In December 1998, J.J. Harding of Britain’s Ministry of Defence wrote to Pavan Kapoor, First Secretary of the High Commission of India, London, that Subhas Chandra Bose was not in Britain’s list of war criminals and added that some of the most pertinent official records of the decision to deal with Bose were contained in Vol. VI of the Transfer of Power series. Vol. VI of the Transfer of Power series, however, reveals that the British government had decided to try Bose as a war criminal referring to him as “the only civilian renegade of importance”.
Thus, the denial of the British raises more questions than answers. In the British Cabinet meeting held on 25 October 1945 it was resolved that the “only civilian renegade of importance” was Subhash Chandra Bose and that the Indian renegades rounded up outside India should be brought back to their countries for trial as part of the general arrangement for dealing with “war criminals”. The meeting ended by inviting the Secretary of State for India to consider whether it would not be appropriate to try civilian offenders rounded up in Southeast Asia and elsewhere by Military Court Martial on the spot. Why on earth were civilian offenders to be tried by Military Court Martial?
The intention clearly was to try them as ‘war criminals’. But was Bose to be tried as a war criminal as per any UN protocol? Let us find out. The UN General Assembly’s resolution of 31 October1947 urged states to surrender war criminals if they had any. This is because the United Nations, in addition to crime against humanity, specifically focused on war criminals of the Second World War, apprehending their existence in certain states. War criminals/traitors, as clarified in this resolution, were nationals of any state who were accused of, interalia, active collaboration with the enemy during the war. Subhas Chandra Bose fought against the Raj in collaboration with the enemy of the British Empire and as such, he was a war criminal/traitor for the British Indian Government.
In accordance with the UN resolution, then, Bose was to be surrendered as a war criminal. Was he a war criminal for us too? In 1962, Professor Atul Sen, who once won a seat in the legislature from Dacca with Netaji’s help, asked in his letter to Nehru whether Netaji would be surrendered following international protocol. Nehru, in response, claimed ignorance of any such protocol, but promised that even if it was demanded by any country, Bose would not be handed over to it. This is strange. Is it conceivable that Nehru was unaware of the UN resolution of 1947? The entire issue became murkier when India signed a UN treaty on Non-applicability of statutory limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1971.
Statutory limitation meant that war criminals could not be tried beyond a prescribed period. Abolition of this limitation empowered nations to try war criminals at any point of time. ‘War crimes’ and ‘crime against humanity’ were not used interchangeably in the Treaty. So, India’s endorsement of the treaty was not related to crime against humanity only, but also to war crimes. India signed it before the Indo-Pak war of 1971.This means that war crimes committed in this war were not the case in point. In this context, the United Nations’ own admission to a reference to Bose as a war criminal is highly significant.
Retired Air Vice Marshal Surenji Goyal appealed to the UN Secretary General to remove the dishonourable reference of ‘war criminal’ to Netaji. Shashi Tharoor, the then Executive Assistant to the Secretary General replied, “The Secretary General is aware of the great regard in which Netaji is held, but he is powerless to undo references that may have been made in the past.’’ On the other hand, Indian bureaucrats’ reaction on this issue remained quite intriguing. As revealed from a recently declassified file, P.P. Sukla, Joint Secretary (P) in the PMO wrote in a note sheet in 1998, ‘’UN does not maintain any list of war criminals but it maintains records of UN War Crimes Commission’’ and added that ‘’It is not known whether Netaji’s name figures in this list or not’’.
He added: “In any case, the list would be more in the nature of an archive and there is no benefit in further search for Netaji’s name in such a list.” Contradicting Sukla, Brajesh Misra, then Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, ordered that the Ministry of External Affairs should pursue the search. But one wonders why the search was abandoned after Britain denied having Bose’s name in their list of war criminals. Records of War Crimes Commission were ignored, and the validity of the British narrative was never questioned.
The UN resolution on surrendering war criminals exposes what they wanted to do with Subhas Chandra Bose and now, finally the following would expose the British agenda once for all. Sir Evan Jenkins, Secretary to the Viceroy, on 11 August 1945 wrote to Sir Francis Mudie, Home member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council: ‘’His Excellency…is not at all sure that Bose and his immediate associates should be returned to India for trial. It might be better to have them dealt with as war criminals outside India.’’ Is there any confusion about the British government’s decision to deal with Bose as a war criminal?