HOW PMO HUSHED UP TOP SECRET BOSE FILES -- 2

By Anuj Dhar

Wouldn\\'t it shock you to know that several Subhas Bose-related files with our Government are "Top Secret"? What could it possibly imply?

We know that governments classify informations when they have the potential to disturb internal stability of the country or mar ties with foreign countries. When a file is marked "Top Secret", it means that it contains information whose disclosure to the public would result in "exceptionally grave damage to national interests".

Which is why classified materials are handled most carefully in accordance with foolproof procedures overseen by people on the top. The files are stored in security containers under lock and seal. Without clearance from the top, even top bureaucrats cannot set sight on them. And should a need arises to destroy such records, a prescribed set of rules is methodically followed. Orders are issued by a competent authority and senior officers supervise the destruction process, which is duly recorded.

Why I am dwelling on all this is because India too has a similar system in place. But throwing cautions and all rules to wind, the PMO destroyed not one or two papers, but 15 voluminous classified files on Netaji. The PMO itself admitted this under pressure to the Mukherjee Commission in late 2000. One of the destroyed files was revealingly titled Investigation into the Circumstances Leading to the Death of Subhas Chandra Bose. Little details that are available suggest that this was the master file in the PMO on the case and meant for Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru\\'s eyes only.

This deliberate annihilation of official information on Subhas Bose should rank as the big daddy of all Indian scandals. The Government would have been within limits to retain these files for a few years. But eventually, these, and other files on Bose, should have been released to the National Archives for the benefit of the people. Instead of doing that, the Government destroyed the files at a time when a judicial inquiry into Bose\\'s fate was going on. What credence will you place on the Government\\'s standing in the Netaji death controversy after this revelation?

Further details that the Commission managed to extract from the Government revealed a deep-rooted conspiracy that went right to the top. The Government was unable to trace, as they say, the order concerning the destruction of these files and nor were available any agenda papers/Cabinet decision regarding the "master" file. So no one knows exactly who ordered the destruction and why. But one incriminating information did come out. The files had been destroyed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1972 when Khosla Commission was functioning.

Anuj Dhar is the author of Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery.

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