8. Some Miscellaneous Matters

8.1 In this chapter I shall discuss a number of miscellaneous matters without mention of which this report would lack the virtue of completeness. I shall first take up the role played by Prof. Samar Guha in these proceedings.

8.2 Prof. Samar Guha may be said to be the Prime mover and initiator of these proceedings. It was his zeal and persistence which finally prevailed upon the Government of India to institute the present inquiry and appoint this Commission. He took a live interest in the proceedings, and testified before the Commission on three separate occasions. He went to Taiwan and was present there when the Commission paid a visit to that place to inspect the airfield where Bose's plane is alleged to have crashed and to gather whatever evidence was available there. He has made several statements in Parliament and at press conference about the subject matter of the inquiry. He, therefore, deserves more than a passing mention of the role he has played.

8.3 Prof. Guha is an active member of the Forward Bloc and a dedicated, uncompromising follower of Netaji. I have little doubt that he has been actuated by the highest motives in doubting the truth of the crash story and in trying to unravel the mystery of Bose's disappearance. I cannot, however, help observing that he has lent too ready an ear to gossip, rumour, conjecture and fantasies woven by interested individuals. He has accepted newspaper reports as reliable evidence of the published facts, though in many cases, these reports were inspired by sensation-mongering reporters or were given publicity by individuals who had scant respect for truth. This attitude, unfortunately, led him into making a political issue of what should have remained a national cause to which every one should have brought an impartial mind, an unswerving determination to seek the truth and a stern resistance to emotion-charged gullibility. Prof. Guha's zeal led him to convert his pursuit of truth into a predatory hunt in which the objectives were the report of the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee and the story of Bose's death caused by an air crash. This was regrettable because he who seeks the truth does not set out with the prepossessed notion of disproving a hypothesis or theory. The impartial, unprejudiced mind has no blot on its copy book which must be erased before the new score can be written down. Shri Guha's passionate anxiety to disprove Bose's death made him interpret every piece of evidence, every rumour, every conjecture only in terms of his personal prepossessions rather than objectively and judiciously.

8.7 I shall, however, cite a few instances of the kind of evidence which Prof. Guha relies upon and which led him to the conviction that the entire story of the air crash on the Taihoku airfield and the subsequent death of Bose is not only false but was deliberately fabricated by the Japanese military authorities. Prof. Guha was shown photographs of Vira Dhammavara and the Mongolian Delegation of Peking and a photograph of the Shaulmari Ashram Baba. Prof. Guha categorically stated that the last photograph was a fake document. Regarding the first two photographs he said that he could not be certain, but he was doubtful if they represented Bose. He went on to say that Surendra Mohan Ghosh had gone to Shaulmari Ashram and met the Baba there. Shri Ghosh had also formed the opinion that the Baba was not Netaji, but Prof. Guha went on to say that there were many circumstances which led to the falsity of the crash story. First there was the delay by the Japanese in broadcasting the news of the crash. He interpreted the delay as proof that the story of the crash was only a cover for Bose's escape to safety. The delay is, however, not susceptible of such explanation and may well have been due to a number of other causes such as the chaotic conditions prevailing at Taipei at that period, the lack of any communication facilities in the hospital in which Bose died, or Japan's preoccupation with more Urgent matters.

8.9 Mention must also be made of Prof. Guha's well intentioned activity at Taipei during the Commission's visit to that place. He tried to contact individuals possessing first hand knowledge of the events of August 18, 1945, and to discover documentary evidence proving or disproving Bose's death from the records of the hospital where he was alleged to have been treated. No eye witness of the air crash, no member of the hospital staff who had been on duty in August 1945 could be found. The official who was in charge of the crematorium in 1945 was dead, so was the Mayor of Taipei who arrived there some time after August 18, 1945, and who is said to have made some sort of enquiry into the matter. Not that the Mayor's report, if available, would have been admissible in evidence for it would be nothing more than the opinion of an individual. Prof. Guha, however, succeeded in obtaining copies of two documents, one of which purports to be the death certificate of one Ta Ts'ang Yi Lang (Okura Ichiro), male, born on April 9, 1900, who was an Agent of the Land Forces, Taiwan Army Command, and who died at Taipei at 4 p.m. on August 19, 1945, of a heart-attack. This certificate was issued by Ho T'en Teng Tai Chih (Tsuru Ta Nobori Dai Shi), who was an Officer on Probation, Army Hospital, Army Health Department, Taipei. The other document was a permit to cremate the dead body of the same Ta Ts'ang Yi Lang (Okura Ichiro), who was to be cremated at 6 p.m. on August 22, 1945, at Taipei crematorium, the name of the person to whom the licence was issued could not be deciphered from the photostat copy.

8.10 Prof. Guha, while tendering these documents, stated that both of them related to Bose. Later he argued that since the name and other particulars, stated in the copies, did not correspond with Bose or the doctor who claims to have treated him, the documents could not relate to Bose, and therefore, Bose's death and the cremation of his dead body had been disproved. I have dealt with this self-defeating argument in Chapter Five, and mention it here because Prof. Guha used these documents to make a highly indiscreet statement to the press at Taipei and again on his return to India. This is what he is reported to have told the Press at Taipei on July 17, 1973:

"The mission inquiring into the fate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has found no proof whatsoever that he died at Taipei."

Mr. Guha went on to say that some reports by British and U. S intelligence hinted Bose had escaped from Taipei to the Soviet Union.

8.11. On returning to Delhi, Mr. Guha made several statements to the press. Three news-items based on these statements are quoted below:

"NETAJI DID NOT DIE IN CRASH: GUHA Hindustan Times Correspondent.
New Delhi, July 24 - Mr. Samar Guha, M.P., who visited Taiwan along with the Netaji Inquiry Commission, told newsmen here today that he found 'no proof whatsoever' of the alleged death of Netaji in a plane crash at Taipei on August 18, 1945.

He said that according to some, a body was cremated but nobody was allowed to see it. The Commission found two certificates, one issued by the Municipality and other by the crematorium authority, but on deciphering the Japanese language, it transpired that the name of the person was not Netaji but of a Japanese Army Officer. This and other facts placed before the Commission made him feel that the reported death of Netaji in the plane crash could not have been possible.

Hindustan Times; July 25, 1973"

8.12 It will be seen at once that the report is misleading. The certificates were not found by the Commission, but were obtained by Shri Guha himself who presented them to the Commission alleging first that they related to Bose, and then denying their connection with Bose and arguing that Bose did not die and his dead body was not cremated. He was thus arguing from professedly false premises. I have already dealt with this matter and pointed out that the certificates have no probative value because they do not purport to relate to Bose's death and his cremation.

8.13 Shri Guha made two other statements to the press, one of which was published in the Statesman of July 25, 1973 and is in the following terms:

"New Delhi, Tuesday - Mr. Samar Guha, M.P. convenor of the National Committee to assist the Netaji Inquiry Commission, said in a statement today that 'Our investigation in Taipei made us feel that there is no valid reason to believe the story of the reported death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the alleged plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945."

8.14 Shri Guha was thus pronouncing final judgement on the subject matter of the Commission's inquiry. The second statement was published by the Patriot in its issue of July 24, 1973, which is as follows:

"Socialist leader Samar Guha, yesterday told newsmen that the Commission could not get any conclusive evidence on the INA Chief's death in an aircrash and subsequent cremation of the body."

He said: "On investigation in Taipei in Taiwan made us feel that there was no valid reason to believe the story of the reported death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the alleged plane crash on 18 August, 1945, the news in relation to which was officially circulated by the then Government of Japan.

"Prof. Guha substantiated his statement by stating that a former airport unit officer of Taipei, Mr. Lin Chwan, who was an employee of the air force hospital in the month of August 1945, told the Commission that he saw a very fair looking, tall Indian in a partially bandaged condition in a single room, sitting most of the time on his bed in a dignified, calm posture.

Mr. Lin said the patient 'disappeared' from the hospital after three or four days.

Prof. Guha said that this report contradicted the official report of the Government of Japan that Netaji was taken to the South Gate Military Hospital where he died.

Prof. Guha said that the evidence recorded by the first inquiry commission headed by Shah Nawaz Khan differed from the facts gathered by the present Commission.

For instance, he pointed out the different dates given in the official version of the death and the records traced out at the Health Department of Taipei. While Tokyo broadcast the date and time of the air crash as 18 August, 1945 at 9 p.m., the Health Department recorded the accident on 19th August at zero hour.

Similarly, Prof. Guha added, while the official broadcast said that the body of the Netaji was cremated, the Health Department and crematorium records contained the names of a Japanese general and some air force personnel as killed and cremated.

According to department rules, no person could be cremated without a death certificate from the department. Since no death certificate was issued by the department in regard to the Netaji's death, the official version could not be taken to be correct, Prof. Guha contended."

8.15 The news report is clearly tendentious and tends to prejudge the issue before the Commission. Prof. Guha did not contradict these reports, and I must accept the news items quoted above as correct reproductions of his statements to the Press. Prof. Guha, by declaring that the story of the air crash on August 18, 1945, at Taipei and of Bose's death in the course of the next few hours had been completely disproved, arrogated to himself the functions of this Commission by pronouncing judgment on the subject matter of the present enquiry. In judicial proceedings, such a statement would have fallen within the mischief of the law of contempt of Court, and even in these proceedings the statement cannot be described as anything but reprehensible. I, however, decided not to take any action against this misguided and ill-advised outburst of Prof. Guha, as I felt that he was prompted not by any malice, but the excess of his enthusiasm and his superabundant affection for his leader, Bose.

8.16. The sum and substance of Prof. Guha's evidence, therefore, is that he heard various persons expressing at different times, their disbelief in the crash story. These persons, however, had no personal knowledge of the facts of which they spoke. Their disbelief may have been born of wishful thinking or because no official inquiry into the matter had been made and no judgment pronounced upon all available evidence. Prof. Guha's testimony, therefore, has no probative value whatsoever and does not advance the case at all. Newspaper reports, opinions of individual who have heard rumours in the streets or who want to believe in Bose being alive are wholly inadmissible. Indeed, the entire statement of Prof. Guha must be held to be inadmissible in evidence though even on its face value it makes no contribution towards the discovery of the truth relating to Bose's disappearance.