If Netaji did not die in the plane crash, what could have happened to him?

If Netaji did not die in the plane crash, what could have happened to him?

Subhash Chandra Bose's family, relations and his acolytes have remained unconvinced that he died in a plane crash as claimed. They have been giving us to understand that Nehru had a hand in concealing the truth about him.

Narendra Modi has pounced on the opportunity to exploit the issue to his advantage to tarnish Nehru's image. In an unprecedented move he invited all of his relations to New Delhi, gave them a red carpet welcome and basked in the glory of being televised in their company. In the whole exercise, Netaji's kith and kin's interest is natural, Modiji's political, the media's commercial and nobody's in the truth.

As a result, the crucial fact that interest in Netaji's whereabouts was not confined to the Indians only is overlooked. He was of far more interests to the Allied Powers, who were determined to arrest, try and punish the Germans and their collaborators for the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others from occupied territories. They were equally determined to do the same to General Hideki Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan and his associates.

Hitler's men were tried at Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death or imprisonment for life. General Tojo and 27 others were also tried separately on similar charges. Tojo was sentenced to death as were many Germans who were tried at Nuremberg.

When Japan surrendered on 15 August, 1945, it was obvious to Netaji that he would be tried as a war criminal and would come to a disgraceful end. His having escaped to Germany in 1941 and remaining there till 1943 before he was transferred to Japan, and then joining hands with Tojo left no room for the Allied Powers to consider him anything but a collaborator of Hitler and Tojo and a war criminal.

Thus, instead of surrendering to the American forces, he chose the honourable course of escaping from Japan. He reportedly died in a plane crash on 18 August, 1945. In August 1945, India was not independent and Nehru or any other Congressman was neither a trusted friend of the British Empire nor so powerful as to be consulted by Prime Minister Churchill, President Truman and Joseph Stalin.

Any suggestion that any Indian leader had any role in whatever might have happened to Netaji in August, 1945 is either childish or malicious and mischievous. .

If Netaji did not die, it was in his interest to let the world; especially the Allied Powers believe that he was dead to stave off their hunt for him. After all, he had escaped from Japan to evade capture by the Americans and to proclaim that he was alive would have defeated the very purpose of his escape, and would have been against his vital interest. From Netaji's point of view, declaring him dead was a friendly act calculated to keep the Allied Powers off his scent - the only ploy to keep him alive.

Fearing turmoil in India if Netaji was tried as a war criminal either the allies (Britain, the USSR and the USA) might have decided to keep him in captivity without trial or secretly finished him off or might have decided to buy the fiction of his death. If there was a secret understanding that Netaji should be left alone, all the concerned governments including the government of India had to play their respective role in the cover up. The Allied Powers could not afford to make an exception of Netaji and declare that while all other war criminals would be tried and punished Subhash Chandra Bose would be an exception.

Sentimental that we Indians are, we tend to close our eyes to the hard realities of the situation in the world in the aftermath of World War II. The hatred and anger against the Nazis and their collaborators was overwhelming and abiding. So much so that even today the hunt for 50 Nazi war criminals are on. A few holding very lowly post are being tried for war crimes at the age of 83 and 93.

.. One Lipschis, who served for long at a concentration camp, was deported from USA to be tried in Germany for war crimes though there was no specific allegation of any particular crime committed by him. One can easily imagine the fate of Netaji if he were caught alive in 1945. Even if he managed to escape and came to India after Independence, he had no choice but to live incognito (as Gumnami Baba or somebody else) with or without the knowledge of the government. To imagine that the government of India would have been able to defy the world powers and the worldwide anti-Nazi sentiment and refuse to hand him over to the Allied Powers for trial is to lose touch with reality and live in an imaginary world of one's own making.

The quest should not remain confined to a single question: whether he really died or not in a plane crash as claimed, but should cover every aspect of his life and activities in Hitler's Germany from 1942 to 1943 and in Tojo's Japan from 1943 to 1945 August.

Whatever might have happened to him, those without a vested interest in the issue must insist on the whole truth even if some of it hurts. Truth sometimes may be painful, but it is a price one must pay for one's Love for Truth.

Prabhaksr Sinha