PM Narendra Modi going round the National Archives of India (NAI) where he released the digital copies of 100 declassified files related to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 119th birth anniversary, in New Delhi on Saturday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today declassified Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose files on the freedom fighter's birth anniversary. "Today (Saturday) is a special day for all the Indians. Declassification of Netaji files starts on Saturday. Will go to National Archives myself for the same," Modi said in a tweet early in the morning.

In another tweet, Modi said: "Remembering Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his birth anniversary. His bravery and patriotism endears him to several Indians across generations."

Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/ Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/

Modi also released digital copies of 100 files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose following the government's decision to declassify files on the freedom fighter. The files, digitised and given "preliminary conservation treatment" by the National Archives of India, will be released on the birth anniversary of Bose.

The release of the files "will meet the long-standing public demand" and "will also facilitate scholars to carry out further research on Netaji", a culture ministry statement said. The National Archives received 990 declassified files pertaining to the Indian National Army (INA) from the defence ministry in 1997.

What we know so far Out of the 100 files, 33 of them are from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The rest contains communications between the Government of India and the governments of Russia and Japan. The files have been digitised and uploaded on the website of the NAI. According to the files, his Germany-based daughter Anita Bose had visited India in 1960 and stayed at the official residence of then-Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The Congress had been sending Rs. 6,000 per year to Bose's daughter until 1964. Anita stopped getting the money after she got married to Martin Pfaff, an American citizen, in 1965. Bose's wife, Emilie Schenkl, who was a German national, refused to accept the money from Congress. Schenki was Bose's private secretary during his stay in Germany.

Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/ Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/

The first lot of 33 files were declassified by the Prime Minister s Office (PMO) and handed over to the NAI on December 4, last year.

Netaji, one of the leading lights of the Indian freedom struggle, set up the INA during World War II to take on the British Indian Army. A former Congress president and once a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, Bose's reported death in a plane crash in Formosa, now Taiwan, in 1945 has remained a mystery.

Bose was born on January 23, 1897 in Cuttack, Odisha.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Enquiry committee report

The Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Enquiry committee concluded in a report (dated Sept 11, 1956) that Netaji met his death as a result of aircrash at Taihoku airfield at Formosa on Aug 18, 1945 and his ashes were kept at a Renkoji temple in Tokyo.

Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/ Grab from http://netajipapers.gov.in/

The committe is of the view that in the last stages when Japan's defeat seemed inevitable, Netaji was prepared to shift his struggle from South East Asia to Russia via Manchuria. He left Bangkok on Aug 16, 1945, and Saigon on Aug 17, `1945, in an aeroplane for Manchuria. The plane crashed in flames at Taihoku on Aug 18, 1945. As a result of the seriousness of the burns he received, Netaji died in Taihoku hospital the same night.

His body was cremated at Taihoku crematorium and his ashes were flown to Tokyo early Sept and deposited at Renkoji temple.



