji was the only frontline leader of the national Independence movement to have died on the battlefield, Bose sought a formal closure to the issue of the leader's death.

Meanwhile, it was also claimed at the seminar that P V Narasimha Rao government in the 1990s had been on the verge of bringing to India the ashes, believed to be the mortal remains of Netaji, now kept at the Renkoji Temple in Japan, but was dissuaded from doing so due to an intelligence report, which warned that controversy surrounding the issue could lead to riots in Kolkata.

Making a fervent plea for bringing back the ashes kept in an urn in the Buddhist shrine in Tokyo since September 1945, Ashish Ray, also an author and researcher on the legendary freedom fighter, said the legal rights to the mortal remains should belong to Netaji's daughter Prof. Anita Bose, an economist living in Germany, and the Indian government should allow her to take charge of it.

The author whose books include Laid to Rest' on the controversy over Netaji's death, said a high-powered committee that included Pranab Mukherjee, who later became India's President, was set up by then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to look into the issue of bringing back the ashes. However, the Intelligence Bureau came up with a report warning of riots in Kolkata over the issue.