A DIPLOMAT'S QUEST FOR NETAJI

Rai Singh was born on July 1, 1924 in a Haryana village. He had his elementary education in the village, but had to restart his primary education in various princely states in Rajputana - now Rajasthan. He graduated from Punjab University, Lahore, and did Master\\'s in Economics from Agra University. He qualified for his Ph.D. from the School of International Studies, New Delhi - now a part of the JNU - but could not complete his thesis on UN due to unavoidable circumstances.

Singh joined World War-II in July 1944 and left the Army in January 1947. He wrote his thesis on the Problems of Railway Workshops in 1948 and did various jobs connected with Railway labour problems.

In December 1948 he joined the Monitoring Service at Shimla. As a news analyst he probed into many issues of international and national importance. He joined the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in July 1956, and retired on June 30, 1982 as Director of Information Service of India (ISI). During his service with the MEA he performed wide range of duties and had to travel widely in connection with his official work. The areas include West Asia, Africa and Europe. He represented India at the FAO on the Cereals Committee at Rome.

Rai Singh\\'s interest in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose started during his school days. He still recalls the speeches delivered by Netaji in Berlin and in Tokyo after Netaji escaped from British India in 1941. In fact, Singh knew Alberto Qrioni, the Italian Consul-General who had provided Netaji with travel documents to travel from Kabul to Rome. Qrioni later became the President of Italian Radio and Television (RAI-TV), and Singh met him several times in that capacity while he served as an Indian diplomat in Rome. Besides, Singh came into contact with Professor Girija Mookherji, who was with Netaji during World War-II and had accompanied him as an interpreter during his meeting with Adolf Hitler.

Though Singh did not have the opportunity to join the INA, he officially acted as interpreter of the INA personnel, brought to India by the British as POWs, lodged in Ferozpore Cantonment. He also kept himself abreast of the INA trials at Red Fort in New Delhi and met Bhulabhai Desai, the chief defence counsel of the INA leaders during the Red Fort trial.

Over the decades, Rai Singh kept his eyes and ears open to informations about to Netaji. He brings those nuggets to you now, here at Mission Netaji.

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