\\"I pledge to keep this secret\\"

Northern India Patrika

Had the Mahant of Khairabad living at a stone\\'s throw from Lal-Kothi, known that it was not the first sojourn of the Man, he would have thrown a fight. During the first few months of 1962, the man and his three companions had sojourned at Shankar Niwas in Darshan Nagar Village, not surprisingly any more, in an isolated palatial building belonging to the illustrious maharaja of Ayodhya.

These periods were not with out any excitement for the anonymous characters in this high drama. At Shankar Niwas, for instance, the Man had a very close shave with the world around him. One morning, the villagers around climbed the high trees around Shankar Niwas to catch a glimpse of him. But strangely for a man who had ostensibly renounced this world, the security system was tight. A man wielding an automatic weapon sprang out from nowhere and threatened that he would not hesitate to shoot to kill if the intruders did not retreat immediately. Like chattering monkeys, the villagers scampered down the trees and fled.

It was more than a coincidence that in 1964, he sojourned for nine years at the Shraistha Kothi belonging again to the royal section of Basti. For an outsider, a Man overtly never cared to cultivate the external world the contact system seemed to be functioning like a well oiled machine. His undercover links appeared to be incredible in this region of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

So the strategically located, Shraistha Kothi belonging to the Raja of Basti was the next abode. Something of the stony, motionless quality of these lonely adjourns seemed to have intricately woven itself into the personality of the Man. He remained mysteriously aloof communicating no verbal or revelation to even men like the lawyer of Basti who was destined to come nearest to the Man. Verbal mandates through the curtain was all that he received.

Yet, those who met him from behind the cinnamon curtain were later literally crushed by his resonant voice. The eyes of the man peered into the innermost recesses of the soul of those who were in front of the unnatural barrier. There was a total unanimity that he could see everything in their hearts. His extraordinary deep voice, would send a wave of thundering vibrations all around the area, giving the impression to all who heard him, that the Man had perceived pages that belonged to a foggy past, they all had forgotten. All, whether it was the rustic few, or the materialistic doctors around him, all felt a sense of exhalation and lightness before his hidden presence. The feelings, strangely, were unanimous. We did not have to prompt any one of the few characters who were in the outer or inner perimeter of the man, to come to this conclusion; the only conclusion they had come to before us and yet not revealing his identity.

What was striking to men and women who observed his activities was that there was no question of revaluation of the Man, who on the surface was of little or no use to the political and economic functions of his environment. Neither was he a burden to the society. On the contrary, all those who managed to come close to him, either out of devotion or sympathy, were all made rich during …(?) time, taking advantage of the fact that they knew some secrets of the Man which were worth revealing. Saraswati Devi Shukla, living with Baba since the Lucknow days gets a big building built up for her in front of Civil Hospital at Basti for all to see. Then the son of Saraswati Devi Shukla, Raj Kumar Shukla, was also taking money from the Baba on one plea or the other. Lastly, according to a letter found at Ram Bhawan recently, he had asked for Rs.5000, which Shukla said, would strictly be treated as a loan to start some business. Our back-up team on a visit to Basti found an indigenous mustard oil crusher set up at the house of Saraswati Devi and Shukla was very much enjoying the residence and business there. Confronted with a member of our team, Shukla said that he has been seeing the Man since his childhood and he was not Netaji. Asked has he ever seen photographs of Netaji, he replied in the negative.

During the entire course of his exile, if the Man really needed society, it was only out of compulsions dictated by exigencies of time. As far as the world was concerned, even in these trying times, the man was officially dead? Such was the strategy devised around him.

From this time it was not a cynical and down-to-earth policeman who came under the vigil of the Man. It was a lawyer, Mr Durga Prasad Pandey, who was struck by the string of coincidences around the abandoned Shraistha Kothi.

Invariably, around January 22-23rd, cars came by night; people later identified as coming from Calcutta brought delicious food for the Man on his birthday, which fell on January 23. Later it was proved and seen that Dr Pabitra Mohan Roy was one of the nocturnal visitors to the Man\\'s place. Dr Roy was one of the top officials of the Secret Services of the Indian National Army and closely linked to the Axis information channels of World War II.

Mr Durga Prasad Pandey was once again intrigued by the strange happenings around his sequestered structure. But Shraistha Niwas was now under constant observations, not with the intention of bringing any harm to the Man as in Shankar Niwas, but with the objective of discreetly unmasking the true character of the occupant living in utmost secrecy.

Events conspired to convince the Lawyer that the Man was indeed, none other than Subhash Chandra Bose, the hero of the masses, who was being compelled to live in such pitiful conditions for reasons his mind could not fathom. How could a lawyer of a remote town of Uttar Pradesh unravel the web of international intrigue and controversy surrounding a Man, who had presumably died in an air crash in Taipei on August 18,1945?

The only way out, therefore, was to communicate with the Man himself. So, summoning up all his courage, he wrote on February 10, 1967 to the Man, with the traditional "Jai Hind". This letter tough written at Basti, was found in the huge amount of material belonging to the Man at Ram Bhawan by a member of our backup team who was present at the time of preparation of the inventory of the materials left by the Man at his final abode at Faizabad.

Durga Prasad Pandey wrote:

You had been an ex-ICS of profound scholarship and far reaching command over English marked with an enormously beautiful and elegant handwriting. January 23rd was celebrated as your Birth Day here, the most auspicious Day, the day of the country, when the immortal word of "Jai Hind" resounded through and through all the flora and fauna on the Indian soil. I pledge to keep this secret as long as I am in this world. My pleasure is thy pleasure.

This letter although cleverly couched hinted that the lawyer had, by now, come to know all about the Man. The lawyer said he had personally observed that on August 15 and January 26, a discreet ceremony was held at Shraistha Niwas, a national flag fluttering in the breeze. Was it a kind of threat, a warning to reveal all? Only if the man could have replied but He is no more.

With what fleet footed swiftness of conviction he stalked his query, was again demonstrated eleven days later, when the Man did not reply.

The lawyer was in a position to strike a deal and be allowed to share a secret rather than blow the man\\'s cover. And he succeeded. Mr. Durga Prasad Pandey said. I was committed not to speak a word about \\'Swamiji\\' as my relation with him was like a guru and disciple\\'.

November this year, he was interrogated by a special intelligence team at Basti, the lawyer angrily claimed that had he divulged in detail the name and his knowledge of the Man, the Government would have "shaken", adding in a melancholy manner that at least one page of the History of India would remain a virgin blank on the last days of Netaji.

The lawyer disclosed to our team that important figures and distinguished personalities and leaders of the country were very much in the know of the existence of Netaji in this part of the country but had remained mum.

The most important revelation of the Basti lawyer was that wherever the Man lived He entrusted his life and security in the hands of only one man at a time, taking the final and calculated risk whether he was killed or revealed to the world. From his revelations it was clear that Netaji trusted the Purohit of Ayodhya, Ram Kishore Mishra, whose house was negotiated later by the Basti lawyer himself.

There are startling disclosures in the version of the Basti lawyer which clearly indicate that the man was not just a recluse, but an important political personality in the pages of Indian history, a history written more by foreigners than natives of the soil, a history that has undergone radical changes and corrections with the unearthing of rotting skeletons in the cupboard and in the most unusual places of this vast land.

Indeed, the conversation between the lawyer and the Man floated beyond perfunctory and varied scraps of talk, removing the doubts of the lawyer that the former indeed was the legendary Netaji. He deliberately went into the reams of specific matters concerning the "Azad Hind Fauj"(INA), Singapore, Hiroshima and Germany, according to our backup man at Basti, Mr Rajendra Prasad Srivastava who was given the task to grill the lawyer.

The lawyer corroborated to our backup team that the Man had come from Nepal and his role in shifting him to the houses of the Purohit in Ayodhya. Also it was also getting exceedingly clear that the fair Bengali lady had by then disappeared into thin air, and the later was alleged to have passed away in Calcutta, but not before leaving vital evidence - letters she had written to the man under the name of Lila Roy.

At Basti itself, the Man got himself into trouble, as in Shankar Niwas. For one thing, yet another sleuth, the Station House Officer of the Kotwali police station, wanted to burst the mystery of the nameless Man. The breeze of rumours were steadily increasing that the Man was none other than Netaji. . The mystery deepened once again, for the policeman, when he insisted in getting an audience with the Gumnami Baba, was summarily transferred. After all, everything, strange events, transpired only in darkness. Heavily curtained cars of all makes, local and imported, city sahibs in three piece suits, fat wallets, everybody seemed to be asking for this Man, who apart from his meditation, smoked only the finest cigarettes and got the best medical care in the vicinity. It was found that food packets of finest quality were procured for \\'Swamiji\\' from Delhi and the cigarettes came from Delhi too. Then the lady helper of the man, who was with him, since the Lucknow sojourn got entangled with some Forward Bloc activists who came dangerously near him.

In retrospect, the turning exile of time, the hub of space still eluded this personality , we sought so diligently and doggedly, tempting one, after hearing from distinguished persons of the area, to strike off at an unexpected target, forgetting the principal purpose of the investigation. For this skeptical age treats the search for truth as a trifle, while spending most energy upon the serious pursuit of what the best moments reveal to be trifles.

The lawyer of Basti was definitely on a truth hunt and made his \\'commitment\\' to the Man in 1967, in his own words, never to reveal the secret and that too in black and white.

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