Files related to Netaji Bose to remain secret

KOLKATA: The story of one of India’s most charismatic, yet enigmatic freedom fighters- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who gave India some of its most famous slogans like- ‘Jai Hind’, ‘Give me blood and I will give you freedom,’ as well as ‘Dilli Chalo’ has been shrouded in mystery, and from the looks of it, that is how it will continue to be.

Bose, whose marriage to his Austrian stenographer- Emilie Schenkl has also long been mired in mystery and controversy, is believed to have fathered a daughter with her- Anita Schenkl Pfaff, born in 1942. Researcher Chandrachur Ghose, who is currently working on a biography on the nationalist leader, had sought access to letters, believed to have been written by Netaji’s wife and daughter to the government of India. However, after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) denied access last year, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has also upheld the PMO’s contention that releasing secret files about Netaji’s wife and daughter could upset foreign countries.

Indian Express reports that Chief Information Commissioner Rajiv Mathur has disposed the appeal by researcher Chandrachur Ghose which challenged the PMO’s decision of not giving access to the letters written by Netaji’s wife and daughter to the government. “In view of the above, and CPIO’s submission that due diligence has been exercised, we uphold the decision of the CPIO/AA in denying the information,” the CIC said in its decision.

In 2013, the PMO had said that these files are exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1)(a) read with section 8(2) of the Right to Information Act, 2005. “The three files in question are classified and disclosure of the documents contained in them would prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries,” the PMO said in its reply.

Ghose, who is writing a biography on Netaji said, “Keeping these files secret would also fuel conspiracy theories, in view of controversy regarding Netaji’s marriage in certain quarters”.

Bose had been a leader of the younger, radical, wing of the Indian National Congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, rising to become Congress President in 1938 and 1939. However, he was ousted from Congress leadership positions in 1939 following differences with Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Congress high command. He was subsequently placed under house arrest by the British before escaping from India in 1940.

Bose arrived in Germany in April 1941, where the leadership offered unexpected, if sometimes ambivalent, sympathy for the cause of India’s independence, contrasting starkly with its attitudes towards other colonised peoples and ethnic communities. In November 1941, with German funds, a Free India Centre was set up in Berlin, and soon a Free India Radio, on which Bose broadcast nightly.

A 3,000-strong Free India Legion, comprising Indians captured by Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, was also formed to aid in a possible future German land invasion of India. During this time, Bose also became a father; his wife, or companion, Emilie Schenkl, whom he had met in 1934, gave birth to a baby girl. By spring 1942, in light of Japanese victories in southeast Asia and changing German priorities, a German invasion of India became untenable, and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia. 

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), then composed of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured in the Battle of Singapore. However, after organising the INA with Japanese help he went missing in 1945, fuelling one of the most debated and puzzling mysteries.

Madhuri Bose, the grand-niece of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Feb 2014, published some previously unseen correspondence between Emilie Schenkl and her grand-uncle- Sarat Chandra Bose- Netaji’s brother in the Outlook magazine, where she claimed a vilification campaign against Netaji by disgruntled erstwhile leaders of the Congress. “Nehru and Patel were spreading calumny about Netaji,” she wrote.

She claims they tried to project him as some sort of a debauched womaniser “who got a girl in trouble”, whereas, “The truth is that Netaji was married to the woman in question, a fact Nehru and Patel did not disclose to Sarat Bose because it served their purpose,” Madhuri Bose, told Outlook. 

Madhuri Bose places on the record, her family’s acceptance of Emilie and Anita into the Bose household. She says, Sarat, his wife Bivabati and their three children, Sisir, Roma and Chitra, travelled to Vienna in the autumn of 1948 to meet Emilie and Anita. An emotional family meeting took place in Vienna when Sarat and Bivabati embraced Emilie and Anita into the Bose family. Sarat wanted Emilie and Anita to come to Calcutta to stay but since Emilie was the sole carer for her ageing mother, she could not leave Vienna. 

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