‘How to deal & finish Netaji’: Subramanian Swamy targets Nehru over Bose’s fate amid daughter’s plea

New Delhi: Veteran BJP leader and former Union Minister Subramanian Swamy on Saturday raised questions over the circumstances surrounding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s death.

Swamy alleged that former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s aides were involved in decisions regarding Netaji after he allegedly crossed into Russia via China, and that former Defence Minister Krishna Menon and former president Dr Radhakrishnan were sent to discuss the matter with Stalin.

The remarks come as Netaji’s daughter, Anita Bose Pfaff, marked her father’s 129th birth anniversary by appealing to Indians to support the demand for the return of his mortal remains from Tokyo, where they have been kept since his death in 1945.

In an interview with journalist Karan Thapar for The Wire, Pfaff said she had repeatedly sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the repatriation of Netaji’s ashes, including during the unveiling of his statue in Delhi in 2022, but received no response.

Responding to the interview in X, Swamy wrote, “How to prove Netaji flew to Taiwan, and where his aircraft crashed, and that he died there? There is evidence given by Nehru’s Private Secretary to a Commission set up in India, that Stalin sent in a chit to Nehru, which he had in his dossier, that Netaji was in Russia-to where he crossed via China. Nehru then sent Krishna Menon and Dr. Radhakrishnan (both then in England) to discuss with Stalin how to deal & finish Netaji. Both later were given plum Posts in Nehru’s govt.”

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In a statement issued on the eve of Parakram Diwas (Day of Valour), she said, “Netaji would have been deeply distressed that his remains are still kept outside his motherland more than 80 years after his death and 78 years after India became free.” She urged Indians to “support his posthumous return from exile; to support the transfer of his mortal remains to India for a final and fitting disposal.”

Pfaff recounted that after Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Netaji Bose departed Singapore for Tokyo but was involved in a fatal air crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945. “Though he survived the initial crash with severe burns, he succumbed to his injuries later that day. He was cremated in Taipei, and his ashes were later taken to Tokyo.”

The ashes have been kept under the care of the chief priest at Renkoji Temple in Japan ever since. While some believe Netaji survived the crash, Pfaff has accepted that her father died in the 1945 accident and has repeatedly called for the repatriation of his remains.