Netaji's great escape to Soviet Russia

The camouflage: Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Houchi announces the death of

Subhas Bose and Lt General Tsunamasa Shidei on August 24, 1945. The reported
plane crash had occurred on August 18, but the news about it was released on
August 23, the day the Japanese Quantung Army surrendered to the Red Army in
Manchuria. Shidei, a Russia expert, was Quantung Army's Deputy Chief of Staff.

June 9, 2006

By Anuj Dhar

So Netaji's great escape of 1941 wasn't his best. Four years on, India's then most
promising leader performed an astonishing vanishing trick. He faked his death in a
planted plane crash story. Sixty-one years and two government-inspired fraudulent
inquiries later, the truth finally manifests with the Mukherjee Commission's
momentous findings
.
On the morning of August 17, 1945 Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Saigon
accompanied by his cabinet colleagues and senior Japanese officers. The world war
was over and Japan had announced surrender to the Allies. The choices before Bose
were but just two. Either to fall into the hands of the British, or try out something to
continue fighting for India.

Netaji was implored to go on. But where? Justice Mukherjee quotes what Lt General
Saburo Isoda had stated before Khosla Commission. The Japanese military had
given Bose a tacit undertaking to take him out of the harm's way. Isoda was to
execute this "secret plan". "The purpose of his (Netaji's) flight was to go to the Soviet
Union and with the aid of the Soviet Union he was to continue his independence
movement. That was the aim of his mission," stated Isoda. Justice Mukherjee agreed
and noted:
* The above evidence of General Isoda gets ample support from the other colleagues
of Netaji who were with him at the material time including Col Pritam Singh of the
INA, Shri E Bhaskaran, his Confidential Secretary ....

* A secret plan was contrived to ensure Netaji's safe passage to which Japanese
military authority and Habibur Rahman were parties.

* ... the departure of Netaji from Saigon on August 17, 1945 along with Habibur
Rahman and some Japanese officers for going to Russia via Manchuria is ... not in
controversy.
And Justice Mukherjee gave his verdict thus:
* ... it stands established that emplaning at Saigon on August 17, 1945 Netaji
succeeded in evading the Allied Forces and escaping out of their reach and as a
camouflage thereof the entire make-believe story of the air crash, Netaji's death
therein and his cremation was engineered by the Japanese army authorities
including the two doctors and Habibur Rahman and then aired on August 23, 1945
....
* Obviously, in cooking up the story of Netaji's death in the plane crash and giving it a
modicum of truth they (Japanese military authorities and Habibur Rahman) had no
other alternative than resorting to suppression of facts and in doing so they not only
invited material contradiction in their evidence ... but also left latent loopholes which
have now been discovered.

* Though no firm opinion can be expressed about Netaji's exit point it can be
legitimately be inferred, having regard to the established fact that Habibur Rahman
who accompanied him form Saigon was next found present in Taipei cooking up a
story (along with others) of his death there, that Netaji disappeared therefrom
(Taipei).

Thanks to the disinterest of our Government, this was as far the Mukherjee
Commission could go in the trail. "Whether Netaji thereafter landed in Russia or
elsewhere cannot be answered for dearth of evidence," it avers, leaving us with the
pointers that Russia holds the key to resolving India's longest running political
controversy.