Post-Stalin Netaji advised Soviets, had facial surgery, met Lal Bhadur in Tashkent!

Counterview Desk

In a curious Facebook post "What happened to Netaji?", former editor of the Times of India, Ahmedabad, Kingshuk Nag, who later took over the Hyderabad edition of TOI as editor, has asserted that not only did Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose didn't die in a plane crash, he went to the Soviet Union, where he served as adviser of the Soviet leaders during the post-Stalin phase.

One who has authored a Netaji book, he makes another astonishing "revelation", setting aside his Gumnami Baba theory: that Netaji, it is believed, had undergone face surgery "to change his appearance", and is "supposed to have met Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri when he went to Tashkent in 1966." There is reason to wonder: Was Netaji so meek? One doesn't know...

Text:

Today is purportedly the day that Netaji died in an air crash in Taiwan in 1945. An elaborate theory of his death and the fact that his ashes were stored in Renkoji temple was created. By all accounts this is fiction.
Netaji disappeared into Soviet Union where he was looking for assistance to free India. To begin with he was kept in preventive custody as Stalin conferred with aides what to do with him. When India likely to become free in 1947, Stalin was still pondering on the use of Netaji. It was decided that Netaji would be sent to India. Netaji made two broadcasts on radio announcing that he would come to India at the head of an army. Radio technology in those days was weak so what Netaji announced was only monitored by the IB. But in the radio broadcast Netaji declared that he was aware of the trial of INA men at Red Fort. In the event however Netaji did not come. Why? There are no precise answers. But researcher and TV film maker Iqbal Malhotra believes that possibly Netaji fell foul of Stalin and was despatched to the Gulag in Siberia. This is what leading Netaji researcher Purabi Mukherjee also believes. She had lived for many years in Soviet Union and with her knowledge of Russian and contacts in the Soviet intelligence was able to unravel many hard facts. Hard labor there nearly killed Netaji but Stalin's death in 1953 led to a material improvement in Netaji's condition. He was released from the Gulag and settled in Moscow to continually advise the new rulers of USSR about India. Netaji never came back to India though many believed that this was the case (yours truly included). The Gumnami baba who lived in Faizabad near Ayodhya was an IB plant set up by B N Mallik who was an IB chief for a record twenty years. Lot of folks got taken in by the Gumnami baba tales and a Bengali movie that he was Netaji was also made. This is merely fiction.
Netaji stayed in USSR and is believed to have undergone face surgery to change his appearance. He is supposed to have met Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri when he went to Tashkent in 1966. Thereafter we have no clue about Netaji: but he probably died in Soviet Union a few years later. The latter half of the story obviously appears unappetizing to his relatives like his nephew Surya Kumar Bose and niece Madhuri Bose so they assert that Netaji perished in the air crash that never happened.

Comments

Beyond India-China borders: Economic links expand, political gaps persist

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* Despite growing trade between India and China, a persistent trust deficit continues to shape their bilateral relationship. Expanding economic engagement has not fully resolved political differences, many of which stem from historical legacies as well as contemporary geopolitical concerns. Border disputes—often traced to colonial-era arrangements—remain a significant obstacle to deeper cooperation, while differing strategic alignments in global affairs add further complexity.

GreenTech Summit claims NCR as key green building hub, without pan-India comparison

By A Representative The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), under the Confederation of Indian Industry, held its GreenTech Summit 2026 in New Delhi, where industry representatives, policymakers and sustainability professionals discussed the adoption of climate technologies in India’s built environment.

Gujarat cadre to HDFC: When bureaucratic style hits corporate walls

By Rajiv Shah I was a little amused by the abrupt March 17, 2026 resignation of Atanu Chakraborty —a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1985 batch who retired from the government in 2020—as chairman of HDFC Bank . Much of what may have led to his decision to quit this ostensibly high post—actually a non-executive, part-time role—is by now well known. I followed most of it online with considerable interest, partly because I had interacted with him umpteen times during my stint as The Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar from 1997 to 2012.

Operation Epic Fury: Making America great at the world’s expense?

By N.S. Venkataraman* The decades-long enmity between Iran and Israel is well-documented, but historically, their direct confrontations have been brief, constrained by the logistical and economic limitations of sustained warfare. The current conflict in the Middle East, however, marks a radical and dangerous departure from this pattern.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

India has been getting its economic growth wrong for two decades, say top economists

By Jag Jivan* India's official GDP figures have misrepresented the trajectory of the world's fifth-largest economy for the better part of two decades, according to a major new working paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). It finds that India overstated annual growth by up to two percentage points after 2011 — and understated it during the boom years of the 2000s.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

'Tax the top': Nationwide protests demand action as 1% control 40% of India’s wealth

By A Representative Civil rights groups across the country observed the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh on March 23, as people from diverse backgrounds united to raise their voices against growing economic inequality. The mobilisations marked the launch of a nationwide campaign against inequality, running from March 23 to April 14 (Ambedkar Jayanti), under the banner of the “Tax The Top” campaign.

Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque under siege: A test of Muslim solidarity and Palestine’s future

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* In the cacophony of Israel’s and the United States’ attack on Iran, one piece of news has been buried under the debris of war: Israel has closed the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to Palestinian worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan. The closure, announced as indefinite, affects the third most revered mosque in the Islamic world.

Search This Blog