The missing Indian leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, lived in disguise and died in 1985 as a nameless hermit monk in a northern state of India, Anuj Dhar, Indian author and former journalist, claimed at the ‘Modern Indian History and Leadership’ event hosted by the India Club at London Business School on Saturday 27 June 2015.
The event, in which Anuj Dhar discussed his latest thinking on modern Indian history and leadership, focussed on the longest running historical controversy of modern India - the disappearance of one of India’s most prominent and highly respected leaders of the independence movement, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
While it was once thought Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in a plane crash in Taipei in 1945, a later inquiry by the Indian government concluded in 2006 that there was no plane crash. However, still to this day the Government withholds several classified files concerning the disappearance of Bose.
Anuj Dhar claimed his own research had found Bose had lived in disguise and died in 1985 as a nameless hermit monk in a northern state of India. He said measures needed to be taken to resolve what has been one of the longest running controversies of modern India: “The demand for declassification of the Netaji files has gone international and vast Indian community living abroad and at home want to know the facts of their beloved leader. I hope the present government would do what previous Indian governments could not.”
Following the event, students from London Business School expressed their own desire to declassify all of the files concerning Netaji.
Arijit Ghosh Dastidar and Nitin Kumar, representatives from the India Club of London Business School, said: “Withholding full declassification is very unfair and morally wrong. India’s modern history need to be rewritten based on transparency and truth. Truth shall prevail.”
