File photo of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met a close relative of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Berlin, in the middle of a major controversy back home over the revelation that the freedom fighter's family was spied on for many years.
Surya Kumar Bose, the grand-nephew of Netaji, said after meeting PM Modi that he had asked for the declassification of all secret files related to the freedom fighter. The prime minister, he said, had told him that he would look into it seriously and then decide.
"PM said he will try his best to open the files up as he hasn't seen the files himself and can't judge the content. It was an honest answer, he at least promised to look into it and try his best to do something about it. I am hopeful," Mr Bose said.
Government files declassified recently reveal that the Intelligence Bureau kept relatives of Netaji under close surveillance between 1948 and 1968. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was in power for 16 of those years. Only 10,000 of the 70,000 pages of the records were made public earlier this year, and are now with the National Archives.
In an RTI reply, the Prime Minister's Office had refused to declassify the files arguing that the "disclosure would prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries."
Surya Kumar Bose, who is also the president of the Indo-German association in Hamburg, met the Prime Minister after a reception hosted by the Indian envoy in Berlin.
Netaji's nephew Ardhendu Bose told NDTV on Monday that the family was always aware of the surveillance and saw it as a sign that the leader was alive along after he was presumed dead.
"My father never believed Netaji died in the plane crash," Mr Bose, the son of Netaji's younger brother, said.
"If Netaji were really dead and perished in the air crash, then why all this (spying)? Obviously there was some element of fact that Bose was alive, lurking around somewhere and would make an appearance," he added.