With Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing that his government will declassify all files pertaining to Subhas Chandra Bose – starting with Netaji's 119th birth anniversary on January 23, next year – as he sees “no reason to strangle history”, deeply personal information about Bose is likely to come to light.

Especially because the Nehru administration and the British government had snooped on many an aspect of Bose’s life, even after his alleged death and disappearance in 1945. Letters with National Archives, read in conjunction with declassified British intelligence files, show that Nehru administration even snooped on the birth of Bose’s love child.

Among the letters intercepted by the Nehru administration was one written by ACN Nambiar, a London-based journalist considered a ‘communist agent’ by the British and a friend of both Subhas Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru. The letter was written to Bose’s nephew, Amiya Nath Bose, a resident of Calcutta (now Kolkata). An Intelligence Bureau memo (number 17262.CP.13) dated September 27, 1947 shows the letter was intercepted at the Elgin Road post office in Calcutta. The letter was detained and sent to Union Home ministry under Sardar Vallabhai Patel. The letter never reached Amiya Bose.

The letter, dated August 18, 1947 and written from Zurich, Switzerland by Nambir reads, “I have received a note from a very prominent person in Indian public life, asking me for a verification of a report concerning the matter, apparently supplied by a person returning from Europe. Good deal of the information contained in the report is correct though certain things are likely to render themselves to misinterpretations.”

The letter goes on to read, “Reports of the nature appeared also because of restlessness on part of a person to whom I had repeatedly suggested patience and need of greater care in dealing with the matter.”

This intercepted letter was shared by the Nehru administration with the British government. The British generated their own intelligence on the matter since they had been deeply suspicious of Nambiar for his association with Soviet Union and Germany.

Britain's spy agency, MI5, did their background checks and generated their own report on the letter.

The memo (No. 22/X.Br/45) dated October 6, 1947 marked ‘Secret’ and titled ‘SC Bose’s daughter’ indicates that the Nehru administration was even gathering information on how Bose was extending his family tree in the West.

The British letter reads, “There can be little doubt that CAN Nambiar in his letter to Amiya Bose is referring to the existence of an illegitimate daughter born to Subhas Chandra Bose towards the end of 1942 by the latter’s companion and secretary Emily Schenkel. There were very few people who were aware that Bose had become the father of a child in Germany, but Nambiar was one of them. One may hazard the conjecture that the ‘very prominent person’ referred to by Nambiar is Pandit Nehru, who undoubtedly knows the main facts.”

In effect, the British had drawn a conclusion, that Nehru had written to Nambiar seeking confirmation of information he had received about the birth of Bose’s daughter with an Austrian partner.

The girl referred to by the British as an ‘illegitimate daughter’ was Anita Schenkel Plaff. Anita, 72, is a German economist and has seldom spoken about her father.

But why was Nambiar, a Bose aide, contacted by Nehru to know about Bose’s daughter?In fact, the proximity of Nambiar to Bose was borne out by a telegram intercepted by the British. The telegram sent in April 1945 by Bose to Nambiar reads, “Indian legionaires must in no way fall into Anglo-American hands without a struggle. If possible, the legion is to play in Soviet-Russian hands as there is a possibility that they can be further employed, from Moscow, in India’s fight for freedom.”

However, Nambiar was picked up by the British in 1945 after being suspected of being a Communist spy and interrogated for five weeks by an Indian security officer named Naurang Singh Bains. During the interrogation he said, “In September 1934, I had visited Mrs Nehru, hospitalised in Vienna, since Nehru had written to me to look after her. I also met Bose in Vienna, and came to know for the first time about his friendship with Emily Schenkel, the daughter of a Vienna postal inspector.”