JOIN US'History demands truth on Netaji be out'
Working to uncover the mystery surrounding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s death for the last one decade, Anuj Dhar, a former journalist turned author, has recently come up with his second book ‘India’s Biggest Cover-up’ on the issue.
In his second book on Netaji, Anuj claims that the government does not want truth to come out because it will create complications and show many of the country’s ‘greats’ in poor light. In the book, he claims that the Baba who died at Faizabad on 16 September 1985 could have been Subhas Chandra Bose.
He wrote ‘Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery’ in 2005 in which he said that no plane carrying Netaji had ever crashed in Taiwan which the Indian government has been claiming. Associated with an organisation that conducts research on the death mystery of Netaji, Anuj gradually immersed himself in the issue.
“I started with a story and then I kept digging deeper and deeper. At the end of the day it is a very interesting issue. There’s nothing else quite like it. The Bose mystery spans decades. So many engrossing events and big personalities are involved.
Who would not want to pursue it,” asks Anuj. More than anything else, he believes that history demands to know what happened to the man who fought for his country and then disappeared. “We need to reach a closure on this issue for a variety of reasons. History, Netaji’s admirers and his family members seek it. We need to put to an end to the controversy and all the conspiracy theories it entails,” Anuj shares with Metrolife.
He has used facts from a pool of information collected from various classified and de-classified sources including Right to Information responses and archival material for his second book.
“I have used quotations from hundreds of documents, a big chunk of which are not in public domain. Some 90 images are still secret records,” he says.“There is a good possibility that the cigar chomping, English-Bangla speaking mysterious holy man who went by the name of Bhagwanji could have been Netaji. People who knew him for decades identified him as such and his handwriting matched with Netaji’s.
As for negative DNA reports over some teeth presumed to be his, they can’t be relied upon as these tests were conducted in government-controlled labs,” he claims.According to Anuj, as many efforts are required to make the truth on Bose public just as they are being made for Aarushi Talwar, Bhanwari Devi and other such cases.
He says, “We must also extend the same treatment to this matter. Netaji is also entitled to all such efforts and banner headlines. Else posterity will not forgive us for ignoring such a grave matter.”
Does he think that the truth will be open any time soon? “If a couple of top editors set their minds to it, they will take a few months to end the entire controversy. How can our government go on justifying keeping so many secret files on a man who, it says, died in 1945?” he sums up.