Ends of endings

It is one of the curiosities of modern Indian history that the death of the man who gave the country its most evocative political salutation — Jai Hind, or Long Live India — should prove a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Fifty years after the first commission set up to probe the death of Subhas Chandra Bose concluded that he had been killed in an air crash off the coast of Taiwan in August 1945, we now have another — the Justice M.K. Mukherjee Commission — stating that he did not die in the plane crash and that the ashes stored at the Renkoji temple in Japan and presumed thus far to be those of Bose, are not actually his.

There may even be a political sub-text here. While the two inquiry commissions set up by the Congress governments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, in 1956 and 1974 respectively, had concluded that Bose had indeed died in the air crash at Taihoku, the most recent commission, constituted by the BJP-led NDA government in 1999, conclusively dismisses such a conclusion. It is hardly surprises then that the Congress-ruled UPA government has disagreed with Justice Mukherjee’s findings in its action taken report.

Setting up commissions of inquiry may appear to be a valid and useful response to a public demand for more clarity on such matters but they cannot, by their very nature, address the enigmatic silences of history. With the tabling in Parliament of the Justice Mukherjee Commission report, we should therefore move on. It is indisputable that Bose continues to inspire us as a nation, but after three inquiry commissions have failed to throw credible light on his mysterious demise, let us at least agree that there must be no more of such exercises. Of course, as an open society, we are free to carry on researching into — even speculating upon — the exact circumstances of his death. But this must not be done at the expense of the state exchequer.