What Is the Mystery in the Death of Subhas Chandra Bose?
Nripendra Misra, the principal secretary to India’s Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, today officially handed over the first set of files related to freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to the director general, National Archives of India. The move is supposed to set the stage for the declassification of files beginning on 23rd January, 2016.
In August 1945, Bose had died under mysterious circumstances. It was stated that the Japanese plane in which he was traveling crashed in Japanese-occupied Formosa (now Taiwan).
However, his supporters, especially in Bengal state of India, have been contesting the claims about his death. Conspiracy theories have surfaced about his disappearance.
[ How India Abuses Children’s Right to Education ]
Many of Bose’s supporters believed that the Indian government is hiding the information about his death intentionally. So, the current Modi-led BJP government has decided to declassify the information.
In October this year, Narendra Modi had met the extended family of Bose. Modi had said that his government will release information on Netaji for the people of India.
He also had said that the declassification and public release of the files would begin on 23rd January, 2016, the Birth Anniversary of Netaji.
The first batch of 33 PM office files have been cleared, and were handed over to the National Archives of India for further processing, preservation and digitization, in preparation for the final release of all 58 files in the PM office.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs in India are separately taking action for release of files under their custody.
Photo courtesy: Wikipedia
