CHICAGO: Netaji was missing in action since August 1945. Neither the British Government, nor the Bose family and not even Mahatma Gandhi believed the news about his death in the so-called plane crash in Taiwan.
Pandit Nehru had expressed doubt about the so-called plane crash to the British Prime Minister Atlee in a private letter but publicly accepted the theory of death in a plane crash. Shahanawaz Commission (which never bothered to visit Taiwan to check) and the subsequent Khosla commission (never checked the Russian files) confirmed it as the truth.
The next Mukherjee Commission rejected the plane crash theory on available documents but needed an official government letter to the Russian authorities to get permission to study KGB documents. For ten years, the Congress Government cold shouldered the responsibility and put this historically important issue in cold storage.
Anuj Dhar, one of the researchers along with the Bose family and millions of staunch followers of Netaji however, persisted to get to the bottom of this case. Dhar has been single handedly and passionately pressurizing the Indian Government to declassify the confidential files about Netaji.
Along with Bose family members, researcher Anuj Dhar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.
Mission Netaji, a US based organization, invited Anuj Dhar to USA on a lecture tour last month. Dhar was in Chicago recently at the invitation of Friends of India Society. He addressed a public meeting at Bang Bhavan, Glendale Height, a northwest suburb of Chicago and a press conference at Mini India Town on Devon Avenue.
During these meets, he shared some of his findings on the Netaji death issue that he had researched and presented his views on this historically important matter. He pitched for creating wider awareness not only in India but globally about this mystery. His sole aim, he mentioned, was to unearth the truth. Satyamev Jayaate was one of his motivating factors.
He said that global NRIs have a tremendous influence now in India’s politics. He urged using social media to help him in opening the confidential files on Netaji to bring the truth out.
Dhar is also a founder-member of Mission Netaji and has been working relentlessly demanding declassification of all confidential files on Netaji. His efforts bore results. The West Bengal government declassified Netaji’s secret files last month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the family members of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on October 14 in New Delhi and assured that his government will start declassification process of Netaji’s files from January 23, 2016, the birthday of Netaji. Dhar was also invited to that meeting along with 38 members of the Bose family. He still writes and delivers talks on Netaji all over the world. .
Born and raised in Delhi, Anuj Dhar obtained a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Delhi University. He worked at Hindustan Times and at NDTV as a Reporter. While working with the Hindustan Times, he was assigned to cover Justice Manoj Mukherjee Commission where he became interested in inquiring about Netaji’s mystery.
On his own he decided to dwell in detail and did extensive research on Netaji, especially to know what happened to that man after he flew out of Saigon in the month of August in 1945. He shared his views authoring the books ‘Back from Death: Inside the Subhas Bose’s Mystery’ – 2005; ‘CIA’s Eye on South Asia’ – 2008; ‘India’s Biggest Cover Up’ – 2012; ‘No Secrets’ – 2013 and ‘What Happened to Netaji’ – 2015.
The Chicago Bangbhavan program could have been better scheduled with the guest speaker Dhar given more time to put his views across the meet, but some of the speakers lengthened their speeches and “bored” the attendees, many felt. The feeling was that Dhar could not share enough, as he had to catch the next flight. Yet with slides projections, he spoke non-stop and was very impressive! People wished he had more time to go into details, but there was no time left for scheduled question-answers even.
Madhu Patel
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