Netaji's great escape to Soviet Russia

By Anuj Dhar

On the morning of August 17, 1945 Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Saigon accompanied by his cabinet colleagues and senior Japanese officers. The world war was over and Japan had announced surrender to the Allies. The choices before Bose were but just two. Either to fall into the hands of the British, or try out something to continue fighting for India.

Netaji was implored to go on. But where? Justice Mukherjee quotes what Lt General Saburo Isoda had stated before Khosla Commission. The Japanese military had given Bose a tacit undertaking to take him out of the harm's way. Isoda was to execute this "secret plan". "The purpose of his (Netaji's) flight was to go to the Soviet Union and with the aid of the Soviet Union he was to continue his independence movement. That was the aim of his mission," stated

* The above evidence of General Isoda gets ample support from the other colleagues of Netaji who were with him at the material time including Col Pritam Singh of the INA, Shri E Bhaskaran, his Confidential Secretary ....

* A secret plan was contrived to ensure Netaji's safe passage to which Japanese military authority and Habibur Rahman were parties.

* ... the departure of Netaji from Saigon on August 17, 1945 along with Habibur Rahman and some Japanese officers for going to Russia via Manchuria is ... not in controversy.

And Justice Mukherjee gave his verdict thus:

* ... it stands established that emplaning at Saigon on August 17, 1945 Netaji succeeded in evading the Allied Forces and escaping out of their reach and as a camouflage thereof the entire make-believe story of the air crash, Netaji's death therein and his cremation was engineered by the Japanese army authorities including the two doctors and Habibur Rahman and then aired on August 23, 1945 ....

* Obviously, in cooking up the story of Netaji's death in the plane crash and giving it a modicum of truth they (Japanese military authorities and Habibur Rahman) had no other alternative than resorting to suppression of facts and in doing so they not only invited material contradiction in their evidence ... but also left latent loopholes which have now been discovered.

* Though no firm opinion can be expressed about Netaji's exit point it can be legitimately be inferred, having regard to the established fact that Habibur Rahman who accompanied him form Saigon was next found present in Taipei cooking up a story (along with others) of his death there, that Netaji disappeared therefrom (Taipei).

Thanks to the disinterest of our Government, this was as far the Mukherjee Commission could go in the trail. "Whether Netaji thereafter landed in Russia or elsewhere cannot be answered for dearth of evidence," it avers, leaving us with the pointers that Russia holds the key to resolving India's longest running political controversy.