Political

Did Nehru describe Bose as a “War Criminal” in a letter to UK Prime Minister?

Written by Md Mahfooz Alam

A letter allegedly written by the former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been doing the rounds on social media for the last few years. It is being claimed that in a letter to then UK Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Nehru described Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as a “War Criminal” of the British.

The viral letter reads:  “Dear Mr. Attlee, I Understand from reliable source that Subhash Chandra Bose, your War Criminal, has been allowed to enter Russian territory by Stalin. This is a clear treachary and betrayal of faith by the Russians as Rassia has been an ally of the British-Americans, which she should not have done. Please take note of it and do what you concider proper and fit. Yours sincerely, Jwaharlal Nehru.

FactO News found that no such letter was written by the Jawaharlal Nehru.

Replying to a tweet of the Karnataka Congress, a user Shivanand Saidapur posted the letter on Twitter.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, National Secretary BJP youth wing had also claimed in a tweet in 2018 that Nehru called Netaji a “War Criminal”.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

FactO Check:

There are many versions of the letter with varying errors, and the letter posted by the Saidapur has the errors highlighted.

First of all, the letter is addressed to the Prime Minister of England, there is no such constitutional post. England comes within the United Kingdom and along with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — they together choose one Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK). The UK is also known by the name Great Britain.

There are many grammatical and spelling errors in the letter. We are writing the correction along with the errors in the bracket for a better understanding to our readers: 10 Down Street (10, Down Street), understand (Understand), Subhas (Subhash), treachery (treachary), Russia (Rassia), consider (concider), Jawaharlal Nehru (Jwaharlal Nehru) and the letter posted by the Twitter user Saurin Shah misspells the surname of Clement Attlee as Attle.

The letter posted by the Shivanand Saidapur is dated 26 December 1945 and the letter posted by the Saurin Shah is dated 27 December 1945.

In 2016, on the 119th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the NDA government released a set of 100 declassified files. The declassified files contain a letter dated 20 April 1988 by Pradip Bose urging the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee to disclose all files related to Netaji. Along with the letter, there is also an essay by Pradip Bose titled, ‘A Note on the Mysteries of Netaji’s “Life and Death”‘. The viral letter appears in the essay with no errors and the letter can also be found in Pradip’s book ‘Subhas Bose and India Today: A New Tryst with Destiny?’

(Source: Declassified files/ PMO /Screenshot)

The contents of the above letter are the recollection of Shyamlal Jain, who was the stenographer of Nehru. He testified his recollection to the GD Khosla commission which was set up in 1970 to look into Bose’s mysterious disappearance. However, the one-man commission rejected Jain’s testimony.

Jain had claimed that Nehru dictated the contents of the letter on either 26 December 1945 or 27 December 1945 at Congress leader Asaf Ali’s residence in Delhi. However, Alt News fact-checked the claim in 2018 and found that Nehru was in Patna and Allahabad from 25 to  29 December 1945 and Asaf Ali was in Bombay on 25 and 26 December 1945.

According to The Free Press Journal, it was clarified by the Indian High Commission in the UK in 2016 that Netaji’s name was never on the list of war criminals and the list was made only for Japanese and German Citizens.

Conclusion:

Even the errorless letter from the declassified files of 2016  was not written by Nehru. The letter is the recollection of Nehru’s stenographer Shyamlal Jain from Pardip Bose’s essay and book, which was not accepted by the  GD Khosla commission. And the dates claimed by the Jain also don’t corroborate. Therefore, the claim that Nehru called Netaji Bose a “War Criminal” is misleading.

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About the author

Md Mahfooz Alam

Mahfooz is a multimedia journalist and regularly writes fact-check stories for Facto News. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. He has worked as an intern fact-checker for The Quint. He specializes in research and fact-checking and aspires to do investigative reporting.

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