The Great Escape

Netaji had escaped from the house arrest by British for an unknown political destination in 1941. Very few of us know exactly what had happened that night. This is certainly beyond the conventional thrillers. Mr Sujoy Dhar (Correspondent- Reuters Writer, Inter Press Service; Editor- India Blooms News Service / Trans World Features) gives a interesting account of that chilling escape story.

17 JANUARY, 1941. 1-30 a.m.: A loud clearing of the throat was heard from the top floor of a house on Elgin Road in Calcutta. It was a signal that stirred three anxiously waiting men into action. Like apparitions, they tiptoed down the rear staircase of the house, to a waiting car, a rare German-model Wanderer. The people of Calcutta were in deep slumber that wintry night, but the moon was staring bright on the city. So, the men were cautious that there were no shadows on the walls. One of the three was a distinguished-looking Pathan, in his closed-collar brown long-coat, broad pyjamas and black fez. The one carrying a hold-all opened the rear door for the Pathan, after putting the baggage by the driver's seat. Then he walked quickly to open the front gate of the house. The Pathan took his seat but held the door without closing it, so that anybody awake might not hear two doors closing instead of one. The third person now took the driver's seat and slammed the door, the sound of which only roused a pack of crows from their sleep. When the front gate was opened, he started the car and drove out, making a lot of noise and whizzing past the unsuspecting CID men, comfortably settled under blankets on a makeshift wooden bed, at the strategic junction of Elgin Roadand Woodburn Road. They slept, as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose left Calcuttaforever, for an uncertain future and an unknown political destiny .

But lets move back a month or so, to a day in early December, 1940: Mian Akbar Shah was sitting at his home in Badrashi village, in the Nowshera district of the then North West Frontier Province, when peon brought him a telegram that read: "REACH CALCUTTA-BOSE". The 42-year-old handsome Pathan, then a leader of Netaji's Forward Bloc in the North West Frontier Province, took the earliest Frontier Mail, a night train from Peshawar. He reached Calcutta after three days and put up in a hotel on Mirzapur Street. The next morning he went to see Netaji at his Elgin Road residence where he was convalescing after his release from the Presidency Jail on 5 December that year, following a hunger-strike he had launched in jail. Two court cases were pending against Bose, and he was sure the British would not let him out before the War was over. Hence, he resorted to hunger-strike. Akbar Shah found his leader lying on the bed - weak and bearded.

Mian listened attentively as Netaji said, "Now I intend to go abroad, through the tribal territories of Kabul. So I need your help. You have the experience."

"Yes. It is not a difficult task. But you have to travel up to Peshawar by train, and through the tribal border in disguise," Shah replied.

Bose continued, "Mohammed Sharif, a member of the All India Forward Bloc Working Committee, is helping me. On his advice, I have stopped shaving and have grown a beard. I have a black Sherwani, and am learning from Sharif whatever else is necessary for the disguise." Shah told Netaji to assume the name "Ziauddin', and dress like a Muslim.

"It is time to rise and do something for the freedom of our motherland. The war is on, and I think I must get out of India and personally approach the leaders of countries which are enemies of British imperialism, including those of the Soviet government", Bose stated. The two then discussed the plan threadbare. Shah was introduced to Sisir Bose, Netaji's nephew. Shah and Sisir later went out to shop for the necessary items of disguise from Wachel Molla's, the famous Mohammedan departmental store on Dharamtala Street. Before leaving Calcutta, Shah spent some more time with Netaji, instructing him about his behaviour while passing through the tribal areas, and told him to let the beard grow freely. The language barrier, Shah said, could be solved by covering Bose's mouth and ears with a turban and passing him off as deaf and dumb.

The Boses had two houses. Netaji was staying at the Elgin Road house, while the one at Woodburn Park belonged to his elder brother, Sarat Bose. Sisir Bose, son of brother and freedom fighter Sarat Bose, got a summon from Netaji during the week following Netaji's release. It was about 57 years ago, but Dr Sisir Bose can still vividly recall the day which was to change his life so drastically. Reminisces Dr Bose: "My uncle called me and asked, "Can you do a job for me?' I answered with an ambiguous nod. "How well can you drive?" he enquired. I replied, "Tolerably well on the whole." He continued, "Have you ever done long distance driving?' I said 'no'. 'Look here, you'll have to reach me by car, one night, quite far, say Burdwan or some such place. But nobody must know.' Netaji slowy unravelled his mission. Dr Bose, a person not given to excitement outwardly, walked back to his Woodburn Park home, dazed with subdued excitement. His uncle had, in fact, told him to come back with a plan the following day. The secret confabulation began, and the two sat together on the bed and talked like equals. "What struck me most was that uncle was prepared to accept proposals from me ", Dr Bose recalls.

Initially, Netaji wanted his nephew to execute the whole thing without telling his parents, to which Dr Bose had agreed uncomfortably. The escape plan first went thus: Netaji would openly announce that he was retiring for convalescence to Sarat's garden house at Rishra, and from there Sisir would drive him secretly to Burdwan or Asansol. But this plan was cancelled. So was another plot or depart from Woodburn Park. The ground for the cancellations was the same-such moves would unnecessarily alert the police. Finally, they decided that the escape had to take place from the Elgin Road house itself. Netaji's niece, Ila, became a collaborator along with Sisir.

Relations, visitors, servants, the plainclothes policemen around the house, and even the Alsatian of one of Netaji's brothers, were closely watched. The run-up to the escape had its share of comic elements too. Says Dr Bose, "An unemployed but over-inquisitive relative of ours grew suspicious and started asking questions. So Netaji gave him a letter of introduction to some high-up person in the Tata's at Jamshedpur, along with a lecture on the shame of being in a continued state of unemployment, provided him with the requisite money and told him not to return to Calcutta till he was assured of a job. The gentleman predictably returned toCalcutta after Netaji had escaped, and of course without a job.

On 25th December 1940, Sisir gave his first endurance test, driving at a stretch to Burdwan in the morning and then returning to Calcutta to report to his uncle on the degree of fatigue he felt. He was also assigned to get Netaji's visiting cards printed in the name of Mohd Ziauddin, an insurance company travelling inspector.

Meanwhile, Sisir made a reconnaissance sortie to Bararee, near Dhanbad, where his elder brother was working, in a coalfield.

Ostensibly, Sisir was to bring back his mother from there to Calcutta. The details of the plan had been worked out by then. Netaji declared he was going into seclusion for a few days, when he would not see or talk to anyone. Food, strictly vegetarian, would be passed to him across a screen, to be put up in his room. Sarat Bose and his wife were also taken into confidence, and Dwijendranath, son of Sisir's eldest uncle, was to carry on the drama after escape. The Alsatian of Netaji's doctor brother could have posed problems, if left free in the night. So, when it luckily attacked a visitor one night, the collaborators got enough reason to convince the dog's master to keep it chained at night.

The D-Day arrived and night approached. But two cousins in that large joint family chose to hang around. Dwijen had to lead them upstairs and confine them to bed somehow. He later signalled Netaji, Sisir and Aurobindo, another cousin involved in the plan and entrusted with the job of opening the gate, when the road was clear of CID men.

"We drove out and took a detour deliberately. Moreover, in order to get to the G T Road crossing, we avoided the more convenient Willingdon Bridge at Dakhineshwar, taking the Howrah Bridge instead, because there was a toll system on the former. We heaved a sigh of relief only when we reached French post Chandernagore unscathed, without any encounter with the French police. At one point, while passing through Durgapur, then a forested area infamous for its dacoits, we had a near collision with a pack of buffaloes. Fortunately, the brakes worked and we were saved", narrated late Dr Bose, going down the memory lane.

On reaching his brother's house at Bararee, another round of acting followed. The next day, Sisir, his brother and his wife, drove Netaji to Gomoh, from where he was to catch the Delhi-Kalka Mail. "The train was scheduled hours after midnight. We watched him mount the over-bridge and disappear into the darkness. The rumbling of the approaching mail was audible. Eventually we heard the train steam off and then we saw a garland of lights moving away and away …", writes Dr Bose in his account of The Great Escape.

For a whole week, the drama was carried on, till it became public in a pre-meditated manner. Rumours abounded. Even the AIR, in a bulletin, announced that Netaji was arrested near Dhanbad. This was, however, contradicted later by the Associated Press of India.

According to an article by Mian Akbar Shah, titled "Netaji's Escape - An Untold Chapter", Subhas Bose reached Peshawar Cantonment station on 19 January in the same disguise. He was received there by Akbar himself, and Mohammed Shah and Bhagat Ram, also members of the Forward Bloc. Netaji was first taken to a good Muslim hotel, recommended by their tongawallah, but was later shifted to the house of Abad Khan, a trusted friend of Shah's. From Khan's house, Netaji left in the company of Bhagat Ram, Mohammed Shah and a guide, on 26 January, to find his way to Europe through the tribal territory.

In April 1941, all the upcountry collaborators of Netaji were arrested under the Defence of India Rules and put in jail for several years. In Peshawar, Netaji was helped by these men immensely, and made to look like a perfect tribesman.

According to Dr Bose, for two years, the British administration had no clear idea about the episode in Calcutta. The Central Intelligence even took the Bengal CID to task, and replaced them by the Punjab CID, to deal with what they called the Bose File. The Bengal CID's credibility had nose-dived. According to Dr Bose, though some British diehards, till today, try to project that Netaji could escape because the Bengal CID's surveillance on him had laxed, and that he was a free man when he escaped, the fact remains that there was never a moment when the vigil was relaxed on Netaji. The British had agents inside the Bose house, and even used some of his relations for information. "The truth is, Netaji was tracked down even in foreign countries in the '30s. There were at least 12 agents watching him constantly and reporting to the Special Branch on his every activity- from what he ate to who visited him, when. But nobody could dream that Subhas Bose would escape. After all, his plan was to catch the opponent unaware", says Dr Bose." But there was betrayal at some point later, and the British came to know of our involvement," he adds. Dr Sisir Bose was finally arrested in October 1944, and sent to the notorious Lahore Fort before his release in September 1945. 

Netaji had, in fact, maintained his contact with Calcutta after his escape, and sent messages to his brother, Sarat Bose, through the Japanese consulate. But his meticulous escape plan and its execution became the greatest adventure in the Indian freedom movement, and perhaps the most serious bungle of the British Intelligence in India.