We must keep Netaji's legacy alive, not fight about his death

Many still have not come to terms with the mortal end of deathless hero, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. What is more important is to realise Netaji’s great ideals in contemporary India. His life was grander than the legend.

I speak as a historian and not as a descendant since Netaji regarded his family and country to be co-terminous. The focus has to be on Netaji’s life and work from which the younger generation of Indians has a lot to learn. There is an immense amount of material that is available on Netaji on the basis of which I wrote my biography His Majesty’s Opponent. Young Indians must know about his ideals and achievements – the greatest among which was uniting all the religious communities of India – and not fritter away their energies on a fruitless controversy about his mortal end. My father Sisir Kumar Bose, who drove Netaji during his great escape from Calcutta in 1941, said that we should not just carp and complain about what the government may or may not do, but do something ourselves to keep Netaji’s political legacy alive. He established the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957 and preserved the best traditions of India’s freedom movement so that future generations could learn from Netaji’s book of life.

As an historian and citizen, I believe most government files more than 30 years old and all government files more than 50 years old should be thrown open to scholars and the public. Your guess would be as good as mine as to the present and former governments’ reason for not allowing declassification of a limited number of files. The stated reason for not making these files available is that they contain matter that may adversely affect foreign relations. The decision is wrong and leads to unnecessary speculation.

My considered view is that the PMO alone should not be making the determination in respect of these files. If the executive branch of government has concerns, the contents of the files should be shared in the first instance with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, which can decide whether there is any risk of affecting foreign relations. I personally doubt that old files can mar foreign relations today. For example, I have seen British archival records and written about the British order to try and assassinate Subhas Chandra Bose in 1941. No one holds the current British government responsible for what Chrurchill’s government decided in the 1940s. I suspect that the non-declassified files may contain material showing a lack of adequate respect shown to Netaji by certain Indian leaders in the late 1940s and 1950s.

(Based on an interview by Malini Banerjee)