Narendra Modi will ‘open’ Bose files, says kin

Berlin: The grand nephew of India’s freedom fighter and Congress leader Subhas Chandra Bose, Surya Kumar Bose, has said his entire family was united in their demand for receiving complete information from the Indian government on the decision to declassify all documents related to Netaji, including the information that former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had ordered a surveillance of Netaji’s family for twenty years till 1968.

Mr Bose said, “It is not just the family, the whole of India was Netaji’s family. It is the people of India (who) want the truth. So everybody has to mobilise.”

“I think the movement has caught up with a huge momentum right now, we should add to it even from outside the country and push it to an extent where the government cannot say no anymore,” he added.

Admitting that there might be other pressing issues for the government to address, Mr Bose, however, said, “It is not just wishing for something.”       

Bose said, “It has been (our demand) for quite some years now. There is a movement going on in India, which is tough. There is quite a bit of momentum in the demand for the declassification of documents after the introduction of the RTI law.”

“I think as far as declassification is concerned, the whole family is united. But there are differences of opinion as far as the plane crash theory is concerned. But the majority of the family as of now do not believe in it,” Mr Bose told ANI.

“Because that (plane crash opinion) is based on what is available in the public domain, what we have seen, what the three commissions of inquiries have produced and what we have heard from reliable source,” he added.

He said he had received an assurance from the prime minister that he would look into the declassification matter of Netaji.