New Netaji museum to offer rare chunks of INA history at Red Fort

NEW DELHI: The newly inaugurated museum on Subhas Chandra Bose and INA at Red Fort is likely to get rare memorabilia in the form of uniforms, medals and other artefacts that have so far been privately held.
Many INA veterans and their families have promised to either donate or lend uniforms, weapons, medals and diaries to the museum which is housed in the same barrack, B3, where the INA trials had been held in 1945.


“Lalta Singh, a 94-year-old INA veteran from Panchkula, has promised to give three medals given to him by Netaji. Another veteran, 91-year-old Lieutenant Bharti Rai used to write a diary in Japanese as a soldier of Rani Jhansi Regiment. This has also been promised to us,” said Prof Kapil Kumar, historian and curator of the museum on behalf of ASI.




Netaji’s revolver and pistol have also been promised to the museum by the son of INA supporter Seth Trilok Singh Chaawla, a Bangkok-based businessman. These were frequently worn by him on his belt. “Once the technicalities of bringing firearms from Thailand to India are worked out by the respective governments, we will have them in the museum,” said Kumar.

Families of known INA veterans are also being contacted to donate personal items from their collections. “I have contacted the nephew of Colonel Mohan Singh to donate INA uniforms and other items for display. There are also many items by families of INA supporters in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Japan who we are requesting to either donate or lend to the museum. We are in touch with Indian missions to contact these families,” said Kumar.

Within India itself, families of INA veterans aren’t the only ones holding on to precious memorabilia. There are files in the National Archives of India detailing interrogation reports of INA soldiers, which ASI is requesting to be loaned to the museum for display. “The Indian Army also has in its possession Japanese equipment. We have requested the Army to identify these and pass them on to us,” Kumar said.

So far, the museum has items that cover Bose’s life right from childhood to adulthood, his journey as a political leader, travels to other nations to seek support for India’s independence, even his last recorded picture leaving a plane at Saigon in Vietnam. There’s the uniform of INA leader Lieutenant Bharti Rai and Netaji’s famed sword. A chair used by him at Rangoon headquarters is also on display. It was bought in 1980 when Bose’s nephew A N Bose was in Burma. There are also medals worn by INA members, shoulder insignia, identity cards, ledger and diary of Shah Nawaz Khan.

A documentary on Bose and INA with a voiceover by actor Abhishek Bachchan will also be shown.

“For the first time, the assassination orders of Bose by the British secret service to its agents in Cairo and Istanbul have been displayed. The records kept by American intelligence have also been displayed for the first time, as is a fake news of his death in a plane crash near Tokyo in the New York Times of March 29, 1942,” Kumar said.