Prime Minister to meet Bose's family; kin to seek release of all Netaji files

New Delhi/Kolkata: Over 50 members of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's family will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi next month when they will pitch for declassification of all files related to the leader whose mysterious disappearance 70 years ago continues to be a talking point.

Bose's family members said they will seek release of all Netaji files in possession of the Centre as also with countries like Japan, Russia and China with which the nationalist leader was in touch.

Modi told the nation about the proposed meeting with Bose's family during his monthly radio address 'Mann Ki Baat'.

"Over 50 members of Subhas babu's family, from various countries, will be coming...I am happy to welcome them," he said.

Describing it as a momentous occasion for him, Modi said the family members of Netaji, perhaps for the first time, would be together visiting the Prime Minister's residence. "But the bigger happiness is for me as nobody in the Prime Minister's residence would have got such a chance earlier as I will be getting in October," he said, but made no reference to the persistent demands for declassification of Netaji files, including by his close family members as also West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after her government released 64 such files on Friday.

Recalling his meeting with some members of the family in Kolkata in May, Modi said, "I got an opportunity to spend some time with them. That day it was decided that the extended family of Subhas babu will visit the Prime Minister's residence.... Last week, I got confirmation that over 50 members of Subhas babu are coming to visit the Prime Minister's residence."

Meanwhile, Bose's grand nephew Chandra Bose said in Kolkata that his family will appeal to Modi to write to countries including Russia, Japan, China, America, UK, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia to declassify all Netaji files lying with them.

"Netaji was in touch with people in all these countries. They all have classified files relating to him. We want to take this movement of declassification to the global level to get all the clues," he said.

"Our main focus, however, would be on declassification of all Netaji files held by the government of India. If we do not have our own files declassified, then how can we ask other nations to do it?" Abhijit Ray, Netaji's another grand-nephew, said.

Chandra Bose, however, felt some secret documents that could have solved the mystery of Bose's disappearance might have been destroyed.

I am not too sure whether the existing files with the central government can reveal everything about what happened to Netaji after he went missing in 1945. The files may have already been destroyed by the past governments," he said.

He said even the Mukherjee Commission had concluded that four files had been destroyed when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister.

Some of the declassified files on Bose indicated continued surveillance on his close relatives years after his disappearance and claimed death in a plane crash in Taipei in August 1945. Most of the family members of Bose have rejected the theory of his death in air crash.

"A story that he escaped to Russia has been there for sometime but the Bengal government files show that there could be a new Chinese angle to the story. And then some say he came back to India in disguise as 'Gumnami Baba'. We do not have clinching evidence to prove any of these theories," Chandra Bose said.

He said the family received a call from PMO yesterday and asked them to prepare an agenda for the meeting. "We will demand the constitution of a high-powered committee under the Prime Minister himself to release all the files with the Centre," he said.

Bose's another grand newphew Abhijit Ray said the family would request the Prime Minister to ensure that the leader got his due place in history.

"Netaji has no place in NCERT books. We want people to know about his role in the freedom struggle and also about the role of the Indian National Army (INA) and the Azad Hind provincial government which was formed under his leadership.

History should be written by giving due credit to him," Ray said.