The release of the first set coincides with the 119th birth anniversary of the eminent freedom fighter and comes months before West Bengal goes to the polls. Bose family members thanked the Prime Minister for declassifying the files.
The files do not seem to throw up any new evidence suggesting the freedom fighter survived the plane crash in Taihoku, now in Taiwan, on August 18, 1945.
A cabinet note of February 6, 1995, said that while the government accepted the plane crash theory on Bose’s death, it wasn’t advisable to bring back his ashes from Japan. The government went with the Intelligence Bureau’s view: “If the ashes are brought back to India, the people of West Bengal are likely to construe it as an imposition on them of the official version of Netaji’s death.”
The theory that he died in the crash was the version of his Indian National Army associates and was also accepted by the Nehru government.
However, this may not yet put to rest speculation that the freedom fighter outlived the crash.
A section of the Bose family, and many in Bengal, have for decades held that the whole truth of Bose’s disappearance isn’t out yet.
