The death of Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose occurred from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 after his overloaded Japanese plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan. However, many among his supporters, especially in Bengal, refused at the time, and have refused since, to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death. Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have persisted since then, keeping alive various martial myths about Bose.
One of such theories was that Netaji returned to india, disguised as a saint, and lived in Uttar Pradesh.
First, let’s understand that the term “Gumnami Baba” was coined by the media. People were largely unaware of his existence as long as he was around. It was only after his apparent death in 1985 that it became a big issue and the name “Gumnami Baba” became popular. He was known as Bhagwanji by his followers.
The nameless saint arrived in India through the Nepal border in the mid-1950s with the help one Mahadeo Prasad Mishra, a Sanskrit teacher, who would pass away in 1970 without knowing his true identity.
Pabitra Mohan Roy, who used to be a spy in Netaji’s Azad Hind government (a provisional government in exile), was in service of this Bhagwanji. The saint usually referred to himself as “Your dead man”.
The following is one experience he recounted to Pabitra Mohan Roy
This is extremely interesting. America’s first stealth plane, the F-117 Nighthawk, flew first in 1981. Bhagwanji was talking about stealth technology in the 1960s!
A chunk of Bhagwanji’s utterances were compiled into a book called Oi Mahamanaba Asey by Charanik, who at one point of time was the revolutionary Sunil Das. The protagonist of this book (Bhagwanji) is referred to with various names such as Mahakaal, Dead Man etc.
Another quote:
He was very obviously referring to the Shah Nawaz Committee and Khosla Commission set up by the government to probe into Netaji’s alleged death in the air crash in 1945.
Bhagwanji repeatedly claimed that he had “undergone complete metamorphosis” and was an altogether different person from what he used to be. And that the attempts to comprehend his present through his past would be futile.
With all your erudition and discernment, you simply cannot comprehend the state of metamorphosis of the Ghost of Mahakaal. How very complete and final!
Here comes another interesting comment of his. He has commented on everything from spirituality to warfare to politics.
Does he really appear to be your everyday holy man?
There’s another instance where he talked about Mahatma Gandhi.
This is a very clear reference to Subhas Chandra Bose.
Bhagwanji did recall the ‘INA’ days, but not too often. He was dismayed that even his home State failed to rise up, when the INA charged into the Indian border:
Bhagwanji was full of praises for “his” adjutant and youngest general, none other than Colonel Habibur Rahman, the ADC of Netaji. Habibur Rahman was extremely loyal to Subhas Chandra Bose.
We all are aware of large-scale communal riots during the partition of India. Colonel Rahman lost his family in the riots. He left for his home which was in PoK. He joined the Pakistan army and had a role in Pakistan’s attack in 1947–48 in terms of planning. After that, he joined Pakistan’s foreign service. He was probably the only one who retired honorably (and had held a really senior position) in spite of being pro-Netaji all his life.
In another note, Bhagwanji accused SA Ayer and Ramamurti of treachery (looting the INA treasure). This was also exposed in 2015 by India Today https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india/north/story/20150525-netaji-subash-chandra-bose-wealth-lost-819650-2015-05-14
How did “The Dead Man” know this?
He recounted what had happened after Japan decided to surrender.
Soviet Russia was the land of bears and the black society was the secretive Japanese Black Dragon Society, whose former head’s son-in-law, Rash Behari Bose had handed over the charge of the INA to Netaji.
Bhagwanji was also very critical of Nehru and alleged that he compromised Indian interests by making India a part of Commonwealth: “He shall always rave; spew and curse the English for hours and hours—but shall always act just the opposite” he wrote when Nehru died in 1964.
Worse, his allegations implied that India’s long-term strategic interests were made subservient to those of the world powers and if the Dead Man were not to act, India would turn into a battleground for the cold war.
“Nehru…has manipulated the whole thing in such a way that any miscalculated step…might make simple and innocent India and her people victim of the most horrible and undesirably hellish (game of) war!”
There are several more fascinating writings by this Bhagwanji, some even including praise for the RSS school of thought. “If Hinduism became extinct, India would be reduced to being just a land mass. Egypt is at present only a geographical land mass. It is an object of archaeological interest only. Ancient Indian wisdom was an ocean of unbounded energy”.
He even admired the Jews, “2000 years of buffeting has destroyed their everything but their faith in their religion, faith in their destiny, faith in Old Testament is intact. This is why they have implicit confidence in their faith. Could you achieve anything if you do not have this perspective? What sustains a man? It is faith, do you understand?”
He routinely criticized communism, “A race which cannot bind itself to its history and culture cannot ever win. This is the axiomatic truth. This is the state of the communists. They are like a flash in the pan, glare for two days and will then evaporate. This creed is carrying its death in its own cell.”
From whatever claims he made about his involvement in Indian national security, only one thing can be deduced: He became involved in Soviet covert operations to undermine the American hegemony in South East Asia and elsewhere with the larger aim to ensure that India was not caught in bloody proxy wars between the free and communist worlds.
One such imagination-defying claim was about his involvement in the US-Vietnam war.
Chomping a cigar, Bhagwanji once said that “about 50-60 wars have been fought in the world since WWII, but America has not been able to win even a single one of them”. He deliberately pronounced ‘single’ as ‘thingle’— mocking someone he did not like. ‘Churchill could not pronounce ‘S’; I am alive to tell you this.’
He even said, that on his advice, Ho Chi Minh dumped free cocaine and opium in south Vietnam. “The Americans have consumed at least a thousand tons till now—avidly. Change my name if the greatest power of the present world can win north Vietnam even in a thousand years!”.
An interesting point here is that Bhagwanji made this comment in 1966. But it was only in 1971 that Richard Nixon, then US President, became aware that 20% of American soldiers were heroin addicts!
How could a holy man located in a remote part of India have possibly known about it in advance?
Image Credits: Quora, Wikipedia
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