Document shows Netaji fled from Vietnam prison, says historian

The Indian government should approach the French government to get more information on the disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in August 1945 as it was from Saigon — now called Ho Chi Minh City and then under French control — that Bose had embarked on his “final journey”, a Paris-based historian, J.B. Prashanth More, says.

Mr. More’s suggestion is based on two “secret documents” in French, one of which had carried the date of September 26, 1945 and the other, December 11, 1947. The latter document, which contained a report of the French secret service, says Bose had escaped from a prison in the then Indochina, now Vietnam, and his whereabouts were “unknown”.

Three big personalities

The 1945 document sent by the Control Commission of the Allies in Saigon to the Supreme Allied Commander in Singapore (Lord Mountbatten) stated that seven persons including “three big personalities” were arrested by the authorities. It added that they were also members of Hikari-Kikan (an organisation coordinating between the Japanese government and the Provisional Government of Free India, which was headed by Bose).

But Mr. More felt that his step-grandfather and Bose’s associate, Leon Puruchandy (1902-1968), who lived in Saigon till the mid-1940, could be one among the arrested persons, apart from Bose himself.

His conclusion was based on the arrest of his step-grandfather in September 1945. Puruchandy was released by the French authorities three months later.

“He must have been tortured to such an extent that he slipped into amnesia and his condition, after the release, was a vegetable till his death,” Mr. More said, wondering what for he was given such a harsh treatment.

The 62-year-old historian, who has been living in Paris for the past 40 years, did not find the original version of the 1945 document, which must have been in English, at the British Museum, London, whereas its French version was available with the National Archives, Paris.

Mr. More, whose roots are traced to Puducherry, a former French colony in India, said Bose had stayed overnight at the house of his step-grandfather on August 17-18, 1945 before he left for an “unknown destination”. The house served as the secretariat of the Indian Independence League (IIL), which had encompassed the Indian National Army (INA). Bose was the chief of the two organisations.

Open mind

The Union government, which declassified last year a large number of documents on Bose and made them available in the public domain, went on record a few months ago that it was willing to examine any new facts on the issue of disappearance if such materials came up in future.

Mr. More feels that his step-grandfather’s house in Ho Chi Minh City, which is now in a dilapidated condition, can be made into a memorial, highlighting the role of the IIL and the INA in the freedom struggle of India.

As the house was taken over by the Vietnamese government in 1975, he had approached the southeast Asian country’s embassy in New Delhi , which replied to him in late June that it was for the Indian government to spell out its position first on the matter.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/document-shows-netaji-fled-from-vietnam-prison-says-historian/article19612251.ece