Amidst much fanfare, the West Bengal government yesterday released 64 files on Netaji Subash Chandra Bose that were in the state home department’s possession. Officially declassified, these files ranging from 1922 till 1948 will now be displayed at the Calcutta Police Museum.
These files include correspondence between Netaji and his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose as well as letters Netaji exchanged with Indian political leaders.
The once confidential files are displayed in glass enclosures on the first floor Archives and Reading Room of the museum. Soft copies of the over 10,000 pages are available for viewing on 10 terminals in an adjacent room together with a set of photocopied files.
This April, Sugata Bose, historian, Harvard professor and Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’s great-grandnephew, had seen two documents at the National Archives in Delhi which had been declassified by the Intelligence Bureau.
They revealed that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had the IB spy on Netaji’s family for 20 years. Netaji’s family was up in arms. “This was an unacceptable invasion of privacy. This was an affront to freedom fighters.” Bose had said.
While an embarrassed Congress accused the BJP of attempting to distort history by selectively leaking files, Bose believed that the Nehru government feared a political challenge.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken the initiative by releasing the files held by the state government, the Centre has 135 Netaji files in its possession. Will these also be soon made public? Has the declassification of these files been politicised?
A veteran political analyst in the state says, “A hundred per cent this decision has been politically motivated. No doubt Netaji is a hugely venerated leader but our CM has been part of several governments, Rajiv Gandhi’s, PV Narasimha Rao’s, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s and Manmohan Singh’s but this issue was never raised. We now have elections on the horizon.”
While Bengal is gearing up for elections next summer, this emotive issue would certainly help. Observers also feel that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may soon follow suit in an attempt to defame the Congress.
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