Did Nehru mislead nation on Bose?

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"Bipin" <bp16@u...> wrote:

 

Did Nehru mislead nation on Bose?

 

Udayan Namboodiri

http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=front%

5Fpage&file_name=story2%2Etxt&counter_img=2

 

30th Nov 2005

 

The report of the Justice Mukherjee Commission of

Inquiry (JMCI)

on the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose mystery is with the Government

since

November 14. What new thing does it say apart from the already

publicised

fact that there was no air crash at Taiwan on August 18, 1945 as

claimed by

the GD Khosla Commission and Shah Nawaz Khan Committee?

 

Well, plenty, as The Pioneer found out during a week-long

investigation recently. The biggest revelation, complete with

documentation,

is about the guilt of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal

Nehru, in

suppressing the basic facts about the Taiwan non-crash and

subsequent bogus

cremation of Netaji. Nehru, who doubled as India's External Affairs

Minister, had been personally informed by the Government of Formosa

(as

Taiwan was then called), albeit through British channels, in August

1956

about the full facts behind Japan's staging of a spectacular "death"

for the

Indian hero.

 

Yet, Nehru had allowed the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee to go on

with its

command performance of an inquiry. He had accepted a report that

completely

contradicted the Formosan version. The myth about the air crash was

allowed

to grow under the assumption that a lie told many times becomes the

truth.

The Khosla Commission, instituted by his daughter Indira Gandhi, also

reiterated it. Finally, in January 2005, the JMCI got the truth

straight

from Taiwan.

 

Had Nehru not concealed the Formosan report back in 1956, two

great

misfortunes might have avoided this nation. First, three generations

of

Indians would have been spared of the tragicomic dimensions that the

Netaji

mystery often took. Second, the subcontinent's most charismatic

politician

could yet have been recovered for the people of India had its

Government

made use of the reliable input that he had not died as presumed 11

years

earlier. Who knows, he may very well have been held prisoner at the

time in

some gulag in China or Soviet Russia. The possibilities are endless

because,

after all, Subhas Chandra Bose would have been only 59-years-old in

1956.

 

THE ANGLO-FORMOSAN INQUIRY

 

The facts about Nehru's deception came to JMCI from an

unexpected

source: Great Britain. In 1996, the British Government had

declassified some

papers (The National Archives Ref: Fo 371/12012) relating to an

inquiry it

had conducted on behalf of India through its Embassy in Formosa.

This was

necessitated by the lack of formal diplomatic relations between New

Delhi

and Taipei.

 

The full series constitutes Exhibit 229 of JMCI. It includes

correspondence, once deemed confidential, exchanged between the UK

High

Commission in India and Tamsui ( in Formosa), the British Foreign

Office and

its departments for Southeast Asia and the "Far East" and notes

exchanged

between the Consul (the highest official posted in Tamsui) and the

Formosan

Government.

 

It all starts from a note sent from the UK High Commission in

India to

the Commonwealth Relations Office in London dated May 3, 1956

referring to a

request made to it by New Delhi to arrange for the British Consul in

Formosa

to use its good offices with the Nationalist Chinese Government to

interview

"certain Formosan witnesses and obtain a copy of cremation

certificate".

 

There is a certain background to this. In 1955, Nehru, under

public

pressure, had instituted the Shah Nawaz Committee. Apart from the

former INA

officer who had joined the Congress, there was an ICS officer, SN

Moitra,

and Suresh Chandra Bose, a brother of Netaji. In May 1956, this

group went

to Tokyo to collect evidence and interview the remnants of the INA,

Japanese

generals and a large number of others who were connected with the

great

leader.

 

Once there, the Committee felt that their inability to go to

Formosa

because of India's pro-Communist China position would considerably

undermine

the credibility of their findings.

 

The Indian Ambassador, BR Sen, had tried to get around this

lacuna by

proposing to the MEA that the Japanese Government be used as a medium

(Secret Telegram dated May 19, 1956 forming JMCI Exhibit 236). South

Block

replied to the Ambassador a week later that while he could try his

luck with

the Japanese, they had meanwhile, approached the British but were

awaiting a

reply (Secret Telegram dated May 22).

 

From another cable (May 24), it is apparent that a feeler had

been

sent to the Formosans requesting they allow a certain number of

witnesses to

travel to Hong Kong, at Indian expense, to depose before the

Committee. But

from a cable sent by the British Consul in Formosa to his superiors

in

London dated May 20, it was clear that the Tamsui-based diplomat was

already

active on the project and that the Formosan Government was against

the Hong

Kong idea.

 

The British had been only too glad to avail the opportunity to

launch

another inquiry into the Bose mystery (they had carried out several

by then

already) and the High Commission's cable clearly states as

much: "Indian

official concerned was obviously embarrassed at making this request.

Nevertheless, I think there is some advantage in trying to establish

facts

in this case..."

 

They moved with astonishing efficiency in uncovering what New

Delhi

wanted. Strangely enough, the Indian Government did not ask them to

ascertain whether a Japanese "Sally Bomber" had indeed crashed in

Taihoku on

August 18, 1945, killing Netaji, Japanese General Shedei and two

others.

 

It only wanted the interviews of a couple of nurses who

allegedly

"treated" Bose in his "final moments", two clerks who India believed

saw the

"body" and a small number of people believed to have been associated

with

its cremation plus the police super of the time and select

officials. The

British were also requested to get the "doctor's report on Bose's

death",

the "police report on death" and "cremation permit" (Cypher no.847

dated

June 6).

 

This reveals that Nehru's mind was made up. He only wanted to

prove

that Netaji had died and in pursuit of this line, he did not care to

first

check out whether a "crash" had taken place. Instead, he ordered a

wild

goose chase about the cremation. Meanwhile, even as the British

moved with

lightening speed in activating the Formosan establishment, his

toady, Shah

Nawaz Khan, spent several weeks in Japan actively promoting the

fiction

about the air crash and composing yarns in support of it.

 

Finally, on August 10, 1956, JV Rob, a diplomat with the High

Commission in New Delhi, handed over to the Indian MEA "five copies

of the

translation of the letter from the Governor of Formosa together with

the

police report and the cremation certificate". Two copies of the

original in

Chinese. They all pointed to a make-belief cremation against a

backdrop full

of contradictions that the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee either

overlooked

deliberately, or was completely innocent of.

 

They all point to the central fact that there was no proof of

Netaji's

actual death in Formosa. The country had to wait 49 years to know

what the

British and Formosans knew all along. And now, thanks to JMCI, it is

abundantly clear that Nehru knew too.

 

(To be continued)

 

--- End forwarded message ---