Mouse from a mountain

RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE, TT: Subhas Chandra Bose mystifies. In the late 1930s, he mystified the Congress by taking on the dominance of Mahatma Gandhi. In January 1941, he mystified everybody by escaping from his house in Elgin Road which was under 24-hour police surveillance.

Further mystification followed when he surfaced first in Kabul and then in Berlin. This was not the end of mystification since very soon in 1943-44 his voice was heard from Singapore over the radio in India: "This is Subhas speaking''.

Heroism enveloped mystification. After August 1945, he was not seen again: his devoted admirers continue to believe that he went into hiding, voluntarily or otherwise; historians argue that the available evidence suggests that he died in a plane crash in Taipei.

On Friday, another page was added to this narrative of mystification. A clutch of files - 64 in number - was released by Calcutta police. These had, for many years, remained secret and closed to researchers and the public.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee took the initiative to have these files declassified and made available in the archives. These files were described as the "Netaji Files". The expectation was that the documents in these files would help clear some of the mysteries surrounding Bengal's most revered political icon.

It is difficult to see how these files have lived up to those expectations and why they were described as the "Netaji Files".

A large bulk of these documents do not pertain to Subhas Bose at all. There are files containing the weekly surveys of the Intelligence Bureau. In one of the surveys (early 1946), there is the report of a letter that was intercepted: it was from Emilie Schenkl to Sarat Bose in which she declared herself to be the widow of Subhas and her state of shock on learning of his death.

Otherwise, there are reports on prisoners who had belonged to the Indian National Army, including a report on the arrival of one Lakshmi Swaminathan.

One looks in vain for something sensational here. There is nothing here that adds substantially to the existing knowledge of Subhas Bose, his career, his death/disappearance and his "after life". The mountain, as the Bengali proverb goes, after much heaving has produced a mouse.

Thus there is another mystery. Why were these files kept a secret for so long and whose decision was it to keep them classified? Related to these questions is another one: why did Mamata Banerjee choose to have them declassified precisely at this conjuncture. Surely it cannot be her quest for truth. If that had been the case, she would have done so earlier and not at the fag end of her first term as chief minister.

From one set of documents, it is obvious that as late as 1972 Sisir Bose, Subhas's nephew, the husband of former MP Krishna and the father of present MP Sugata, was having his mail intercepted by the IB. Why?

Others provide answers. Subhas Bose only raises questions. Perhaps out of questions legends are made since legends "stars and sunbeams know".

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is the author of Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives, published by Penguin