Major General GD Bakshi (Retd) gave a recent online talk¹ about the importance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’ contributions in India attaining her freedom. During the course of his talk, he went on to say that the illustrated leader met his unceremonious end in Russia and going into the details, said that Netaji was imprisoned in Yakutsk and was a prisoner in cell no 45.

This article aims at investigating the merit of the claim that Netaji, the man whose actions were the moving force behind India’s freedom, was imprisoned and liquidated in Yakutsk, Russia.

One needs to go back to the 1960s for the origin of the claim/rumour of Netaji being held a captive in Russian prison to the activities of one, Dr. Satyanarayan Sinha.

A former MEA official, Satyanarayan Sinha was one of the foremost proponents to challenge the Taipei air crash theory. He carried out his own personal investigation to unravel the mystery of Netaji’s disappearance.

Sinha published his findings as a book “Netaji Mystery” in 1965. It is in this book that the claim of Netaji being a prisoner in Yakutsk was first made.

According to his account in the book, in Autumn of 1954, when Sinha was in Moscow, he happened to meet Goga (Gora) son of Abani Mukherji in a party.

Goga told Sinha that in the early 1950s, his father- who had survived the great purges of Stalin- was informed by some of his friends about a high-ranking Indian leader kept as a prisoner in Yakutsk. Abani understood the leader to be Subhas Chandra Bose and then wrote to Stalin pleading the release of Bose. Instead, Abani Mukherji was arrested the very next day. (2)

And then, comes the bombshell!

Sinha (S): Are you sure that Subhas Babu was in Yakutsk prison?

Goga (G): Yes. Uncle Mazut, the head of the Indian section of Comintern in your time was also sent to Yakutsk as a Trotskyte. After the death of Stalin, he has been rehabilitated. He also says that in the central prison of Yakutsk Subhas Babu was locked up in cell No. 45 and my father (Abani Mukherji) in 57². 

S: How was Mazut sure that he was really Subhas Babu?

G: Why? You know well Mazut had been several times to India in pre-war days and had seen Subhas Babu frequently in Calcutta and even talked to him on the question of dock workers union.

S: In which year Mazut had seen Subhas Babu at Yakutsk?

G: 1950-51.

The above narrative of Satyanarayana Sinha involves three important aspects:

• Subhas Bose imprisoned in Russia in 1950

• Abani Mukherji alive in 1950

• Gora Gaur (Goga) alive in 1954

And upon closer inspection…

1) Netaji:

While there is some strong evidence to show that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had escaped to Russia/USSR post Aug 18 1945, there is no evidence from official declassification of Russian or Indian files that seems to indicate the imprisonment of Subhas Bose, let alone his assassination in Russia³.

Now, coming to the father-son duo…

2) Abani Mukherjee:

Born in 1891, Abani Mukherji was a revolutionary and co-founder of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Subsequently, he shifted to Moscow and turned into an Indologist in the later part of his life.

Abani Mukherji was arrested on June 2, 1937 and was scheduled for repression in the first category (execution) in the Moscow Centre list of October 21, 1937 for 97 people, No. 52.

He was shot and buried at the Kommunarka NKVD training ground on October 28, 1937. He was rehabilitated by the USSR Armed Forces on May 26, 1956⁴.

3) Gora Gaur Mukherji:

Gora Gaur was the only son of Abani Mukherjee and he is widely believed to have been killed in WW2 during the Battle of Stalingrad, 1942^5,6.

Consequently, the entire claim of Gora informing the imprisonment of Abani Mukherji (proved dead in 1937) and Netaji in Yakutsk comes down like a house of cards.

Conclusion:

There is no evidence to substantiate the claim of Satyanarayan Sinha regarding Gora being alive in Russia in 1954, nor is there any proof to show the continued existence of Abani Mukherji into the early 1950s.

Therefore, based on the available evidence, Satyanarayan Sinha’s claim of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose being a prisoner in Yakutsk can only be termed as an invention of imagination.

Subsequently, the claims of Netaji being liquidated in Siberia that are sourced on Sinha’s accounts…are unfounded and baseless.

References:

1) Who won us the Freedom- Gandhi or Bose? https://youtu.be/HFnbxHg1LdA

2) Dr Satyanarayan Sinha, Netaji mystery, Prakash Chandra Saha, Grantham, 1965. 123 p.

3) Anuj Dhar, India’s biggest cover-up, 2012. Chapter 8.

4) People and Fates. Biobibliographic Dictionary of Orientalists – Victims of Political Terror in the Soviet Period (1917-1991). Ed. prepared by Ya. V. Vasilkov, M. Yu. Sorokina. St. Petersburg: Petersburg Oriental Studies, 2003. 496 p. (Title translated from Russian)

5) Goutam Chattapadhyaya (1992). Samajtantrer Agniparikkha o Bharater Communist Andolan (Bengali). Kolkata: Pustak Bipani. 76 p.

6) Anuj dhar and Chandrachur Ghose, Conundrum, 2019. 616 p.

Cover image source:Prisoner of Yakutsk by Shreyas Bhave