'Mukherjee Commission ignored Renkoji temple's nod for DNA test of Netaji ashes'
'...sent secret letter to Soviet leadership asking for help in India's liberation'
KOLKATA: Tokyo's Renkoji temple gave permission to Indian authorities to conduct DNA tests on ashes said to be those of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, according to fresh translation of a letter which refutes claims that the temple was 'reticent', placing doubts on a commission of enquiry's ruling that the 'ashes were not Netaji's'.
A new translation of a letter in Japanese written by the chief priest of Tokyo's Renkoji temple to the Indian government in 2005 revealed that permission was given for DNA test of the remains to the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission.
However, for inexplicable reasons this portion of the letter was not translated and a bland edited English version was attached to the Justice Mukherjee Commission's report on the disappearance of Bose as evidence that "on account of the Temple Authorities reticence... the commission could not proceed further (on the issue of DNA tests)".
The Commission later used this to conclude that the ashes were not of Netaji's, giving credence to speculations that he may have survived to become an ascetic or prisoner in a Russian prison.
Madhuri Bose, the legendary freedom fighter's grand-niece — the grand-daughter of his brother Sarat Bose, said, "We recently commissioned the fresh translation after we found inconsistencies in the Mukherjee Commission report and found several paragraphs in the letter written in Japanese missing from the official English version in the Justice Mukherjee Inquiry Report."
Amiya Bose, freedom icon Subhas Bose's nephew, was tasked by his uncle to carry a secret letter seeking Soviet help in India's liberation, which was to be delivered to agents in Britain in October 1939, barely a month into the Second World War.
The freedom fighter's nephew, who was searched on landing in Britain by officers from New Scotland Yard, managed to smuggle in the letters one of which was handed over to British Communist leader of Indian origin Rajani Palme Dutt and another to a Soviet agent.
"My father had recalled that his uncle had summoned him from Cambridge to India in May 1939 and was asked to go on a Russian mission…," said Madhuri Bose, the daughter of Amiya Bose and author of the book The Bose Brothers', said.
