Nearly 35 members of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s family from across the world and around 15 research associates who have been asking for the declassification of the Bose files by the government, will be hosted at 7 Race Course Road on October 14 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for what is being seen by the family members as an important juncture in their “movement” for some closure on the late leader’s life and death.
A first, says kin The invitation had been extended by Prime Minister Modi during his visit to Germany in April. Speaking to The Hindu, Netaji’s grand nephew, Chandra Kumar Bose, said Prime Minister Modi was the “first Indian Prime Minister to play host to the Bose family.”
“Around 35 members of our family from around the world, will be present and we have two main aims in meeting the PM. One, of course, that we want the declassification of the Netaji files, but also to press for the inclusion of several heroes of India’s struggle for independence who have been deleted from its history,” he said. “For example, the Azad Hind Fauj had 70,000 soldiers of whom 26,000 gave up their lives. There is no remembrance of them,” he said. “While Gandhiji’s non-violent struggle contributed, the final push was given by the Azad Hind Fauj and Lord Clement Attlee and Lord Mountbatten have said as much,” he added.
Mr. Bose said there was enough evidence to debunk the air crash theory that had been established to declare Netaji as deceased. “In 2005, the Justice Mukherjee commission successfully unearthed enough evidence to debunk the whole theory, and with the declassification of 64 files by the West Bengal government, it has become even clearer. In those files, there are letters by CID Howrah in 1948 citing U.S. intelligence sources that Netaji escaped to the Soviet Union via China,” he said.
