Kolkata: In West Bengal, ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and challenger BJP are busy fighting a fierce war to claim the legacy of one of its most illustrious sons — Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, considered the greatest ever political hero and freedom fighter in the state’s history.
Both the parties have been vying to project themselves as true followers of Bose in the run-up to the Bengal assembly elections.
While the Narendra Modi government wants to celebrate 23 January as ‘Parakram Diwas’ every year, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee wants the day named as ‘Desh Prem Diwas’ and declared a national holiday.
The Trinamool Congress also wants the Centre to declassify a book compiled decades ago by the Union defence ministry on Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj.
The BJP in its election manifesto has promised to name the Kolkata-Siliguri national highway as the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Expressway, while the TMC government, in this year’s state budget, promised to build an Azad Hind memorial and Netaji Bhawans in districts.
Bose’s illustrious family has members from the Congress, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress. But none of the family members are in the poll fray this time.
Researchers on Netaji say the Bose family has “absolute democracy” within the house over making political choices, and that none of the family members ever had any “communal leaning”.
The Bose family can trace its lineage back to Gopinath Bose, who was given the title of ‘Purandar Khan’ by Nawab Alauddin Husain Shah, who ruled Bengal from 1494-1519.
Netaji’s parents, Advocate Janakinath Bose and Prabhabati Bose, had 14 children — eight sons and six daughters (see family tree). The family has many firsts to its name.
Netaji’s brothers were Satish Bose, a member in the bar of England; Sarat Bose, an advocate-turned-prominent politician of Congress; Suresh Bose, an expert in glass technology; and Sudhir Bose, a famous metallurgist who headed Tata Steel’s coal division; Sailesh Bose, an entrepreneur who first started textile mills in Gujarat; Dr Sunil Bose, the first cardiologist of the country and founder of the Cardiological Society of Bengal.
Dr Sunil Bose, who brought the first ECG machine to India, had treated both Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
Santosh Bose, Netaji’s another brother, died of illness at the age of 16.
The family comprises academics, historians, scientists, parliamentarians, legislators, attorneys, sheriff, doctors, advocates and writers across three generations after Netaji. Most of the family members, past and present, chose to stay away from the limelight.
Also read: It’s easy for BJP to claim Netaji, far harder to read his works on secularism & Indian Muslims
The Bose family
The invitee list for the programme organised at Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial Hall by the Union Ministry of Culture on 23 January this year to celebrate Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary included 128 names from the Bose family.
At least 27 of them are NRIs settled in the US, the UK, Germany and Australia — including Netaji’s daughter Anita Pfaff, who lives in Germany.
The programme was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Mamata Banerjee.
Bengal’s Finance and Industry Minister Amit Mitra, the grandson of Netaji’s brother Suresh Bose, was among the invitees.
The invitee list, however, excluded Netaji’s grandnephew Sugata Bose, a former Trinamool Congress MP who is a critic of Modi government’s policies. He is a noted historian and associated with Harvard University.
Sugata Bose is the son of Sisir Bose, Netaji’s nephew and son of his elder brother Sarat Bose, an erstwhile Congress leader.
Talking to ThePrint, Abhijit Roy, Sarat Bose’s grandson and a researcher on the family, gave a brief history of the family and its existing members.
Sisir Bose, who was with the Congress, is known for his brave act of aiding Netaji in his escape — from house arrest to abroad — to seek help for India’s freedom. Sisir Bose was professionally a paediatrician.
He had three brothers — Ashok, Amiya and Subrata.
Sisir Bose’s wife Krishna Bose was a Trinamool MP who died last year. While Sugata Bose is their elder son, younger Sumantra Bose teaches at the London School of Economics. Daughter Sharmila is also settled abroad.
Amiya Bose, Sisir Bose’s brother, is a lawyer-turned-politician. He was an independent MP from Hooghly’s Arambagh and was supported by the United Front government that came to power after 1996 general elections.
He has two sons, Surjya and Chandra, and a daughter, Madhuri Bose. Chandra Bose, after retirement from a corporate job, joined the BJP in 2016. Madhuri lives in the US and works for the International Labour Organisation. Surjya Bose lives in Germany.
“Netaji’s family is one of the most eminent families of Kolkata. They are unique in their own ways. After Netaji’s disappearance, at least two of his nephews — Sisir and Amiya — joined politics. Sons of these two brothers also carried forward the legacy and joined politics. But there are several other acclaimed members like academics Chitra Ghosh, Sarat Bose’s daughter, who lived a quiet life,” Professor Purabi Roy, an expert and researcher on Netaji’s life, told ThePrint.
“The children of Netaji’s siblings are settled in several cities in the country, while some are settled abroad. A group of 35 to 40 members of the family came together to start a movement demanding declassification of Netaji-related intelligence files and relevant letters, which are with the government. The family members meet occasionally, but very few of them are in the limelight,” she added.
Also read: Netaji planning commission, Netaji police battalion — Mamata’s poll-year budget is big on Bose
Political associations
Ahead of the Bengal elections, two Bose brothers — Trinamool’s Sugata Bose and BJP’s Chandra Bose — found themselves in opposing camps. They are, however, not in the poll fray this time and also have not been seen in their respective parties’ campaigns yet.
Apart from the Bose cousins and Bengal’s Finance Minister Amit Mitra, none of the family members are active in politics.
Abhijit Roy told ThePrint the Bose family has “absolute democracy” within the house when it comes to making one’s political choices. But, he said, there was never any “communal leaning” in any member of the family.
Sisir Bose, father of Sugata Bose, was a member of the Congress and an MLA from south Kolkata’s Chowrangi seat. Subrata Bose, another brother of Sisir Bose, was a member of Forward Bloc, founded by Netaji.
“None in the Bose family was ever aligned to communal politics or supported the idea of mixing religion with politics. In fact, there are documents that show how Subhas Bose criticised Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s decision of forming Hindu Mahasabha,” said Abhijit Roy.
Talking to ThePrint, Chandra Bose said, “Our family may have varied political interests. But we are genetically bound by his ideas. We can probably dump our political career, but not Netaji. For instance, giving citizenship to refugees is of course praiseworthy under the CAA, but alienating a community is not. Netaji would never have approved this.”
He added, “Naming roads and building statues are not the ways to pay tribute. We were inducted in political parties perhaps due to the surname and as Netaji’s lineage, but the politics these parties believe in is completely different from what we learnt.”
Chandra Bose unsuccessfully contested two elections in 2016 and 2019 as the BJP candidate in south Kolkata.
Sugata Bose, who won the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 general elections as a Trinamool candidate, expressed his unwillingness to fight the 2019 polls. He looks after the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata.
Asked about why his name was missing from the invitee list for the Victoria Memorial event, Anirban Ganguly, director of Delhi-based Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, said, “Sugata Bose is in many committees related to Netaji. And he is allergic to PM Modi. So, there is no point inviting him (to the programme in Kolkata). He leads a group of intellectuals against Modi ji.”
Ganguly is a member of the committee, headed by PM Modi, which has been formed for the commemoration of Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary.
“People may have inclinations to different political ideologies, but persons like him compromised with their professional and academic responsibilities for political positioning. There are several other important members of the family like late Chitra Ghosh, who were never brought to fore. We will include such members of the family,” Ganguly said.
Row over declassification of Netaji files
Perhaps the most controversial event of Netaji’s life is his death, which still remains a mystery. The most believed version of Netaji’s death is that he died in an air crash in 1945.
A group of 30 family members led by Surjya Bose, elder brother of Chandra Bose, and Abhijit Roy initiated the declassification “movement” in 2008. They time and again met the prime ministers and home ministers, demanding declassification of the relevant documents.
“We started this movement to know what happened to the hero of the country. We have no idea what exactly happened to Netaji. We all are confused as there are multiple theories,” said Abhijit Roy.
In 2016, the Modi government declassified a part of intelligence files and letters exchanged between the erstwhile Indian governments and foreign countries over Netaji.
Before the Centre, the Mamata administration had declassified 64 files in 2015 that were with the Bengal government.
None of the files, however, cleared the mystery over Netaji’s death.
Several historians and researchers claim the files have “nothing much” to offer in terms of answering questions about Bose’s death.
The declassified files also triggered a controversy related to spying on Bose’s family during the post-Independence years.
“Despite mentions of Netaji in almost all speeches and in all platforms, the Modi government is yet to declassify the highly sensitive files,” Anuj Dhar, a Netaji researcher and author of multiple books on the mystery of his death, had told ThePrint earlier.
(Edited by Debalina Dey)
Also read: Netaji’s grandnephew Chandra Bose dropped as Bengal BJP V-P for ‘speaking up against CAA’