CLOSURE AT LAST

The family of Subhas Chandra Bose finally accepts he died in a plane crash

- RABI BANERJEE

His death divided his family for more than 70 years. Finally, the family of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has accepted that he died following an airplane crash at Taihoku in Formosa (now Taiwan) on August 18, 1945.

Everyone in the Bose family except his nephew Sisir, Sisir’s wife Krishna and son Sugata had rejected the air crash theory. The theory did not find much acceptance in Bengal and rest of the country, too. To add to it, there were conspiracy theories, that he had escaped the crash and fled to Russia, and unconfirmed sightings in different parts of the world, sometimes as a prisoner in a Russian gulag or as a godman in Uttar Pradesh.

Chandra Kumar Bose, Bose’s grandnephew and chairman of the Netaji Mission, told THE WEEK, “We are very sad that we believed certain theories for all these years. It is [a] bitter truth that we would have to accept that Netaji died due to air crash.” Chandra Kumar is the grandson of Bose’s elder brother and closest ally Sarat Chandra Bose. The two brothers fled Kolkata together. Sisir is said to have helped them in their escape in 1941.

Chandra Kumar’s sister Madhuri is an advocate with a United Nations agency. “I have no doubt that Netaji died following the air crash,” she told THE WEEK from Geneva. “I have also recently found clear evidence of his death in the British Library, London.”