12 Important Netaji files missing
New Delhi: Ahead of the declassification of Netaji files on his birth
anniversary, 23 January, relatives of Subhas Chandra Bose are upset that the
government is yet to make public files about his escape from British India
after his arrest, The Statesman reported on Saturday, 19th December
2015.
They are also questioning the authenticity of reports that he married a
German woman and had a daughter from her. The relatives have alleged that
around 12 files which may have facts about Netaji’s escape from British India
are missing.
They have written to the West Bengal government about this. One mystery
surrounding Netaji has not been resolved, according to a relative, of his ever
getting married to a German woman and fathering a girl child by the name of
Anita Pfaff.
A few relatives claim that Netaji never married and thus there is no
question of his having a legal heir who can lay claim to his property. They
said this was an attempt to defame Netaji.
A letter written to the home ministry by then West Bengal Governor T N
Singh, on 1 September 1979, enquired about the identity of Anita Pfaff who
claimed to be his daughter.
“According to a Home Ministry response to an enquiry from West Bengal
Governor in 1980, the identity of Anita Bose could not be established.
Intelligence Bureau also failed to establish the identity of Anita Pfaff or to
authenticate that Bose was married to a German lady,” said Rajyashree
Chaudhuri, great grand niece of Subhash Chandra Bose, quoting from the letters
exchanged between the Home Ministry and the then West Bengal Governor Singh.
According to Chaudhuri no files are available about his activities between
1940 and 1941 when he stayed in Kolkata and a period when he escaped out of
British India after being arrested. “The missing files may be about his escape
from British India to the West,” she said.
Chauhuri alleged that 64 files were
sent to the Justice Mukherjee Commission for examination by West Bengal. But
out of them 12 files are missing and 13 new files have been added to cover up
this irregularity.
“The new files added are not very significant. They are just
correspondences of Netaji,” she said, adding that a large number of pages from
those files are missing.
Chaudhuri, who is convenor of Jatiya
Jagran Mancha, a forum for promoting nationalist ideas, said political parties
are not giving much importance to declassifying files that shed light on some
of the significant events surrounding Netaji. Analysts feel a political turf
war ahead of the West Bengal elections next year between BJP and TMC is quite
likely as a few of Netaji’s relatives are in TMC.
The BJP government will try to declassify all the files related to Netaji
before the polls in order to win popular support beginning with
declassification of 33 files, which have been submitted by PMO to National
Archives of India, on the birth anniversary of Netaji, they said. Prime
Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly assured the family members of Netaji that
he will take up the matter of accessing the archives of Russia and United
Kingdom which would shed more light on his life.
The RSS is also understood to be in favour of declassification of Netaji
files as it will prove beyond doubt that there was involvement of Nehru family
in the Netaji cover-up.
RTI activists have been striving to get files related to Netaji
declassified. Delhi-based RTI activists Gopal Prasad and Subhash Chandra
Agrawal filed RTIs with the PMO to reveal the classified Netaji files. Agrawal
had received a response from PMO that these files cannot be disclosed as
putting them in public domain would “prejudicially affect relations with
foreign countries
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