India's biggest cover-up

by Anuj Dhar

  In fact, we are. The world media noted the Congress party calling the Anna Hazare-led people’s movement against corruption as conceived by the United States to weaken Dr Manmohan Singh’s government. Most observers just laughed it away, not realizing that it was symptomatic of a deep-seated malaise.

  For an overview of conspiracy theories in India, this is enough for a start. Yes indeed the Bose mystery also spawns many of them. Of these, the following I find worth detailing. It would be seen that not all of them are completely devoid of substance.

  Conspiracy theory # 1: Gandhi had something to do with sealing Bose’s fate

  This one is probably the most outrageous of all, for it levels a most horrendous allegation on the Father of the Nation and other top leaders of India. The following quotation from Hindustan Times report “Gandhi, others had agreed to hand over Netaji” dated 23 January 1971 is based on a tearful testimony of a witness before the Khosla Commission.

  Mr Usman Patel, who claimed to be a bodyguard of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, said...that Mahatma Gandhi, Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, Mr Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Maulana Azad had come to an agreement with the British judge that if Netaji were to enter India, he would be handed over and charged.

  My simple and straight response to this is that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back this mindless charge. The only reason it has remained in circulation in different variants is that we have failed to resolve the mystery. If Gandhiji had lived on, he would have seen to it that the Bose “death” issue was settled.

  # 2: Nehru betrayed Bose

  All Indians with some interest in recent history and politics have heard of this one, unless of course they chose to pretend not to know anything, just as BN Mullik did before the Khosla Commission.

  Nehru’s friend and Bose’s junior at Cambridge, GD Khosla made an attempt to show in his report that the relations between the two giants were cordial in spite of political frictions, stamping out the very basis of this particular conspiracy theory. Justice Mukherjee remained religiously struck to the terms of reference assigned to him, as you would expect a judge to. His main report contained just one reference to Nehru as appearing in an intelligence report.

  This report, rather a para from a report, is the only pre-Independence official allusion to the theory to have survived in our time. However, the report was considered unreliable by the British.

  There is, however, a secret report which says that Nehru received a letter from Bose saying he was in Russia and that he wanted to escape to India. He would come via Chitral, where one of Sarat Bose’s son should meet him. The information alleges that Gandhi and Sarat Bose are among those who are aware of this. The story is unlikely…. [6]

  And yet here we are in this age of the internet, where this theory has gone viral as a result of deep-rooted suspicions. “Netaji died in Russian jail as Nehru never pressed for his return,” wrote former IB Joint Director Maloy Krishna Dhar during a recent discussion on the Facebook. It created no furore because the Indians are quite used to hearing such things in open forums. Parliament has been no exception either. The following has been excerpted from a speech made in the Lok Sabha by Sasankasekhar Sanyal on 3 August 1977:

  [In 1946] Jawaharlal Nehru was given certain questions by Lord Mountbatten [in Singapore]. He said: Look here; Scotland Yard has not yet written off Subhas as dead or gone disappeared never to come. If that is so, if Subhas comes back to India, will you be the Prime Minister or Subhas will be? That was Question No 1. Question No 2 was, supposing the country is not partitioned, will Bengal contribute the Prime Ministership or will UP contribute the Prime Ministership? The hint was very clear and the vacillating great leader agreed to Partition.

  An appalling allegation was made by one Shyam Lal Jain before the Khosla Commission. Having gone through every word of it as it appears on the record of the oral proceedings of Khosla Commission, I do not think it is worthy of credence. Jain fumbles on many points and he also rattles out an uncorroborated account of meeting “Subhas Bose” in 1967 in a most unusual way. Still I cannot skip detailing Jain’s charge because so many people and media outlets have projected it as truthful over the years.

  Jain’s story was that in 1946 he was serving as a steno to Asaf Ali, secretary of the INA Defence Committee fighting to secure the release of the INA prisoners. He claimed that in December that year he was summoned to Ali’s residence by Pandit Nehru. The rest of the account, as reported in Hindustan Times in 2000, is:

  Jain alleged that Pandit Nehru had asked him [to] make typed copies of a handwritten note that said Bose had reached Russia via Diren [in Manchuria]. He also alleged that Pandit Nehru asked him to type a letter to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, that “Bose, your war criminal, has been allowed to enter Russian territory by Stalin. This is a clear treachery and betrayal of faith by the Russians, as Russia has been an ally of the British-Americas. Please take note of it and do what you consider proper and fit”. [7]

  The HT story further read that “though this information was not challenged before the commission, Justice Khosla chose not to attach any importance to it. One wonders why”. [8] If a newspaper of the repute and standing of Hindustan Times could have gone to the extent of publishing this by a journalist who later served the Indian Express and is now with the NDTV, you can well imagine what must have been commented elsewhere.

  There is another similar account which I personally rate worthy of more attention that has been given to Jain’s story. In 1985 a retired intelligence field operative named Dharmendra Gaur claimed that in October 1956 Clement Attlee, the man who had cleared independence for India, was subjected to surveillance by the IB during his private visit to Lucknow. According to Gaur, the former British PM told an inquisitive Chief Minister Dr Sampurnanand that Bose had escaped to the USSR via Manchuria. Gaur said the talk was bugged and the tape sent to the head office.

  Two circumstances make this theory more intriguing. Dr Sampurnanand was said to have been in touch with Bhagwanji, who was in Lucknow at that time. Two, when he arrived in Calcutta during the same trip, Attlee told the acting Governor and Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court in an informal talk that his setting India free had more to do with Bose’s activities than Gandhi’s peaceful persuasion. The reason this latter account cannot be ignored is that Justice PB Chakrabarty reported it to reputed historian Dr RC Majumdar and later himself recounted it in a letter which is widely quoted in several stories on the internet. So, it stands established that Attlee displayed some extraordinary candour during his 1956 India visit.

  One may dismiss Gaur’s account because he was a cog in the wheel—but neither Chakrabarty nor Majumdar were publicity-seeking politicians. And by the way, what would you say to Maloy Dhar’s comment? The former intelligence officer, who came close to becoming the DIB, was not linked to any organisation or political party.

  Then there is the account released by Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy in 2006 in the form of a press statement. What makes it very serious is the fact that Dr Swamy cites Cabinet papers in support of his contention backing Shyam Lal Jain’s story:

  When Chandrasekhar’s Janata government was in office, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs [of which I was member as Minister], had considered the Japanese request to send the ashes back to India but after reviewing the files we decided to reject it. This was because the Cabinet papers contained a record of a deposition by a stenographer of Prime Minister Nehru stating that in December 1946 long after the alleged crash of Netaji’s plane, he had taken down a letter dictated by Nehru addressed to Britain’s Prime Minister Attlee complaining that Joseph Stalin was keeping Netaji in a camp in eastern USSR, and that Britain had to do something since Netaji ‘is your war criminal’. This stenographer had deposed before the Khosla Commission but Justice Khosla ignored the evidence. [9]

  # 3: There is a link between the “deaths” of Bose and Shastri

  The controversy surrounding the death of former Prime Minister
Lal Bahadur Shastri is an issue by itself. At the end of a week-long, hectic India-Pakistan summit at Tashkent on 10 January 1966, Shastri looked agile and healthy despite the two heart attacks he had suffered in 1959 and 1964. Following the signing of the agreement at 4pm and a public reception at 8pm on 10 January 1966, he reached the villa where he was staying.

  There, Shastri had a light meal prepared by Mohammed Jan, personal cook of TN Kaul, the Indian Ambassador in Moscow. A Russian butler, Akhmed Sattarov, was also present. At about 11.30pm, Shastri had a glass of milk. When his personal staff took leave of him, he was all fine. At 1:25am, the Prime Minister was awakened by a severe coughing. He himself walked out to tell his personal staff to summon his personal doctor RN Chugh from another room in the villa. Dr Chugh arrived to find Shastri to be in death throes as a result of the symptoms of a heart attack. Despite Chugh’s frantic efforts Shastriji passed away.

  On 16 February 1966 several MPs led by HV Kamath, JB Kriplani, Prakash Vir Shastri and Madhu Limaye raised the issue in Parliament. A surgical cut and bluish patches on the PM’s body had led to speculation of poisoning. The government response did not satisfy the lawmakers. It was in 1970 that the issue could be discussed at length. Inspired by the success of the Opposition MPs in compelling the Government to probe Bose’s death afresh, Shastri’s well wishers and family members demanded an inquiry. In April 1970 Rajya Sabha MP and Shastri’s childhood friend TN Singh claimed that a relative’s demand for an autopsy to rule out poisoning charges was rejected by acting Prime Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda.

  On 18 December 1970 the Ministry of Home Affairs laid a statement of facts before the Lok Sabha. It satisfactorily tackled many of the charges and included copies of the medical reports issued in 1966 and 1970. The 11 January 1966 medical report signed by Dr Chugh and many Soviet doctors stated that in view of Shastri’s medical history and the symptoms that manifested before he passed away, “it can be considered that death occurred because of an acute attack of infarktmiocarda”. [10] A November 1970 statement issued by Soviet doctors detailed the process of embalming which had led to the body turning bluish. The Government, however, rejected TN Singh’s claim that any of the family members had sought a post mortem because “there is no record of any suggestion having been made” and Nanda had “no recollection of anyone having spoken to him about a post mortem examination”.

  Some MPs accused the Government of giving a “one-sided” version on the last day of the session to ward off any serious discussion. Prakash Vir Shastri wanted the Government to clarify whether a security officer named GC Dutt had disapproved of the arrangements made by Ambassador Kaul and if he was taken off the duty a day before the PM died.

  In 1996, one of Shastri’s former aides CP Srivastava discussed the outcome of his personal enquiry in his book Lal Bahadur Shastri: A life of truth in politics. Because he was not present at the moment of the Prime Minister’s death, Srivastava detailed the accounts of the staff members. He also consulted a leading British doctor, who opined that while without a postmortem it could not be said with cent per cent accuracy that there were no chances of poisoning, all available details indicated that the death was natural and followed a heart attack. Finally, Srivastava recalled having a word with the Home Secretary in around 1966. LP Singh told him that the issue of post mortem had come up during his discussion with Ambassador Kaul but was ruled out in view of the report of Dr Chugh and the Soviet doctors.

  I also played a little role recently by making some enquiries from the PMO and MEA under the RTI. The PMO told me that it possessed only one classified document relating to the former PM’s death and that there was no record of any destruction or loss of any document related to the tragedy.

  The MEA informed me on 1 July 2009 that the concerned division had no information on the subject matter. It was quite strange because the sudden death of the Prime Minister must have thrown the Indian Embassy in Moscow in a tizzy. Ambassador Kaul must have scrambled to inform Delhi of the tragedy. A flurry of telephone calls and telegrams over the tragic development would have ensued for sure. The ministry would have gone on an overdrive to find out the circumstances leading to the PM’s death. The ambassador must have been asked to send blow-by-blow reports, and he must have done that. The Soviets too would have felt obliged to tell Indians about their handling of the matter. And as the charges of foul play emerged, the Government through the Ministry of External of Affairs (and also IB, which was then responsible for foreign intelligence) must have tried to get to the bottom of the story. So how could the concerned division in the ministry have no records I wondered?

  The MEA further stated that the only main record available with the Indian Embassy in Moscow was the report of joint medical investigation conducted by Dr Chugh and the Soviet doctors. The ministry confirmed that no post-mortem was carried out in Moscow. I also got to know from the Delhi Police through another RTI reply that no post-mortem was conducted in India as well.

  On July 21, I filed another application seeking copies of the entire correspondence between the MEA and the embassy and between the embassy and the Soviet foreign ministry over the issue. I requested the ministry to clearly state in case no such records were extant. In its belated response, the MEA refused to release the information for doing so would harm national interest. I was even denied a copy of Dr Chugh’s report even though it was a public document.

  It was only after the intervention of Chief Information Commissioner Sadananad Mishra that the MEA in August 2011 supplied me copies of Dr Chugh’s medical report and a copy of the statement made by the External Affairs Minister in the Rajya Sabha. The issue about the sole secret record held by the PMO was also fairly settled by Commissioner Mishra in June 2011. After hearing the PMO’s and my views, he summoned the classified record to decide whether or not it could be made public. The record was shown to him and he ruled that the PMO was right in keeping it classified for its disclosure would indeed harm India’s relations with a friendly nation.

  Later I learnt that this record cited an intelligence report blaming the United States, probably the CIA, for spreading a “canard” that Shastri’s death was not natural. To me this version looked more like a conspiracy theory, because available information did not indicate any such thing. On the other hand, I came across a declassified memorandum written to US President Richard Nixon by his National Security Adviser Dr Henry Kissinger, proving that America sensed no foul play and saw no Russian hand. The following quote from this 1972 record must be read keeping in mind the abominable aversion Nixon and even Kissinger had for India and Indira Gandhi at that time. And still, in this Top Secret backgrounder about Russian premier A Kosygin, Dr Kissinger wrote that “the sudden fatal heart attack of Indian Prime Minister Shastri at Tashkent has never been traced, by any one, to the effect of his personal encounters with Kosygin”. [11]

  I don’t know what’s with some people in India that they see an American hand in everything: Shastri’s death, Rajiv’s assassination, 26/11, JP’s movement, Anna Hazre’s fast. Even the Bose mystery was not spared if you believe what Dr Satyanarain Sinha told the Khosla Commission. He said that when he tried to sensitise Prime Minister Nehru about Bose’s presence in the USSR, the PM told him that “this is American propaganda”. [12] Sinha further claimed that the PM called him an “American agent”.

  The “canard” about Shastri’s death did not require CIA’s manipulations because the rumours that he was poisoned started doing rounds in Moscow from the word go. Akhmed Sattarov, the Russian butler attached to Shastri, told the Telegraph of London on 18 February 1998 that he “was arrested at 4am on suspicion of poisoning him and thrown into jail” and freed only when “it emerged that Shastri had died of a heart attack”. [13]

  Further, Shastriji’s son Sunil Shastri and grandson Siddharth Nath Singh told me that the suspicions of poisoning started soon after the body arrived in Delhi. Shastri’s aged mother spotted what she thought were signs of poisoning, got them “verified” using a tr
aditional method and cried out, mere bitwa ko jahar de diya! “My son has been poisoned!” The family members said that a demand for the post mortem was indeed made by them. They also had suspicions about the fate that befell Dr Chugh and another attendant of Shastri. Dr Chugh, his wife and two sons were overrun by a truck in 1977. Only his daughter survived but was crippled.

  The best person who I can quote over the conspiracy theory linking Shastri’s death to something about Bose was Jagdish Kodesia, a former Delhi Congress chief who appeared before GD Khosla on 1 March 1971 as a witness. Several times during his on-oath deposition, Kodesia stated that “Shastriji was one person” who did not believe in Netaji’s death in the plane crash. “When he became Home Minister...he wanted to know the truth whether Subhas Bose was alive or not.” His next claim was spine-chilling. Kodesia felt that “after he became the Prime Minister…[Shastri] was emphatically working that there should be a fresh probe into Netaji's disappearance”.

  One thing is there that Shastri definitely wanted that there should be another inquiry commission. If he would have lived longer, he must have seen to that…. [14]