Netaji is said to have suffered third-degree burns on August 18, 1945, when his plane crashed during takeoff in then-Japanese-occupied Taipei, Taiwan. Bose fell into a coma before his death between 9 and 10 p.m.
During World War II, Imperial Japanese Army pilot, co-pilot, and lieutenant general Kodetsu Tsunamasa claimed that his plane had crashed shortly after Japan’s surrender. Along the way, there Bose would discuss with a Soviet interlocutor about political asylum and handing over control of the Indian National Army (INA) to the Soviet Union to continue the struggle for Indian independence. . Siday will serve as Bose’s chief negotiator.
No photograph of the injured or dead Bose was taken and no death certificate was issued. For these reasons, INA refused to accept that he had passed away.
Many of Bose’s supporters refused to believe both the news and the circumstances of his death. Some myths about Netaji still take root today.
Bose’s chief of staff, Colonel Habib-ul-Rehman, who was with him on that ill-fated flight survived. He testified before an investigative commission set up in Bose’s death ten years after he died. It is said that Bose’s ashes are buried in Renkoji Temple in Tokyo.
The Mystery of Netaji’s Origin
Since 1940, when he escaped house arrest in Calcutta, rumors have circulated about his whereabouts, whether he is alive or not. When he appeared in Germany in his 1941, there was a sense of mystery surrounding him and his engagement.
In the 1950s, stories began to surface that Bose had become an ascetic. Historian Leonard A. Gordon called it his 1960s myth. However, some of Bose’s associates formed the Subhaswadi Janata, an organization that spread the legend that Bose had gone to a hermitage at Shaurmari in North Bengal.
Several reports clearly establish Netaji’s death. The Mitsubishi K-21 bomber they were on is said to have crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei.
The Indian government has so far conducted three investigations into Netaji’s death and disappearance. Only his two at first concluded that he died in an army hospital in Taipei after a plane crash on August 18, 1945, and that the remains at Renkoji Temple in Tokyo belonged to him. rice field. They are:
Figes Report: 1946
In light of the rumors circulating after the plane crash, the High Allied Forces Command in Southeast Asia, led by Lord Mountbatten, has appointed intelligence officer Colonel John Figues to investigate Bose’s death.
Figes’ report, submitted on July 5, 1946, was confidential. In the 1980s, Leonard A. Figes was interviewed by Gordon and confirmed that he was writing the report.
In 1997, the British government released most of the IPI (Indian Political Intelligence) files at the British Library. However, Fijis’ report was not among them.
Figges’ report and Gordon’s research confirm four things. He was cremated in Taipei and his ashes were sent to Tokyo.
Shah Nawaz Commission: 1956
To quell rumors about Bose and the plane crash, in 1956 the sovereign government of India appointed a three-member commission chaired by then-Member of Parliament Shah Nawaz Khan. He was a former lieutenant colonel in the Indian National Army.
Other prominent members of the commission were SN Maitra, a civil servant appointed by the West Bengal government, and Netaji’s brother, Suresh Chandra Bose. This commission is also known as the Netaji Commission of Inquiry.
Between April and July 1956, the Commission interviewed 67 witnesses from India, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, especially those who survived and were injured in the plane crash. Interviewees included Dr. Yoshimi, a surgeon at Taipei Military Hospital who treated Bose in his final hours, and Habibur Rahman, who left India after the split.
Two-thirds of the committee, Khan and Maitra, concluded, with some disagreement, that Bose died in the plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945.
Suresh Chandra Bose refuses to sign the final report, claiming other members and staff of the Shah Nawaz Commission have deliberately withheld some key evidence and that the Commission was manipulated by Nehru I wrote a dissenting note. Accidental death.
According to Gordon, one of the main principles in dealing with the evidence in the 181-page report is that if there is a discrepancy in the accounts of two or more witnesses, the entire testimony of the witnesses involved should be discarded and the error taken.
Based on this, Bose concluded that there was no accident and that his brother is still alive.
–IANS
SGK/ANM