Know why Modi Govt couldn't confer Netaji with Bharat Ratna

New Delhi, Dec 27: At a time when the nation is celebratingdebating the announcement of prestigious Bharat Ratna award for former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and emminent educationist Madan Mohan Malaviya, reports also claim that the Narendra Modi government had also planned to confer India's highest civilian award to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

The NDA government's attempt to honour the nationalist leader fell flat due to freedom fighter's family's reservations. His family had also rejected the suggestion to confer the posthumous Bharat Ratna in 1992.

As per a report published in TOI, a fresh move to bestow the highest civilian award on the legendary leader was made, with those in favour approaching functionaries of the Modi government.

The Centre was positively inclined to accept the request, but told the proponents about the constraint involved in awarding the recognition to the freedom movement stalwart because of the continuing mystery about his "disappearance" in August 1945 on a flight from Formosa, current day Taiwan, when he was planning to take on the British in alliance with Japan, said the report.

Earlier in August, this year, Netaji's grandnephew Sugata Bose put an end to speculations about honoring the freedom fighter with the highest honour saying his stature was above the Bharat Ratna.

It has been almost 70 years since Netaji's sudden disappearance, but several organisations including a host of Bose's descendants have been running a countrywide campaign calling for declassification of 'secret files' on the nationalist leader, claimed to be in the possession of the central government. Netaji's family believes that he is alive and hence it is not accepting the posthumous honour.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's daughter Anita Bose Pfaff also feels that the inquiry commissions set up to investigate his whereabouts following his disappearance in 1945 were handicapped for want of enough government support.

"I don't know how much support the inquiry commissions had received, but I think in some ways it (government) was supportive and in other ways they (commissions) also had their handicaps," Anita told sources in an interview in Kolkata.

OneIndia News