War criminal: Historian Ram Guha dismisses Nehru’s alleged letter on Netaji as fake

January 23, 2016, NewsCrunch

Noted historian Ramchandra Guha has dismissed a letter that was allegedly written by Jawaharlal Nehru calling Subhas Chanrda Bose, a war criminal, as fake .

The controversial letter on Netaji, which has been attributed to Nehru is dated Dec 27, 1945. It is addressed to Prime Minister of England, Clement Attlee, and refers to Netaji as a 'war criminal.'

The letter has been in circulation for sometime and different variants of it have been available in social media for sometime now. There is one version loaded with spelling mistakes, typing Downing streetas Down street.

Nehru’s critics have cited the letter as evidence of his antipathy to Netaji, while Nehru’s supporters have dismissed it as propaganda.

But a report filed by India Today on Saturday gave it credence and sent it viral.

Senior journalist Rahul Kanwal reported an exclusive claiming that in one of the newly declassified files, Jawahar Lal Nehru had referred to Subhas Chandra Bose as a 'war criminal.'

His report, published before the 100 files were declassified on Saturday, was based on “sources in the Modi government who have knowledge of the Netaji files.”

Kanwal also added that the “letter by Nehru was likely to set off a political furore in India as it feeds the long held notion that Nehru was unfair to the legacy of the great Netaji Bose.”

Aaj Tak TV, also from India Today group, reported on the letter.

There seems to be some support to Guha’s claim that the letter is fake.

A DNAreport publishes a newly declassified file in which the UK Government says it had not classified Netaji as a war criminal.

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