Did Subhas Chandra Bose Live as Gumnami Baba? The Mystery Revisited

A

daily newspaper from Faizabad called Naye Log published an article in October 1985 that linked Gumnami Baba to Subhas Chandra Bose. The headline in Hindi read: “Faizabad mein agyaatvaas kar rahe Subhas Chandra Bose nahin rahe??” (English translation: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been living incognito in Faizabad, is no more?). The story was written by journalists Ram Tirth Vikal and Chandresh Kumar Shrivastav. An edit piece next to it, written by journalist and editor of Naye Log, Ashok Tandon, carried the Hindi headline: “Netaji.”

For years, there have been mysteries and conspiracy theories surrounding Bose’s death. The official version states that he died on 18 August 1945 after suffering severe burns when his overloaded aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from Taihoku airfield in Taipei. His ashes are said to be kept at the Renkō-ji Temple in Tokyo, Japan. However, several theories continue to dispute these claims.This front-page story in Naye Log asserted that Gumnami Baba, also known as Bhagwanji, an ascetic who lived in this small town in Uttar Pradesh, was Bose. He died on 16 September 1985.The sensational claim led to competition among rival newspapers and publications.“Alerted by the news of Gumnami Baba being Netaji, another local newspaper, Janmorcha, conducted an inquiry into the issue. They found no evidence of Gumnami Baba being Netaji. Senior journalist Sheetla Singh visited Netaji associate Pabitra Mohan Roy in Kolkata in November 1985,” wrote Sumeru Roy Chaudhury for The Wire.Roy said, “We have been visiting every sadhu and mysterious individual in search of Netaji, from Saulmari to Kohima to Punjab. In the same manner, we also visited Babaji at Basti, Faizabad and Ayodhya. But I can say with certainty that he was not Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.”

Bose’s niece, Lalita Bose, later visited Ram Bhavan, where Bhagwanji had lived during his final years. With the help of journalists and lawyers, she made an appeal in the Allahabad High Court to preserve the properties, mostly books, documents and photographs of Bose family members, belonging to the saint she believed to be her uncle. Adheer Som in Gumnami Baba: A Case History and Anuj Dhar and Chandrachud Ghosh in Conundrum provide a detailed account of Bhagwanji’s activities, his antecedents and the people associated with him.According to reports, Gumnami Baba’s handwriting was examined by the Government Examiner of Questioned Documents in Shimla and the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Kolkata. It was concluded that the handwriting did not match. However, Anuj Dhar, who founded Mission Netaji, cited two well-known handwriting experts, Curt Baggett and Ashok Kashyap, “who have testified publicly that the letters of Bhagwanji and those of Netaji were written by the same person and that there is no chance of forgery”. A similar opinion was expressed by noted handwriting expert B Lal Kapoor before the Mukherjee Commission, where he submitted a detailed report supporting his conclusion.The Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry, set up by the Government of India in 1999, was the third such investigation into Bose’s fate. “It concluded that there was no ‘clinching evidence to prove that Bhagwanji or Gumnami Baba was Netaji’,” wrote Dhirendra K Jha for Scroll.in.He added, “The panel also sent Gumnami Baba’s teeth for DNA testing to Kolkata’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory. These were matched with blood samples collected from two descendants on Bose’s father’s side and three on his mother’s side. The report, submitted by Dr V K Kashyap, stated:‘The individual, the source of the teeth, does not belong to either the maternal or paternal DNA lineage of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and, therefore, cannot be Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.’”

The Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission (2016–2019), appointed by the Uttar Pradesh government on the orders of the Allahabad High Court, also examined whether Gumnami Baba was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It concluded that there was no evidence to support this claim. Mysteries continue to surround his death, even as his daughter Anita Bose Pfaff has appealed for a DNA test. In a press statement published by The Week, she said, “Many Indians still remember and honour the heroes of India’s independence struggle. Many freedom fighters had to flee their country during colonial rule to avoid persecution and to continue the struggle from abroad. Many of them never returned to their motherland. Their remains remained in foreign lands. Netaji’s remains, too, were given a ‘temporary’ home at the Renkō-ji Temple in Tokyo, Japan.”