By Thepfulhouvi Solo. Retd IFS (RR-68) | EMN
Some Public may be tired of say ‘Bose “never set his foot in Naga Hills District...during the Second World War”’ and some others who still feel importantly happy with themselves to claim seeing Bose in their Village and Village Gate dispensing Justice to some erring Japanese soldiers.
However, the contention is like the Story of Don Quixote and Squire Sacho Panza in the Book by Spanish Writer Miguel Cervantes. It has deeper Social Consequences to the Naga.
It is because of these deeper social consequences on the future of the Naga Society that I write this short comment here again.
Mr. P. Puroh’s on 27. 10. 2017 in the Mirror, in its last sentence on the social consequences on the Naga said, “Otherwise one day it may come to shame us all”!
Social Shame like Personal shame is a serious matter of considerable Moral and Ethical value in a civilized society we all aspire. Puroh has emphasized a very important responsibility of us all have on the Society.
I personally do not know Mr. P. Puroh, I hear he is a Retd Professor of History of a Premier College in Kohima. He has given detailed information and it rationally and conscionably tells of the veracity of the documents he said of the famous son of Bengal “never set his foot in Naga Hills during the Second World War”.
The Professor must know what he is talking about as a Historian and I have no reason to disbelieve the documents he quoted. Bose could not have been in Naga Hills in April-May 1944 in Naga Hills.
I have myself in person a copy of a small short signed letter Subhas Chandra Bose wrote on 19.10.44 to his men in the Frontline from Burma informing them in the frontline (it could not be in Naga Hills or Manipur Area) he is going to “Syonan” (Saigon).
This Demo-Official of ‘ARZI HUKUMATE AZAD HIND’ letter shows that at the time –October 1944- Chandra Bose was on a journey moving away from frontline.
We in Naga Hills know the allied forces routed Japanese Forces in June 1944 at Kohima and by October-December the Allied Forces including some Naga Soldiers still alive, were chasing the Japanese in Rangoon from Kohima.
From Syonan, on 17 August 1945, Bose boarded an overloaded Japanese Army Cargo Plane on way to Taipei. Unfortunately, the overloaded plane skidded beyond the short Taipei Airstrip at night, knocked on the obstructions beyond the Airstrip and broke into parts.
Bose gravely injured but was still alive, people took him including Indian Passengers of the plane to the nearby Army Hospital but the next morning on 18 August 1945 he died of severe burns according to Japanese sources.
The Japanese cremated the persons and kept the Ashes in a Shrine.
Much later, the Government of India constituted more than one Commission one after another to investigate the circumstances of the death of Subhas Chandra Bose.
Some people said Bose fled from Independent India because Nehru threatened he would arrest Bose and hand him over to the British on War Crimes, others said on finding the Germans and the Japanese failures in the War, Bose was proceeding to Russia to get arms from Stalin for the struggle.
Someone in India recently, on the strength of RTI, demanded all Papers connected with the death of Subhas Chandra Bose be made Public and Japan gave all Papers including Bose’s Ash kept in a Shrine in Japan to Prime Minister Modi in 2016. Modi accepted the majority Report of the Commissions on the death of Chandra Bose.
This debate in Nagaland on the Subject today conjures up respectable queer characters like in the Miguel Cervantes’s Duke Don Quixote, -without any curiosity for the Truth outside. In addition ‘who like to believe only what they choose to believe’, devoid of native intuition of wisdom, prudence and with greedy purchased loyalists as Sacho Panza is for his Master, are not the qualities of Naga Society we would like for the future!
Therefore, perhaps this Armageddon on Subhas Chandra Bose between those ‘who like to believe only what they choose to believe’ Vrs the ‘Curious for prudent Truth’, is a revelation very crucial to our younger Generation.
