Acknowledging that there was a long-standing demand for the declassification of the files on Bose, Banerjee said there might be one or two more files in government’s possession.
“A total 64 files are there with us. There may be one or two more files also. After properly reviewing all the files, we have decided to put them in the public domain from next Friday,” she said.
“We decided to release the files so that everybody can see them. We don’t feel that there is anything related to internal security in the files. Everybody wants to know about what happened to Netaji. He was a brave son of our soil and he was from Bengal,” she said.
Asked if the state would request the Centre to declassify files it has in its possession, Banerjee said, “It is for the Centre to decide, but we want the truth about Netaji to come out. It is for you people (journalists) to find out what happened to him.”
The Chief Minister also announced that the record of the freedom struggle from 1937 to 1947 would be digitised in order to preserve history.
Netaji’s <g data-gr-id="41">grand nephew</g> has welcomed the move and has said that the Centre should take a cue from
this move and release all 135 files with the government. Asked whether the files to be declassified can throw any clue about the alleged snooping on Netaji’s nephew by the central government from 1948 to 1968, Banerjee said, “You have the options. It is better for you to go through the files to get the answers.”
Recently, some files relating to Bose, declassified by the central government, had revealed that the Ministry of Home Affairs had snooped on at least two of Netaji’s nephews.
The files revealed that the Intelligence Bureau had kept the relatives of Netaji under close surveillance between 1948 and 1968 when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister.
Subsequent to this, family members of Netaji met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to declassify all Netaji’s files.
The Prime Minister’s Office in August told the Central Information Commission (CIC) that it cannot declassify files related to Bose as it will adversely affect relations with foreign countries.
During the hearing before the CIC, the PMO admitted that it has files related to Bose but did not give any specifics and submitted that they cannot be declassified keeping in mind the relations with foreign countries.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
On August 17, 1945, a Mitsubishi Ki-21 heavy bomber took off from Saigon airport. Inside the aircraft were 13 people, including Lt Gen Tsunamasa Shidei of the Imperial Japanese Army, Col Habibur Rahman of the Indian National Army and one man who sat in a seat a little behind the portside wing – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
On August 18, the plane arrived to refuel in Taihoku, Formosa (now Taipei, Taiwan). Moments after the flight took off again, passengers heard a loud ‘bang’. <g data-gr-id="102">Ground</g> crew saw the portside engine fall off, and the plane crashed. The pilots and Lt Gen <g data-gr-id="92">Shidei</g> were killed instantly, Col Rahman fell unconscious. Bose survived, but his gasoline-soaked clothes ignited, turning him into a human torch. However, Netaji’s other lieutenants, who were to follow him on another flight, never saw his body. No one took photographs of Bose’s <g data-gr-id="99">injuries,</g> or his body, nor was a death certificate issued.
In <g data-gr-id="98">1950s</g>, there emerged stories that Netaji had become a sadhu. And, the most elaborate of these took shape a decade later. Some of Netaji’s old associates formed the ‘Subhasbadi Janata’, and claimed Bose was now the chief sadhu in an ashram in <g data-gr-id="91">Shoulmari</g> in North Bengal.
In 1995, a team from Calcutta’s Asiatic Society, researching Indo-Soviet ties in Moscow, found a bunch of declassified files that hinted at Bose having been in the USSR after 1945. Dr Purobi Roy, a member of the team of scholars, said she found a document stamped “most secret”, dated 1946, in the military archives of <g data-gr-id="90">Paddolosk</g>, near Moscow, which mentioned Stalin and Molotov discussing Bose’s plans – whether he would remain in the USSR or leave.