India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  As regards contingency plans, these can be drawn up once the type of contingency is known. In case the ashes are removed from the temple but not returned to India, the only location for housing them would be the embassy. …In the event of a sudden unforeseeable contingency, it would be possible to lock the ashes in the strong room in the embassy. Our ambassador feels, and we agree, that the most desirable solution might be for a consensus to be reached in India for the ashes to be brought back with full honour and ceremony. Till that becomes possible, the best option may be to continue the status quo as long as possible despite such inadequacies as have been observed over the last fifty years.

  In September 1995, Haidar’s boss Pranab Mukherjee visited Tokyo to discuss this issue with his Japanese counterpart. The latter said that there was no inconvenience involved in retaining the ashes in Japan, but felt that it would be better to return them to his homeland and to his family. The next course of action, as described in a classified record, is as follows:

  It obviously was a misleading statement. The nearest surviving kin was not Anita but her mother. Pranab met Emilie, raised the issue and was told that his presence was no longer desirable.

  Anita, for some reasons, was for bringing the ashes to India. After her mother’s death in 1996, she moved along this line, and, as per official records, visited India “twice in order to build up a consensus in favour of the return of the ashes”. In January 1998 she met Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujaral and “expressed the hope that the new government would take account of her wishes and bring back the ashes to India”.

  In April 1998, just before a court order was to end the official efforts to try and bring Ichiro Okura’s ashes to India, the Prime Minister’s Office assessed the options at hand. PP Shukla, the Joint Secretary to Prime Minister, in a Top Secret note titled “Return of Netaji’s ashes to India” recapitulated the difficulties in the way of the transfer of the ashes to India and went on to comment that

  a decision needs to be taken on whether the ashes are indeed those of Netaji and, if so, whether they can now be brought back to India. From the above, it is clear that there is no particular urgency in settling this mater. However, a view needs to be taken on how to deal with this issue in the future.

  Finally, no discussion on the Renkoji temple remains would be complete without addressing the question of their possible scientific examination. The idea that Bose’s remains should be subjected to DNA test to resolve the mystery has been in vogue for the last two decades. In an interview to the Times of India on 17 May 2005, Lakshmi Sehgal, after having been exposed as perjurer before the Mukherjee Commission, lectured that “the simplest thing to do is to take the ashes kept in the Renkoji temple at Tokyo and run a DNA match with Anita Pfaff, Netaji’s daughter”. [1]

  If only it was that simple. What Lakshmi Sehgal was suggesting in 2005 was considered by the Government at least a good ten years earlier. On 28 October 1995, the Statesman (Delhi edition) under the heading “Government to authenticate Netaji’s ashes by DNA test” informed its readers that the Government had decided to go for a DNA test after two American experts opined that “it would be possible to verify the authenticity of the ashes from the tooth”.

  Thereafter, the prospects of a “mitochondrial DNA analysis of the ashes presumed to be of Netaji” were discussed in a 1996 Under Office note No. I/12014/27/93-IS (D.III) the MHA sent to the PMO. The content of this Top Secret note and any subsequent developments are not known.

  The only Bose kin to have gone deeper into the question of DNA test is Surya Kumar Bose, a disbeliever in the air crash theory like his father Amiya Nath Bose. In January 2000, Surya consulted Prof Mark Stoneking at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Prof Stoneking had previously worked for the FBI and helped expose an impostor trying to pass herself off as Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Russian Tsar. He told Surya Bose that he was not very hopeful of a successful DNA test on the ashes in Renkoji Temple because any pieces of bones left behind after a cremation are usually so badly charred that all DNA molecules are damaged.

  Regarding the possibility of a mitochondrial DNA test involving his aunt Anita, Surya was given to understand that since the mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the maternal line, "it would be imperative to find a living maternal relative of Subhas Bose to provide a reference sample".

  In this case Subhas Bose’s daughter Anita Pfaff’s DNA reference would be of no use. Also, this type of DNA test has another drawback—mitochondrial DNA is not necessarily a unique identifier. So, even if we were to assume that the “ashes” in Renkoji temple are Netaji’s, a DNA test may in fact prove the opposite. [2]

  It is to the credit of Justice MK Mukherjee to have made a most vigorous and closest ever attempt to get the Renkoji remains tested scientifically. However, these efforts did not succeed, essentially due to the inaction on our Government’s part. Here’s a rundown of what happened:

  After Justice Mukherjee visited Renkoji temple, he asked the embassy to get the ash box opened and photograph its contents. The photographs received were forwarded to the Director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and Director, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics at Hyderabad. The CCMB Director wrote back that if the bones were collected from the burnt ashes it would not be possible to isolate DNA from the bones for DNA test, “but if those were remains of bones (not burnt bones), then presence of the DNA was likely to be there though in a degraded form but still usable for establishing identity”. [3]

  The director clarified that India did not have special laboratory facility needed for conducting such a DNA test. In view of this response, the commission asked the embassy to get the Renkoji remains examined afresh by experts to see whether or not they contained pieces of unburnt bones. The embassy replied that they would get it done quickly. And then a hush fell over.

  In the meanwhile, the commission reached out to a number of DNA experts in India, Japan, Europe and America over the feasibility of a DNA test on the remains. Sir Alec Jeffreys of the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester (UK) expressed doubt about the success of a DNA test on bone sample which had been subjected to high temperatures. Regretting his inability to do the job in his laboratory, Sir Jeffreys—the pioneer of the forensic use of DNA—told the Mukherjee Commission to contact one of the national forensic service laboratories in the UK for they were fully tooled up to perform the complex analysis required in the case.

  The commission sounded off the MEA on 27 January 2003 about Sir Jeffreys’s opinion and asked for the particulars of the national forensic service laboratories in the UK. The ministry still did not break its silence.

  Terry Melton of Mitotyping Technologies in the US came up with a workable idea in his correspondence with the commission. Stating that the Renkoji remains were unlikely to yield a DNA profile, he nevertheless agreed to hold a standard forensic mitochondrial DNA test. Melton “recommended a thorough anthropological evaluation of the remains” and “apprised the commission of his requirements for performing the DNA analysis and stipulated certain preconditions which included the anthropologist’s report being made available to him prior to his proceedings to do the job”. [4]

  In March 2003, the commission appraised the MEA of Milton’s views and directed them to do the needful. A few days later the MEA replied that they were referring the matter to the Ministry of Home Affairs for an advice. Justice Mukherjee’s patience was wearing thin, so he wrote directly to the MHA. It took the ministry four long months just to tell that it was up to the commission to take a decision regarding DNA test.

  With the Ancient DNA Facility having reportedly become functional at CCMB, Hyderabad, the commission again approached its director. But he opined that the photographs of the Renkoji remains showed existence of completely burnt bones leaving very little hope for the survival of DNA. Anyhow, he advised that a molecular biologist should be requested to sort out the potentially less charred pieces of bone
s and bring them to India in a sealed plastic bag at room temperature. In view of CCMB’s latest advice, the commission went back to the MEA and requested it to “let the commission know whether the Renkoji temple authorities would accede to a request of allowing an expert to be deputed by the commission” to carry out the task.

  Almost six months later the MEA gave commission a non-answer, which took the work to nowhere. On 20 May 2005 the commission asked the ministry to persuade the Renkoji temple authorities “to accord their consent to selection of potentially less charred bone pieces”. [5] This letter “evoked no response”. The commission’s final report stated:

  In such a helpless situation the commission issued a reminder also on July 4, 2005 to MEA with a copy forwarded to the MHA for taking necessary action in the matter. No reply from either the ministry having been received by the commission till the time of writing this report, it could not proceed further with the matter. [6]

  Fifty-five years after the Shah Nawaz Committee report reasoned that “if the ashes are taken to be genuine, Renkoji temple cannot obviously be their final resting place”, it is time we did something about them. The scientific tests, as and when they are carried out in an independent foreign lab, would not show them to be of Bose—for they are of Ichiro Okura. Therefore, the best way to dispose off the remains would be to respectfully shift them to Tokyo’s Yakusuni shrine—the final resting place for the Japanese war dead.

  8. How India dealt with Russia over Subhas Bose’s fate

  Some ten years ago the daily I grew up reading startled me with a full-page story with a double-decker headline “Bose was in Russia: ‘An Indian ambassador met Netaji in Moscow’”. The kicker explained it all away: “New research suggests Bose did not die in the Taihoku plane crash and lived for at least five more years, somewhere in Russia.” [1] I scrolled down to find some revolting allegations about Jawaharlal Nehru’s complicity in Subhas Bose’s non-appearance and Pranab Mukherjee’s bid to cover up the matter in the 1990s. I pondered the issue over till an afterthought swept through. “God forbid, those conspiracy theories I’ve been hearing should be true!”

  For a large number of Indians, anything in print and speech with Subhas, Stalin and Siberia in it evokes a frightening imagery. It is this capacity to provoke a national nightmare of international proportions which makes the Russian angle to the Bose mystery its most scandalous side. The chilling charges that it has set off in the last few decades persist in the internet age and are fodder not merely for the scandalmongers.

  My not so prominent ears have heard a former Congress MP rattle off in the same way as a former R&AW officer. They said the same thing my uncle and high school teacher would years ago in New Delhi. Oh, c’mon you must have heard similar things if you too have an ear for history and mystery!

  If I’ve got you thinking, let me guess what’s on your mind now. “Leave all that aside. Let’s talk facts!”

  Well, yes, let’s get them straight.

  It comes through clear from the extant pool of information that several months before his disappearance, Subhas Chandra Bose had been planning to go over to the Russians. Except Habibur Rahman, the man who kept the secret (Appendix VI), all those close to Bose during his last known days eventually conceded that he was USSR-bound at the time of his reported death.

  The earliest known contours of Bose’s plan appeared in October 1944 when he, according to Shah Nawaz Committee report, “visited Japan for the third and last time to meet the members of the new Government of Japan and discuss important matters with them”. [2]

  Anand Mohan Sahay blurted out during his interrogation at the CSDIC that in late 1944 or early 1945 when he called on Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, his deputy and the India section head in Gaimusho, he was told that Bose “had wished on his last visit to Tokyo to contact the Russian ambassador [Yakov Alexandrovich Malik], but that he was unable to do so because of the lack of Japanese support”. Later Bose himself told Sahay that “he had asked the Japanese Army authorities to arrange a passage for him to Russia via Manchuria”. [3]

  According to the Shah Nawaz Committee report, Bose’s plan to move to Russia with Japanese assistance eventually received a setback in June 1945. He cited a document produced by Debnath Das, saying that in June 1945 Tokyo had informed Bose that the Japanese government deemed “it almost without hope of success to get directly in touch with the Soviet Government on behalf of Your Excellency and it has no intention of doing so”. [4]

  Further evidence is clear that not only the plan was on subsequently, it even received the backing of the Imperial Japanese Army. Das himself told the Khosla Commission that he was unaware of the negotiations between Bose and the Japanese after the June jolt. Also testifying before the same commission was one of the Japanese officers who participated in those negotiations. Morio Takakura said that in June 1945 he joined a meeting in Bangkok where Bose, Terauchi and Isoda had thrashed out the situation arising out of Tokyo’s inability to directly deal with the Russians on Bose’s behalf. About the outcome of this meeting, Takakura, a colonel in 1945, had this to say:

  There was a decision among Japanese military circles that it will be better for Mr Chandra Bose to go to some area where he could have freedom of action than coming to Japan…for instance, Soviet-Manchuria border…. The HQ at Tokyo accepted the plan of Netaji for his going to Russia via Dairen and the HQ selected Lt Gen Shidei to accompany Netaji. [5]

  Takakura’s evidence on this point was corroborated by Isoda. He too testified that at Bangkok on 16 August 1945 he and Bose had worked out the last minute modalities of his transfer to Manchuria. He told Justice Khosla that Bose was on his way to Russia.

  Isoda’s cross-examination by Balraj Trikha brought out the Japanese intent to carry out the task surreptitiously:

  “Now you were in great hurry to see that Netaji left early to a safe place to hide from the Allies?”

  “Yes, I suggested to him strongly.”

  “And these plans of Netaji going from Bangkok to Russia were kept a top secret?”

  “It was kept a secret.” [6]

  The two Indians who attended or knew of the August 16 Bangkok meeting were Habibur Rahman and Bose’s confidential secretary Major Bhaskaran Menon. Bhaskaran told the Khosla Commission that he remembered Bose sending a secret message to the USSR, which he could not have done without some sort of prior contact with the Russians. Thirty years later in Chennai, a gravely ill Menon affirmed before a Mukherjee Commission official that “from April 1945 onwards Netaji had discussion on a number of occasions with General Isoda in his private room about his plan to go to Russia through Manchuria”. [7]

  In a sort of dying statement, Menon reiterated what he had testified before GD Khosla, but it was not taken seriously. After the meeting in Bangkok Bose grew restless like Menon had never seen him before. He spent the rest of the day and night issuing instructions, clearing unsettled issues as if it was his last day at work. He did not sleep and Bhaskaran was on his toes throughout taking dictations of frantic messages. And then Bose dictated something whose meaning would dawn upon Menon later on. “I am writing all this to you on the eve of a long journey by air and who knows an accident may not overtake me.” [8]

  Like Menon, Colonel Pritam Singh too lived long enough to depose before all the panels and stood his ground till his death in 2010. His belief that the air crash “was a mere cover story to cover up the journey of Netaji to Russia with the help of the Japanese” was based on his exchanges with Rahman and Japanese intelligence officials. Singh had remained by Bose’s side till August 17 evening and expected to follow him to the USSR. He told the Mukherjee Commission that a day earlier Bose privately informed him that his negotiations with the Russians through the Japanese foreign minister had been successful, and the Russians had given the assurance that he was welcome to come over. Pritam Singh evidenced that Bose was preparing for a long haul.

  Then Netaji told me that contact had already been established with Russia and
we should try to move towards that direction. He further told me that, in that event, we might have to stay outside India for about ten years or even more, depending upon the world situation. [9]

  And, as to what advantage lay for the Japanese military in sending Bose to Russia, most revealing was the statement Hikari Kikan interpreter Kinji Watanabe had made to PES Finney in 1945:

  Bose’s point was: “In order to destroy our common enemy, Britain, both Japan and the Provisional Government should try every possible means and help each other. Therefore, I earnestly request Tokyo to act as ‘go-between’ and let me approach Soviet Russia. Once I have been given an interview with the Russian ambassador, I have perfect confidence in my success in persuading Russia to help our independence movement and at the same time I am sure that I can do something to improve the relations between Japan and Russia, and it might serve to decrease the menace Japan is feeling on the Manchurian side. I trust if I succeed it will result in killing two birds with one stone. And if my trial proves unsuccessful, I shall only lose my face, that’s all. I am nothing but head of a revolutionary government…. [10]

  How GD Khosla and MK Mukherjee reflected on the plethora of evidence on Bose’s plan to go to Russia is a study in contrast. The former theorised that while Bose “had contemplated the possibility of obtaining Russian sympathy and aid”, he lost the clue in the tumult of the situation.

  He had not yet made up his mind about what exactly he wanted to do or what was best in the circumstances. Even the two alternatives he was considering (after rejecting the easy but ignominious course of a subservient surrender along with the Japanese) were not quite clearly defined and his plans were vague and amorphous, as of necessity they had to be, in the chaotic conditions prevailing after the Japanese had capitulated. [11]