Netaji or Gumnami Baba? Fresh search revives debate
A fresh search undertaken by the Faizabad district administration into Gumnami Baba’s belongings has reignited interest and the popular debate over whether he was Netaji in disguise.
The most recent research comes despite the Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry having dismissed in 2006 the theory that ‘Faizabad’s Gumnami Baba was Subhash Chandra Bose’.
“I know for sure who he was. But I want the world to know it. That is why I had approached the high court in order to get the facts verified,” says Faizabad-based local BJP leader Shakti Singh in whose house the Baba lived till his death on September 16, 1985..
On Wednesday, the search into Gumnami Baba’s belongings entered its 12th day during which 24 boxes have so far been opened and their contents examined.
“On Tuesday, we found two tape recorders of HMV make, a Philips radio set, a table watch, some clothes and lots of books mostly in Bengali,” says Satwant Singh Sethi, the administrative officer who has been present during the search since February 26 when the first box containing the Baba’s belongings was opened.
Over the last few days, binoculars issued by the German military in World War 2, a typewriter of British make and a vintage tea set were among those items that stirred curiosity. But as a senior official said, “I guess over the next couple of days, it would be interesting to see what the two remaining boxes contain?” The two boxes left to be examined are those that the Mukherjee Commission had taken for examination on November 27, 2001. PK Sengupta, the then secretary of the commission, had come to Faizabad to take the two boxes which have now been returned.
“It would be interesting to see what those two boxes contain,” says local Congress leader Khalil Ahmad. RN Sharma, Faizabad’s ADM (city), said an inventory of all the items kept in all the 26 boxes is being made. “For instance we have been seeing things like acid, clothes, Bengali literature and every little thing is being photographed and videographed,” he said.
Once the inventory is done, the complete list of Gumnami Baba’s belongings would be handed over to the technical committee.
The belongings are to be kept in double lock and would possibly be shifted to the newly built Ram Katha museum in Ayodhya.