Opinion: Martyrdom of Netaji and the National Covert Operation Day

After early morning Namaz, on last Friday, Maulana paid tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to celebrate his crusade that led India towards freedom and the partition in 1947. Precisely after World War I, a ritual can be traced that still repeats on August 18 every year. Proponents of Mission Netaji have declared it as National Covert Operation Day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and certain other leaders tend to avoid formal tribute to Netaji on this occasion. BJP leader Kapil Mishra is eloquent on this quandary. However, he seems to maintain the secrecy about the fateful end of Netaji in disguise in Ayodhya in the mid eighties.

Netaji, in a true sense of the term, means Subhash Chandra Bose. The other public figures referred as such, seldom contested it in order to pay respect to the spirit of the Indian freedom struggle. The adjective turned into a proper noun to define that native spirit. Deshbandhu, Lalaji, Mahamana, Lokmanya, Mahatma, Loknayak and Netaji are a few terms from that part of modern history.

But, in this case of the actual date as maintained in the official version, is being contested on the occasion by certain authoritative experts. Today, no one knows how long this quandary is going to haunt Amrit Kaal or the golden times that purport to continue for at least twenty-five years. This is the kind of darkness that refers to Rahu Kaal in this new age of Amrit Kaal.

The native idea of celebrating a life that rose from pillar to post is reflected on the anniversary of death, instead of birth. In the Indian context, celebration of birth is either a colonial influence or a royal affair.

Usually, the question is raised in the case of a birth date, but Subhas Chandra Bose is an exception to this generalisation. This is so, even though the man who signed off on the paper to grant freedom, defined it as an impact of his martyrdom that was reflected during the Red Fort Trial, leading the nation to win the objective of the long and tedious struggle.

In the 1930s, Netaji was elected to the top office of the Indian National Congress (INC). Before the end of that decade, he started All India Forward Bloc to introduce progressive politics in India. In the next decade, he went on to lead the Indian National Army (INA). After the failure of the Quit India movement, the court martial of certain INA soldiers arrested in Malaya, Singapore and Burma (Myanmar) shocked the nation.

Congress had assigned a team of lawyers comprising Tej Bahadur Sapru and Bhula Bhai Desai to defend INA soldiers like Colonel PK Sahgal, Colonel GS Dhillon and Major General Shahnawaz Khan. The trial was celebrated between November 1945 and May 1946 at the Red Fort. The top slogan raised in those days were like ‘Lal Qile se aaee awaz, Sahgal Dhillon Shah Nawaz, Tinon ki ho umar daraz (The voice comes from the Red Fort, Sahgal, Dhillon and Shah Nawaz, may the trio live long)’. The story of the last phase of the freedom movement is not going to come to an end in the absence of this saga. Before its end, the Air Force mutiny had occurred in Karachi that soon reached Sri Lanka, Burma and Singapore. Thereafter, Naval Uprisings were reported at places like Mumbai, Karachi and Kolkata.

This is what former British Prime Minister Clement Richard Attlee once shared while visiting India in 1956. Attlee remembered the impact of the freedom struggle when he spent a few days in Kolkata with the then-governor and the chief justice of the high court. At that juncture, Justice PB Chakraborthy used to be the Chief Justice and served as the acting governor. The two interacted on this topic in order to confirm what the impact of the Red Fort Trial in British India was.

The definition of a martyr is to remain alive in the heart as well as in the mind, to remind them what martyrdom was made for. Netaji is one of the best examples who tops the list of crusaders in the struggle for India's freedom between the revolution of 1857 and the partition or independence of 1947. Here, the impact of his martyrdom is many times more than the hard work of the nationalist leader.

The rumours of Netaji’s death have been circulating for the last eight decades. Long before the crash landing of the aeroplane in 1945 in Taipei, Taiwan, such things were going on. John Figgess submitted the report about his controversial death in 1946. After a decade, Nehru commissioned the three members’ committee to quell the rumours. Shahnawaz Khan, SN Maitra and Netaji’s brother Suresh Chandra Bose were its members. The committee had concluded that Netaji died in the crash on August 18, 1945, at Taihoku, but his brother raised questions about the conclusion.

In 1970, a judicial commission headed by Justice GD Khosla came into existence. After four years, this second commission had submitted its report. But still, controversies and rumours perpetuated. As a consequence, in the 21st century, Justice MK Mukherjee Commission came into effect to address this issue. Gumnami Baba or Bhagwan ji is a part of this report. The High Court appointed Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission in this case, and its report is available in the Uttar Pradesh assembly.

The Sahai Commission said that Gumnami Baba, who died at Ram Bhawan in Ayodhya on September 16, 1985 was not Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in disguise. The official version of Indian history denied Netaji what he actually deserved. In fact, Sardar Patel and Rajarshi Purushottam Das Tandon are the two other leaders destined to be confined to the margins.

Truth alone triumphs. Justice delayed and justice denied are two different thoughts of wisdom. There is a need to remember it while paying tribute to Netaji in Amrit Kaal. A list of inquiry committees and commissions failed to quell the rumours and answer burning questions about his death.

The Sahai commission explored the identity of Gumnami Baba, who reached Lucknow in the fifties, and in the seventies, lawyer Durga Prasad Pandey had persuaded Imdad Hussain to look after him during his almost decade-long stay at Raja-ki-Ghorsari in Basti.

Gumnami Baba died in 1985 in Ayodhya. In its report, the Sahai commission referred to certain common features of Netaji and Gumnami Baba but failed to assert that authoritatively. The unanswered questions are still languishing even after 75 years of independence.

Proponents of Mission Netaji like Chandrachur Ghose and Anuj Dhar raised a series of questions on the report of the Sahai commission. In addition to the duo, Kapil Mishra has referred to other experts like Rama Goyal, with a hope to celebrate Netaji's life and works on the anniversary of his actual demise in the near future.

Certain members of his family decided to celebrate his martyrdom as Deshprem Divas (a day dedicated to patriotism). West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee suggested celebrating his birth anniversary as Deshnayak Divas (National Hero Day).

PM Modi, on January 19, 2021, declared Netaji’s birthday as Parakram Diwas (day dedicated to courage and valour). From Netaji Files to his statue on the Kartavya Path to his memorial in the Andaman Islands, the list is long. But this process of resurrection is incomplete as long as there are controversies surrounding his death.

Martyrdom refers to a life after leaving the mortal coil. It seems true in the case of Netaji, who has been occupying the thoughts of nationalists and patriots for a long time.

(Views expressed in this opinion piece are that of the author.)