India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  To get into a cost-benefit analysis over the Bose mystery is to sidestep the basic issue. Even a court case involving petty theft incurs costs many times over than the cost of stolen items. But that doesn’t mean we will stop following the procedures. Justice has to be done and at times the costs are not factored in. Has anyone tried to analyse expense how much the police, investigative agencies, forensic labs and courts have in recent times incurred in resolving the much-publicized murder cases involving ordinary people? Has anyone suggested that the inquiries be stopped because they are costing too much even as farmers are committing suicide? Has anyone suggested let’s not inquire into the death of someone because inquiry won’t bring them to life. Pardon my polemical tone, but I am just reacting to what many people opine privately. “What is the use of inquiring about his fate? He is not coming back to us!”

  This abhorring approach towards Bose’s fate is the biggest hurdle in resolving it today. There is nothing novel about this argument also; it was being parroted in the 1950s and 1960s when the case could have been cracked with relative ease. Writing in 1965, Dr Satyanarayan Sinha tackled the oft-repeated query as to “what is the use of your reviving Netaji affairs if he is not returning to us in any case?”

  Although I don’t share many of his views, I find myself in complete accord with Sinha’s counter-statement that “no living creature is more to be pitied than a man who thinks that his personal interests alone constitute the centre of the cosmos”. “Concerning Netaji, such questions amount to an expression of betrayal to him,” he forcefully added. “Posterity will never forgive us for such criminal negligence in the affairs of a national hero of the highest order.” [23]

  Of course many years have passed since Sinha wrote this. But aren’t there cases which have remained unresolved for a very long time? Do we brush them under the carpet? I hate to recall this here, but in October 2010, the Times of India reported how “40 years later” an ex-IG was found guilty of gunning down a Naxalite in a fake encounter case. This case involving a former Inspector General of Police in Kerala “took a decisive turn” when a cop admitted to have shot the Naxal 28 years earlier on the orders of the DIG in question. “Following this, human rights activists sought reopening of the case...seeking a detailed CBI probe....” [24] OutlookIndia.com further reported the judge’s observations as he delivered the verdict:

  Truth by its very nature does not yield to be kept hidden for ever. Truth which has been hitherto hidden as covered by the glitter of golden plate, has by now, though belatedly, been discovered. Truth triumphs; truth alone. ….The offence of custodial murder, be it of an extremist, terrorist or Naxalite, in the hands of the police whose duty is to produce him before a court for trial, does not get wiped off merely by efflux of time, be it decades... cannot be justified in a society like ours…. [25]

  In no compassionate society would the issue of such magnitude and consequence as the issue of Bose’s fate be forgotten just because a few decades have gone by. The United States continues to make efforts to locate the remains of its soldiers lost during the Vietnam and Korean wars. In 2004, a senior Pentagon official visited New Delhi just to hold discussions with officials of ministries of defence and external affairs to locate remains of airmen who went missing on the Indian side of the Himalayas in the 1940s. [26] Earlier in 2002 a 14-man search and recovery team of the US Army Central Identification Laboratory traced remains of four American service members “whose C-46 transport plane crashed in the Tibetan Himalayas of China in March 1944”. [27]

  For more than a decade beginning 1992 the United States-Russia Joint Commission (USRJC) served “as a forum through which both nations seek to determine the fates of their missing servicemen”. [28] In search for the remains of personnel lost during the Vietnam war, the US “organized its accounting efforts in 1992 into large-scale field operations that continue to this day”.

  Teams work several periods each year in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia alongside their foreign counterparts. Together, they have interviewed thousands of witnesses and conducted archival research in all five countries regarding the fate of missing Americans. Their hard work has resulted in the continuous location of crash and burial sites all over the region, from the highest mountain top to underwater sites. Archeologists and anthropologists use meticulous site exploitation rules to find possible remains and material evidence. This is followed by a scientifically rigorous and forensic process that leads to an identification of the missing service members and a return to their family for burial. [29]

  In 2012, some Japanese war dead were exhumed from their graves in India for repatration to their homeland. Researchers have continued to dig into the causes of Napolean’s death—whether he was poisoned or not—and new findings about how Egyptian pharaohs died thousands of years ago have made news the world over. I read a story in the Times of India the other day. It said: “Egyptian queen’s death case solved 3,500 yrs on”. [30]

  And yet we have researchers and journalists, historians and politicians telling us in India that there is no need to discuss the Bose issue, which is “boring and unimportant”. If it is boring what is interesting? Have you ever taken a look at the list of research projects undertaken at Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR)? British writer William Dalrymple recently nudged that “Indians feel that freedom of speech is for journalism” only. “But freedom of speech is not only about present, it should permeate into all layers of life. You should be able to talk about Shivaji and his poor administration and Subhas Bose and debate whether he is still alive.” [31]

  That the controversy surrounding Bose’s fate has lasted for such a long time is not the fault of those who are seeking to resolve it. It is essentially the result of the sins of those who covered it up and the disdainful inaction of those who looked the other way. In a plebeian sense, the reasons why we should ascertain what happened to Subhas Bose are the same as those which are driving us to seek answers in the much-publicised cases of murders of ordinary people. In all such cases, not once has any one suggested what has often been flung to Bose’s admirers for the last few decades. They are often told to stop worrying about his fate because he is not going to come back now even if we found out the truth. But can we apply this sick argument to the other cases? No one who has departed, or has been killed, is going to come back to life, but that does not mean we don’t seek truth and justice for them. The need for justice and transparency is far more greater in the case of Bose. As the head of the Provisional Government of Free India, he was our first President.

  Another pressing circumstance which makes it vitally important for us to get at the truth is the need to shut out many conspiracy theories related to the Bose mystery [See Appendix V. The land of conspiracy theories]. If you lend your ears, a caution sounded in the 1997 report of the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy tolls loud enough to be heard by us on the other side of the globe. “Secrecy begets suspicions, which can metastasize into belief in conspiracy of the most awful sort.” [32] The reason Indian conspiracy theories have remained alive for decades is that they have been put on the ventilator of official secrecy. It is in India’s interest to take this sustaining mechanism off. The release of official information is the best antidote for conspiracy theories and stifling charges of governmental wrongdoings. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” famously said the US Supreme Court in support of openness and transparency.

  But as I write this, our Government is showing no sign of changing its dark culture of secrecy. It is quite clear that one cannot hope to get files on Netaji’s fate declassified when even the non-controversial documents are not disclosed. After Independence, someone in the Government commissioned a historian to chronicle the role of the Indian National Army. Compiled by Dr PC Gupta, the manuscript was completed in 1950, but it was never released to the public “due to objections raised by Army Headquarters”. [33] Only late in the last decade was the manuscript declassified and opened to public consultation. Asked in the Lok Sabha
in September 2007, “whether the Government proposes to publish the manuscript to make the book easily available to scholars and readers”, Defence Minister AK Anthony stated that “there is no such proposal before the Government”.

  The ministry, however, changed its stand in July 2009 when an RTI request query was made by Chandrachur. It first denied him a copy of the manuscript and then informed the Central Information Commission in 2010 that it was “contemplating” the publication of the history. Chandrachur and I made the case for disclosure before Information Commissioner ML Sharma. The former CBI Director agreed and issued a favourable directive. The MoD then went to the Delhi High Court against the CIC’s decision, but was ordered by the court to publish the manuscript. Put another way, we are paying from our pockets to see that the record goes public, and the MoD is drawing from public exchequer to keep it hidden from people.

  In the early 1990s, Americans faced a situation the like of which we are confronting today. The controversy surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy had been revived by Oliver Stone’s JFK. The movie suggested that the CIA had some hand in the assassination. “Stone suggested at the end of JFK that Americans could not trust official public conclusions when those conclusions had been made in secret.” Consequently, “the American public lost faith when it could not see the very documents whose contents led to these conclusions”. [34]

  Despite critics reviling it in several newspapers, the movie became a runaway hit and stirred public conscience. The movie’s achievement, wrote one reviewer, lay in the fact that it marshalled “the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche”. [35] The result was the enactment of the landmark JFK Records Act of 1992 as a “unique solution to the problem of secrecy”.

  The problem was that 30 years of government secrecy relating to the assassination of President John F Kennedy led the American public to believe that the government had something to hide. The solution was legislation that required the government to disclose whatever information it had concerning the assassination. [36]

  The JFK Act established an independent Assassination Records Review Board to smooth out the process of declassification of all assassination-related records. The very first chapter in the board’s final report was titled “The problem of secrecy and the solution of the JFK Act”. It was set off by a quote attributed to a US government official: “Uncage the documents. Let them see light.” [37] In compliance of the board’s directive, many US departments and agencies released their records. While releasing the CIA files, its then director Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defence until recently, “spoke in a voice breaking with apparent emotion”:

  The only thing more horrifying to me than the assassination itself is the insidious, perverse notion that elements of the American government—that my own agency—had some part in it. I am determined personally to make public or to expose to disinterested eyes every relevant scrap of paper in CIA’s possession in the hope of helping to dispel this corrosive suspicion.... I believe I owe that to his memory. [38]

  The review board came out with its report in September 1998. On its cover was printed the core message to the US government: “All government records concerning the assassination of President John F Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure.”

  It is about time we Indians followed suit of the Americans and the Swedes to rid our nation of the mystery and the conspiracy theories surrounding Netaji in public interest. Public interest means the compelling interest in the prompt public disclosure of Bose related records for the purpose of fully informing the people of India about the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose. Truth has no need for secrecy. My own wish list of the steps that might be taken to resolve the mystery would be the following:

  1. Parliament may pass a resolution declaring Subhas Bose to be the first President of free India as well as expressing gratitude to Japan for its support to India's freedom movement. Such a declaration would accord Bose the status he rightly deserves and from this changed status shall flow the rest of the extraordinary process. It would also effectively end the conspiracy theory—which I think emerged from Bhagwanji—that even after turning a republic in 1950, India remained tied to its former colonial ruler under some hidden Commonwealth clause.

  2. Parliament may call upon friendly nations of Russia, the UK, the USA, China and Vietnam to share with the people of India all the information that can help ascertain Bose’s fate. Such an appeal may contain a clause assuring these nations that no disclosure would be allowed to affect the existing friendly relations.

  3. Parliament may enact a “Subhas Bose Records Act” on the basis that since the Government view is that Bose died in an air crash 67 years ago, there is no legitimate need for continued state protection for the records related to him. The act may stipulate that as a special case all official records on or relating to Netaji and people connected to him or the issue of his death or continuing survival in any way should be sent to the National Archives within a specified period with a view to making the people of India fully informed about the information available to their Government. The act should include provisions for proper accounting for all missing records and stipulate prosecution of any government official, serving or retired, who either doesn’t comply with the act or is found to have concealed or destroyed Netaji-related records.

  4. The act may create an independent task force to enforce the implementation of the act with the objective of determining whether any information is available to validate the assertion that Bose had not died in any crash and was subsequently alive; and if yes, was there any conspiracy to keep the matter under wraps and who all were party to that conspiracy.

  5. The constitution of the task force must be such as to command public confidence. In view of the peculiarities of the matter, anyone having any link with the Congress and Forward Bloc parties must not be associated with it. The task force may comprise retired IB and R&AW chiefs—because only they know the system well enough to get things out of it— former Home and Foreign secretaries, a retired CBI director, a leading lawyer, a reputed historian, a representative of the civil society and an eminent journalist who should function as the main interface between the public and the task force.

  6. In compliance with the people’s wish as revealed through parliamentary actions, the Government may declassify all records on or concerning Bose, including the intelligence reports on the people associated with the mystery. Record would mean information available on any format—electronic, paper, picture or microfilm—in the possession of all ministries, departments and agencies of the Government of India. After the release of records, the concerned ministers, secretaries and heads of the intelligence agencies may make written, unqualified, sworn declarations that the disclosure is full and nothing that they know of has been concealed from the people of India. In addition, the Government may take necessary steps to secure the papers, belongings etc. left by Bhagwanji and deposit them at the National Archives till the time a final decision is made.

  7. The records to be released may not only include those held in the office but also those under the personal custody of the people holding the office. Therefore, while making declaration on declassification of Bose related records, the ministers and heads of the departments should make that abundantly clear. Finally, the Prime Minister may make a similar statement to the effect that all information concerning Subhas Bose known to him and his government in any which way has been made public.

  8. As it declassifies the records, the Government may make a declaration through the Gazette of India freeing all serving and retired government officials, especially those with the intelligence services, from the provision of Official Secrets Act and other regulations so that they may freely share information about Bose with the task force and media. If some relevant information emerges from records and it becomes known that any minister or government servant, serving or retired, had some vital information but did not share with the tas
k force, that individual may be charged with the obstruction of justice in a case of utmost national importance, and, as such, inviting the charges of treason.

  9. Having taken all the above steps, and in deference to public will as expressed by Parliament, the Government may take up at the head of government level the issue of Bose’s fate with the Russian Federation, the US, the UK, Vietnam and China. All such correspondence should be placed in the public domain to ensure transparency.

  10. At the end, the task force may make public its assessment in a report based on information having become available following the enactment of the act and submit the same to the Chief Justice of India for necessary action.

  Though the idea behind putting down these ten points was not to entertain, I wouldn’t be surprised if these are laughed at. I know none of the above would be feasible in the present scenario, and I am no one to be suggesting such radical steps. But the underlying thought that has made me enumerate them is to confront Bose’s admirers with the reality that the resolution of the mystery will not be possible so long as they continue to restrict themselves to making occasional comments and essentially uphold the status quo. If you wish to crack the case, think of proper measures which can yield results. So, if any of the above nebulous ideas could somehow lead to a reasonable line of action, the main purpose of this book would be served.

  Appendix I: The loot of the INA treasure

  On 16 May 1951, the head of the Indian Liaison Mission in Tokyo received a secret telegram from New Delhi. He had been directed to obtain clearance from SCAP, the HQ of Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, for a two-week holiday to Japan by a government official. KK Chettur, Ambassador Extra-ordinary and Plenipotentiary, KK Chettur, flared up on seeing the official’s name.