Netaji traced upto 1956 in Russian archives, says Purabi Roy

With the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj appealing to the Russian government to declassify files on Netaji, the big question on everybody’s lips is what can secret KGB and Comintern files reveal on Bose whose disappearance in 1945 continues to remain an enigma.

Retired Professor of International Affairs at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University, Purabi Roy, who specialises in Indo-Russian relations and studied Russian archives on Bose for 10 years, says that she is convinced that Bose arrived in Russia after the said plane crash in 1945 and possibly died there. Her views can be found in her 2011 book, “The search for Netaji: new findings.”

Her belief was backed up by her colleague in the Russian Institute of Oriental Studies, former USSR General Alexander Kolesnikov. He told her that he had seen a file that noted the minutes of a Politburo meeting of August 1946 when Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Molotov and other Russian leaders discussed whether Bose should be allowed to stay on in the Soviet Union. Kolesnikov testified to this to Chitta Basu, the late All India Forward Bloc in the presence of Jayanta Ray of the same party who went there as part of a parliamentary minister led by PA Sangma.  Swaraj was a part of this delegation.

Roy’s attempts to see this file ended in failure. At her urging, the Mukherjee Commission went to the Russian Federation, visited six archives and interviewed four witnesses though not Kolesnikov, who was ordered abroad on the eve of his appearance. Justice Mukherjee concluded that “the assertion of Dr Roy regarding Netaji’s presence in Russia cannot be acted upon”. He was convinced though that Bose did not die in the air crash in 1945.

However, in 1995, when Roy visited Russia as part of a team sent by the Asiatic Society, the Russian archives were open and Roy discovered that the Russian Intelligence had been keeping an eye on Netaji well before he entered Russian territory. “They were watching Subhas when he was in East Europe in the 30s and wanting to come back to India.He was arrested the minute he landed in Mumbai. But he said that we must keep the flag of freedom burning”, Roy told Millennium Post.

The Russians also knew about Bose’s great escape from Kolkata to Kabul and subsequently to Germany via Russia. “Comrade Acchar Singh Chinna, Baldev Singh Talwar, Niranjan Talib, Ajoy Ghose were involved in the plan to get Bose safely out of India. This is also recorded in the Russian Intelligence’s archives”, Roy explained.

More interestingly, Roy says that her colleague Kolesnikov could trace Bose upto 1956, when he was discussed in a separate section at a communist congress in 1956. 

“This was the last archival finding that could be accessed by Kolesniko from the GRU archives…Further investigation may reveal more about Bose met with his end”, said Roy. The nation seems to be waiting.