New Delhi: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s daughter Anita Bose Pfaff again on September 7, Wednesday appealed to the Narendra Modi government to bring back her father’s remains from Tokyo to India and bring the matter to a closure.
“It was my father’s ambition to experience a free India. Tragically, his untimely death denied him this wish. I feel his remains should at least touch the soil of India and bring closure to the matter. A closure was denied my late mother Emilie Schenkl – and I hope that it will not be denied to me as well,” she said in a press statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to unveil a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate at 7 pm on Thursday, September 8. The statue is being installed in the same place where a hologram statue of Netaji was unveiled earlier this year on Parakram Diwas (January 23) by him.
Netaji’s death remains shrouded in mystery though it’s believed he died as a result of a plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945.
In her statement, Bose Pfaff said, “In 2015-16 the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi declassified all until then not yet declassified Government of India files pertaining to Netaji, thereby making available to the public additional facts regarding his death in Taipei on 18 August 1945. The same government in a reply under the Right to Information Act thereafter confirmed the evidence and record in the files. Such steps should have removed any doubts about what happened to my father and ended the previous controversy once and for all.”
She further insisted that a DNA test can be conducted on the remains, even though this is not really necessary in view of the evidence available. Besides, it may not be easy to obtain DNA material from cremated remains.
“…I appeal to the people of India and to all Indian political parties, to unite in an apolitical and bipartisan manner to bring my father’s mortal remains to India,” she added. “I should be happy to visit India at the convenience of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as leading persons of the ruling and the opposition parties to discuss facilitating a transfer of my father’s remains to India.”
Eighty-year-old Bose Pfaff, who is an economist by profession, had earlier also requested the Modi government to bring her father’s remains back to India from Tokyo, claiming that both nations have dilly-dallied on her demand.
Also read: Modi’s Portrayal of Netaji as a Hindu Militarist Does the Secular, Socialist Bose a Disservice
Earlier this week, she told news agency Press Trust of India that she would like the remains, now kept at Renkoji Temple in Japan since the plane crash at Taipei after which Netaji is believed to have died at a hospital, to be brought back with due honour.
“I would like to discuss (with the prime minister) the conditions and procedures for a return of my father’s remains,” she had told PTI in a telephonic interview.
The report added that the P.V Narasimha Rao government in 1995-96 had been on the verge of bringing to India the urn kept at Renkoji, believed to contain the mortal remains of Subhas Chandra Bose.
Researchers including Ashish Ray, Netaji’s grand-nephew, suggest it was dissuaded from doing so by an Intelligence Bureau appraisal which predicted that the controversy surrounding the issue could lead to riots in Kolkata.
Three members of the Bose family, including Netaji’s daughter Pfaff, Dwarka Nath Bose – a well-known physicist and son of his elder brother, and Ardhendu Bose, son of a younger brother of Netaji, had written to Prime Minister Modi in October 2016 and December 2019, asking him to agree to a DNA test of the ashes at Renkoji.
The letter written in December 2019 said that “in view of the fact that some Indians, have previously voiced their doubts regarding the death of Netaji in Taipei, we hope the scientific evidence of such a test will bring closure to the discussion in India.”
A recent translation of a letter in Japanese written by the chief priest of Tokyo’s Renkoji temple, keeper of the urn containing ashes and bone fragments believed to be those of Netaji, to the Indian government in 2005 suggests that permission was given for DNA test of the remains to the Mukherjee Commission.
However, for inexplicable reasons this portion of the letter was not translated and the Mukherjee Commission’s report on the disappearance of Bose concluded that “on account of the Temple Authorities reticence… the commission could not proceed further (on the issue of DNA tests).”