August 21, 2007	Tuesday	Sha’aban 7, 1428

TOKYO: As the priest recited prayers in Japanese under gold statues of the Buddha, mourners bowed to the urn said to hold the ashes of Subhash Chandra Bose, the Indian nationalist who has stirred as much controversy in death as in life.

The cremation ground of his pacifist rival Mahatma Gandhi is a major memorial in New Delhi which foreign dignitaries visit, but Bose’s purported remains lie in relative obscurity at a small Buddhist temple in Tokyo.

Bose broke ranks with Gandhi by preaching armed resistance to British colonialism. He courted Nazi Germany and later imperial Japan, which helped Bose raise an army that battled the Allies in the name of India’s freedom.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the grandson of a wartime minister and passionate advocate for making his nation prouder of its past, is due on Thursday to meet Bose’s descendants on a trip to Kolkata.

Japan’s leaders usually prefer not to dwell on World War II, so the conservative premier’s visit marks something of a turning point for the country, which transformed from a militarist empire into a pacifist nation.

Bose’s image as a hero has steadily grown in nuclear-armed India but a row over how exactly he died has intensified too.

AN ENDURING MYSTERY: As cicadas chirred outside, some 40 mourners, including ageing Japanese veterans and young Indian expatriates with video recorders, paid respects on Saturday to Bose at Tokyo’s Renkoji temple on what was said to be the 62nd anniversary of his death.

“I don’t really believe that his ashes are there,” said Imroz Reza, an Indian computer engineer based in Japan who was visiting the temple for the fourth time.

“But I’m still so grateful to this temple. It’s a great feeling for people from India,” he said.

Three days after Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrendered and ended World War II, Bose was said to be heading back to Tokyo for consultations. He flew from Thailand to Vietnam and then Taiwan — all then under Japan’s orbit.

According to the official version, Bose died when his plane crashed in Taipei and his body was taken to Japan.

Taneyoshi Yoshimi, a Japanese doctor then based in Taipei, said that Bose was burnt from head to toe when Japanese soldiers carried him to his hospital.

Yoshimi, now 94 and running a small hospital in southern Japan, said it was impossible to save Bose, whom he described as a physical “giant”. “He was conscious and kept saying, ‘water, water,’ in Japanese, asking to drink,” Yoshimi told the news agency.

“Later, around the middle of the night at 11:50 pm, he drew his last breath. There is nothing more I can say than that it was extremely unfortunate,” he said.

“I pray for the soul of this giant who sought India’s independence and gave his life for India.” But alternative theories abound in India. One hypothesis is that Bose was on his way to the Soviet Union to seek a new patron to fight the British after Japan’s defeat. Some say he was spurned and died in a Soviet gulag; others say he returned from Russia to India and lived anonymously as a hermit.

An Indian court-ordered probe last year contended he did not die in Taipei, but New Delhi rejected the findings. Hindu nationalists and other Bose enthusiasts contend the Congress party — Gandhi’s movement which is again in power today — has political reasons to diminish Bose.

Nichiko Mochizuki, the caretaker of the Renkoji temple, dismissed doubts about the ashes.

He said his late father, who previously ran the temple, accepted the ashes because few others would take them in the chaotic aftermath of World War II. He said his father would even sleep holding the urn to make sure no one stole it.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say that there was a political reason to conceal the truth. But so many years have passed, it’s pointless to keep doubting,” said Mochizuki, 66.

“Obviously he holds a special place for Indians. In Japan, he is also popular because he gave his life to bringing independence and Japan supported his movement.” Hajime Nakamura, a scholar at Tokyo’s Teikyo University who has written on Bose, said there were holes in the official line — in particular the lack of photographic evidence to document his death — but that there was no proof to back up other theories, either.

Bose’s legend has also grown because of his own talent at escape. He famously evaded the British by disguising himself as a mute tribesman, fleeing to Afghanistan en route eventually to Germany and later Japan.

His disappearance made him an almost messianic figure, particularly in his native Bengal region.

“Until recently India was a so-to-speak developing country and the Bengali people could show their good points through Bose. They dreamed that if he came back then India would be so much better and they could recover their pride,” Nakamura said.

AN ENDURING SYMBOL: Isoji Tamaki, 91, said he volunteered to recruit Indians for Bose’s Indian National Army and later was a civilian aide to the group in Burma, now known as Myanmar.

After taking over Myanmar, Japan and the Indian National Army staged a daring attack on Imphal in north-eastern India in 1944. The battle ended disastrously, with the Japanese-led forces short of supplies and driven back.

“The Japanese generals all headed back from Imphal in their cars but Bose said, no, my soldiers have to walk so I shall walk with them,” said Tamaki, who has mourned at the Renkoji temple every August 18.

“He had such a passion it cannot be described with words. I pray to him as I would pray to God,” said Tamaki.—AFP