Didi’s ‘masterstroke’ decision to make public Netaji’s files
DECLASSIFICATION Files to be digitised and available for viewing from Sept 18, BJP calls it a ‘gimmick’
The West Bengal government announced on Friday it would make public five dozen classified files on Subhas Chandra Bose next week, a move that’s likely to boost a growing clamour for the Centre to release over a hundred such dossiers on the freedom fighter.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said the administration had started digitising the files that would be available for viewing from September 18 with some of her party colleagues calling it a “masterstroke” that would add to her popularity while the opposition BJP termed it a “gimmick”.
The contents of the 64 files remain unknown, but Bose’s relatives hope they would throw light on the nationalist leader’s mysterious disappearance in the mid-1940s. Some reports say Netaji, as he’s popularly known, died in an air crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945 at the age of 48, but this has been disputed by members of his family and others.
“There is huge curiosity among the public to know what is in those files. The state government, too, wants that people should know more about Netaji,” Banerjee said at the state secretariat in Kolkata. “I have decided to put the files in the public domain from next Friday at the police archive at the office of the DC North of Kolkata Police.”
The demand for declassification of all secret government files on Bose grew louder after intelligence reports made public this year revealed the union government spied on members of his family from 1948 to 1968.
The Centre has about 130 files on the freedom fighter and while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met members of his family three times since coming to power, his government is yet to take a decision on revealing the documents.
Bose’s relatives and other activists recently held a dharna at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and met BJP chief Amit Shah with their demand.
“There are a large number of files, and important ones, with the central government. The state has decided to put up 64 files in the public domain. The Centre should follow suit,” said Netaji’s grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose. “We will try our best to see that this happens.”
In a response to the Central Information Commission, the Narendra Modi government had said making public the Netaji files could adversely affect relations with some countries.
The declassified files could stir up new political controversies at a time when opposition parties are hitting the streets to take on the ruling Trinamool Congress with an eye on next year’s assembly election.
The BJP called Banerjee’s decision “politically motivated” and an effort to divert attention from the “sorry state of affairs” in West Bengal. “All her promises of development in Bengal have turned out hollow,” said state BJP president Rahul Sinha. “Now the chief minister has nothing to woo the people with. So she is trying all these gimmicks.”
Mohammed Salim, CPI(M) politburo member and Lok Sabha MP, said, “We have been demand- ing the declassification for a long time. I don’t know why suddenly the CM made such a decision, but it is welcome. However, she should also demand that the Centre declassify files which are with them and are more important.”