Will You Come Home?

Bonniey Charlie’s noo awa
Safely oer the friendly main;
Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he no come back again.
 

Will ye no come back again?
Will ye no come back again?
Better loed ye canna be;
Will ye no come back again?

—Scottish Jacobite song, early 19th century

Lost causes and tragic defeats often produce the most haunting poetry. For more than 150 years after the Stuart Dynasty was overthrown by the Protestant-inspired Glorious Revolution of 1688, the folklore of Scotland was centred on the unsuccessful attempts of the exiled Stuarts to regain a lost kingdom. Personifying the Jacobite opposition was the romantic figure of Charles, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’—the ‘Young Pretender’ to his detractors—who led the last organised rebellion against the Hanoverian King.

It all ended in despair and tragedy. In April 1746, the rebel Jacobite army led by Charles was decimated in a matter of two hours by government forces in the Battle of Culloden. The Young Pretender returned to exile in France and the clan chiefs who had rallied to his banner had their estates confiscated, and those who survived with their lives were driven into permanent exile.

The Hanoverians defeated the Jacobites politically and militarily. Yet, what the four Georges couldn’t suppress was the legend of Bonnie Prince Charlie. An entire folk tradition marking the despair of a lost cause evolved in Scotland—overshadowed subsequently by the delights of Empire. What lent a poignant touch to the Jacobite memory were the whispered reports of sightings of the exiled Prince. In subsequent decades this was transformed into ghost tales that added to the romance of the whole enterprise.

There has always been an overweight of Scottish influence in imperial Bengal: Calcutta was a city where the dominance of Scots was all too visible. Whether a borrowed Jacobite memory played an unconscious role in the emerging political folklore of the early 20th century is for a discerning social historian to assess. Indeed, it may be no more than a striking coincidence that the political folklore around the (largely) thwarted displays of revolutionary violence involving Khudiram Bose, ‘Masterda’ Surya Sen,the Benoy-Badal-Dinesh trio and the martyred prisoners of Hijli jail, resonated with the same Jacobite themes of freedom, valour, sacrifice, and, ultimately, defeat.

During much of his political life in India, Subhas Chandra Bose wasn’t a revolutionary. No doubt there was the pre-existing aura of his rustication from Presidency College and his resignation from the Indian Civil Service—for many Bengalis of the age, clearing the ICS examination was the pinnacle of achievement. However, apart from a general impatience with Mahatma Gandhi’s over-moralising, Subhas was a conventional nationalist leader who combined fiery freedom—now rhetoric with excessive involvement in the murky world of Calcutta Corporation politics. There was, however, one significant difference: his attachment to organised militarism and his fascination with the idea of a strong leader who would encapsulate the nationalist urges of all Indians.

The transition of Subhas Babu into Netaji in the popular imagination owed to two developments. First, there was his elevation to the Congress presidency in 1938 and, more important, his victory against Gandhi’s candidate in 1939. When he was craftily outmanoeuvred by Gandhi after the Congress session in Tripuri and forced to resign, there was a sense of impotent outrage in Bengal. Having lost its pre-eminent leader with the death of ‘Deshbandhu’ Chittaranjan Das in 1924, middle-class Bengal fulminated over another grave political setback. In the popular imagination, the wily Gandhi had conspired with the Congress leadership (including Jawaharlal Nehru) to put Bengalis in their place. The natural leadership of the freedom struggle that Bengalis felt was naturally theirs— ever since Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s hyperbolic testimonial, ‘What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’—had yet again been hijacked.

The story may well have ended there, with Subhas relegated to the political fringe: in early-1940, he had been reduced to leading an agitation against the Holwell monument commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta. But his dramatic escape from house arrest in Elgin Road, Calcutta, dressed as a Kabuliwala and his equally dramatic reappearance in Hitler’s Germany a few months later, transformed him into India’s foremost militant icon. He had indeed become Netaji—the man who would arrive at the frontiers of India at the head of a conquering national army (aided, by way of footnote, by the several other enemies of the British Empire). The crackling short wave broadcasts that he made from, first Berlin and subsequently Tokyo and Singapore, were less heard but were more effectively transmitted by word of mouth across India. Overnight, Subhas Bose became Netaji, the symbol of unwavering opposition to British rule and, by implication, an emerging alternative to the Mahatma.

In today’s world, particularly following the discovery of the grisly truth of the Holocaust and the Japanese depredations in China, there is a moral and political stigma attached to all those who collaborated with the Axis powers during World War II. Yet, it is important to recognise that, apart from the communists and a few individuals like Nehru, there was considerable admiration in India for a resurgent Germany. In his recollections of the time, Nirad Chaudhuri—who served as a secretary to Subhas’ elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose—recollected the glee with which the bombing of London by the Luftwaffe was received. As for Japan, there was unconcealed admiration in nationalist circles at an Asian power that had humbled the mighty British Empire in Singapore and Malaya. Judged by today’s yardstick, Netaji was the Indian equivalent of Marshal Pétain, Vidkun Quisling and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who had become Nazi ‘collaborators’. In the India of the 1940s, however, there was no universal opprobrium attached to those inclined to take the assistance of the enemy’s enemy. Indeed, in the Bengali imagination at least, there was a macabre fascination with the uniformed trappings of militarism.

The defeat of the Indian National Army following Japan’s surrender in August 1945 did absolutely nothing to take the sheen off Netaji. On the contrary, as the civil unrest in 1946 over the INA trials vividly showed, the validity of Netaji’s military endeavour became part of the larger nationalist consensus and was seamlessly appropriated by even those—such as both Gandhi and Nehru— who were deeply sceptical of the project.

Yet, a complication arose stemming from Netaji’s mysterious disappearance from Taipei, days after the Japanese surrender. Although the Japanese announced the news of his tragic death, this was not readily believed. At first there was general consternation. It was then followed by the belief that news of his death was a clever ruse by Netaji to avoid the ignominy of surrendering to Anglo-American forces that viewed him as a war criminal. It was believed, by devotees of Netaji at least, that he would make good his escape, remain undercover and re-emerge at an opportune moment to fulfil his destiny of leading India. In the troubled aftermath of Independence, when Netaji’s home state was devastated by Partition and the loss of the nationalist gentry’s economic backyard, the dream of Netaji’s imminent re-emergence was kept alive by disbanded INA soldiers and even his elder brother Sarat who dramatically announced that his younger brother was in China on some unexplained mission.

Sightings of Netaji persisted all through the 1950s and into the early 1960s, and he was rapidly transformed into a Bengali version of a liberating Mahdi. As the hope slowly receded, a new and extremely volatile conspiracy theory took shape. Fuelled by the documentary gaps in confirming, beyond all possible doubt and Netaji’s stated desire to somehow get to the Soviet Union to escape the Anglo-American forces, it was first felt that the leader didn’t die in August 1946 and that, in all likelihood, he did manage to reach Manchuria. After that the speculation ran into different streams. One school felt that he had been incarcerated in the Soviet Union and had died (or was killed) sometime after Nikita Khrushchev repudiated Stalin’s legacy in 1956. Others felt that he had indeed escaped to the Soviet Union but had returned to India, eschewing all public contact and taking to a spiritual existence as a sadhu in either Dehradun or Faizabad.

If retreating from public life was indeed the post-1945 Netaji’s inclination, it was a private decision that had little to do with the Government of Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors. However, there was a twist in the tale. Some, particularly a section of the divided, extended Bose family, felt that the fate of Netaji was not unknown to the authorities in India. As different brothers, great nephews and other relatives entered public life, partly on the strength of the Netaji family legacy, the belief that Netaji didn’t die in the air crash in Taipei assumed a conspiratorial dimension. It was felt that successive governments were wilfully not throwing their weight behind the genuine desire to find out the truth behind the Netaji mystery. This reluctance was attributed to two factors: Nehru’s deep suspicion (if not dislike) of Netaji and active collusion with some foreign powers who were determined to prevent his re-emergence in Indian politics.

A spat between two sons of Sarat Bose over Netaji’s political and intellectual inheritance compounded the muddle. This has now spilled over to the next generation. On a TV programme discussing the opening of the Netaji files held by the West Bengal government, there was the disagreeable sight of one grandson of Sarat Bose—who felt that Netaji didn’t die in Taipei—denouncing another cousin—who believed that his great uncle did succumb to his burn injuries in August 1945, as a “traitor”.

For a long time, the waters were also muddied by amateur Netaji-hunters who had their own, sometimes bizarre take on the subject. Hindustan Times reported the case of octogenarian Subhash Ranjan Dasgupta of Baranagar (a suburb of Kolkata) claiming, “I met [Netaji] in 2012. Please don’t ask me the venue as I won’t reveal it. But this much I can say that he is still alive.” The Mukherjee Commission—the third commission of inquiry into the death of Netaji—in its report featured the testimony of Jagannath Prasad Gupta of Nagda village in Sheopuralan district (Madhya Pradesh) claiming that there was an air crash in a neighbouring village from which three people emerged: Netaji, Habibur Rehman (who travelled with Netaji in Taipei and was allegedly the only Indian eye-witness of his death) and, of all people, Hitler.

The Mukherjee Commission also travelled to Russia at the suggestion of historian Purabi Ray. She had named four Russians who had told her that Netaji had indeed entered the Soviet Union. When these gentlemen were questioned, they denied any such suggestion as ‘absurd’. Ray also submitted a bunch of Russian documents to substantiate her case. ‘The Commission got them translated into English only to find, on scrutiny, that none of those documents [was] relevant…’

And, finally, there was one Usha Ranjan Bhattacharjee of Kolkata who had written a book in Bengali describing the murder of Netaji in Red Fort at midnight on 15 August 1945, shortly after he had been brought there, via Singapore, from the INA Training Centre in Seramban. When asked to corroborate his story, Bhattacharjee said that “the story was based out of presumption and assumption”. The Commission wasn’t so generous: it reported it as ‘being a figment of imagination’.

The ‘confidential’ files in Kolkata that remained classified till September this year when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee released them with much fanfare have left Netaji-hunters underwhelmed. Although the Chief Minister claimed that their contents proved that Netaji didn’t die in August 1945, the reality is less dramatic. Apart from re-confirming that intelligence agencies kept Sarat Bose and his two sons under surveillance even after Independence and intercepted their mail, the files contain little more than press clippings, reports of the activities of INA veterans and intelligence assessments based on zero knowledge of what may have happened to Netaji in Taipei or thereafter.

Yet, these newly-released files with covers boldly marked ‘Confidential’ do serve a function: they point to the colossal absurdities governing India’s archival policy. Whether this mindless application of the principles of confidentiality have also governed the clutch of files that are in the custody of the Prime Minister’s Office is a pertinent question.

The proffered explanation that its contents could unsettle relations with foreign countries is feeble. The Soviet Union no longer exists; China has no particular interest in the case; and Britain is over-anxious to distance itself from its imperial past. At best, the files could demonstrate a measure of exasperation by India’s post-Independence masters with those out to make capital out of Netaji’s disappearance. At worst, it could reveal Nehru (or even Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) as viewing the fate of Netaji with casual indifference. Either way, the Narendra Modi Government has little to lose from any disclosure: any adverse political fallout will only affect the Congress’ first family.

Footnote:

There is a personal experience that I feel could be relevant. In March 1998, shortly after the no-confidence vote that AB Vajpayee lost by a vote, I was contacted by one of his aides. Since quite a lot hinged on the preferences of two Forward Bloc MPs, I was asked whether anything could be done to ensure that they didn’t side with the Congress that was attempting to form an alternative government. Knowing the importance of the Netaji legend in the mind of the Forward Bloc, I suggested the release of a Defence Ministry account of the INA that the Nehru Government had inexplicably refused to make public. A few days later, a PMO official told me that the Report was fairly humdrum and contained nothing explosive. So why had it been suppressed? The answer, he revealed,lay in an attached note by Nehru.

The Report, it seems, had a small section on Netaji’s death in Taipei. Nehru saw this as too contentious. According to him, since Netaji loyalists wouldn’t believe the news of his death in any event, there was little point in inviting a fresh round of controversy.

When it comes to the past, Indians are inclined to be hyper- sensitive. It is on such flimsy grounds that documents are suppressed and conspiracy theories allowed to proliferate. I hope the Netaji files currently under wraps in the PMO prove me horribly wrong.

In the meantime, let us share India’s lament of the romantic hero who didn’t come home.

death controversyfolkloreForward BlocINAlegacylegendMukherjee Commissionsecret filesSubhas Chandra Bose