Rajnath Singh's tribute on Subhas Chandra Bose's 'death anniversary' angers followers

KOLKATA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had shown millions of Netaji followers a glimmer of hope on declassification of secret files but Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday shut a door by referring to August 18 — the date of the alleged Taihoku air crash — as Subhas Chandra Bose's death anniversary.

In a Facebook post, Singh gave a one-line tribute: "Subhas Chandra Bose ki punyatithi par unhe sadar naman". 'Punya tithi' usually refers to someone's death anniversary. What angered Netaji's followers is that the Justice Mukherjee Commission, which was set up by the Vajpayee government, had demolished the air crash theory. Instead, a section of researchers now strongly believes that Bose might have spent his final years in Russia.

Author and Netaji researcher Anuj Dhar said it was extremely disappointing that a Union minister has sought to legitimize the air crash theory that was ruled out by Justice Mukherjee Commission. "It was expected that the BJP government will declassify Netaji files and bring out the truth. They had shown the intent, but in reality their actions have not been any different from that of the previous Congress governments. They have used the same language to stonewall our RTI queries," said Dhar.

Netaji's grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose demanded an apology from Singh. "This is irresponsible and amounts to an attempt to distort history. Singh should apologize to the people of India or else Netaji followers will gherao him in Delhi," he said. On Monday, BJP chief Amit Shah had posted an identical tribute to Netaji on Facebook and had to withdraw it after protests. "It can't be a coincidence that senior BJP leaders are making the same mistake. They are either ignorant or are deliberately trying to pass a message. They should make themselves clear," said Bose.

The home minister has not even cared to go through social networking sites before posting it, said Dhar. "Had he done that, Singh would have known that a major campaign is on for declassification (of files). And that August 18 is no longer accepted to be Netaji's death anniversary. It has been proved to be a lie," said Dhar.

Singh's post was greeted with jeer and sarcasm on Facebook. It was called 'shameless' and 'irresponsible'. "....just paying lip service to Netaji and biding time for this troublesome issue to be buried," read one such post.

An attempt to lend credence to the Taihoku air crash theory has always existed, said Netaji researcher Purabi Roy. The relevant Russian files that could have shed light on Netaji's mysterious disappearance were never made available to Indian researchers despite an effort by the Prime Minister's Office in 1996, said Roy. Even though there were indications that half a dozen Russian archives contained material that could reveal the truth, those in charge stonewalled attempts to access them, eventually strengthening the plane crash theory, said Roy, who had visited Russia on behalf of the Asiatic Society in 1996.