As the nation observes the 125^th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on Saturday, just like all earlier years since his mysterious disappearance in the purported plane crash on August 18, 1945 in Formosa, the enigma continues. So far there has been a slew of Commissions to dig out the ‘truth’, startling revelations in the press and scores of books written on the subject and movies made too. But the conundrum regarding what happened to one of the bravest sons of the soil has only multiplied and persists till date. A tug of war meanwhile has broken out between various political parties in the country as to who are the truest admirers of Netaji, all and only for political gains. The central question which is the arrival at a definite conclusion as to what actually happened to him, however, remains largely unattended, compelling the people of the nation to live with the myriad of notions and assumptions surrounding the disappearance. It is clear that unless ‘all’ the files containing the intricate details about the man, wherever they are currently stored, either in India or elsewhere are not declassified, there will be no end to the mystery.

It’s not necessary to deliberate the details of Netaji’s contribution to the Indian freedom struggle and the vision of socio-economic progress he nurtured for the post-independent nation. Even the most vociferous champions of the theory of non-violence will not disagree that he was the leader of leaders and the patriot of patriots. Nonetheless, there will be an endless number of questions why India, during the first two decades as a free and democratic nation maintained air-tight secrecy over what actually happened to him and why his family members were put under intensive surveillance from 1948-1968 , as revealed by the now declassified files available in National Archives. In spite of the fact that there were steadfast and sustained efforts by certain ‘stakeholders’ to establish that the death came through the so-called plane crash, strong evidence painstakingly gathered over the years by the dogged Netaji researchers through RTIs, PILs and hunting of evidences on foreign lands tell a different tale. From so far that have been unearthed the plane crash theory will seem all bogus, however indigestible for those who want to establish and re-establish it again and again. But there are more dots that are left to be connected and this is only possible by making public all related documents including the still unpublished book titled ‘A History of Indian National Army 1942-45’, believed to throw a more penetrating light.

The befitting tribute to Netaji on his 125^th birth anniversary will be to reveal all that are ‘secret’ and this will be more than declaring January 23 as the national holiday or conferring him the Bharat Ratna.