| However, in the short
time the Indian scholars had in the Soviet archives, they learned
enough to revise their previous assumptions about Bose's relations
with Soviet government. One of these scholars even claimed
to have had access to Soviet documents which implied that Netaji
Subhas Chandra Bose was probably alive at least in the first
six months of 1946. If this claim is correct, Netaji's life
clearly did not end on August 18, 1945.
New disclosures, without any exertions by the Government
of India stimulated a new debate in the country.
The new questions are: Did Netaji die in the accident at
Taipei on August 18, 1945, as announced by Japan on August
24, 1945?
If he did not die on that day, what happened to him? When,
how and where did he die?
Thus, the suggestion of a fresh and comprehensive investigation
gained strength in the Lok Sabha on the strength of new information
drawn from foreign sources available after the declassifications
of documents on the Second World War.
The Government of India was the last to declassify the INA
files. The INA files, which had survived selective or unintended
destruction of the past 55 years were sent to the National
Archives in the year 2000, almost a year after the ministry
headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee appointed a one-person Commission
of Inquiry. Manoj Kumar Mukherjee, a former judge of the Supreme
Court, is the chairman of the new Commission.
Hopefully, the findings of this inquiry would end at last
all queries about the last phase of the life of a great Indian
leader who himself did what he said should have been done
by Indians generally to hasten India's independence and for
the protection of the unity of undivided India.
For long official India tried to forget him, and hoped that
the Indian people too would forget Netaji. But Subhas's memory
is vivid in the minds of many Indians, young and old. They
are keen to know what happened to him in 1945 and why he could
not act when his "sacred motherland" was divided
in two in 1947.
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