13 April 2015

The IB knows all

Apr 11, 2015

The IB is very good at information trivia. Who came and who went is its standard fare. It often flubs when it comes to reading the obvious or connecting the dots. Most people don’t realise that spying is not entirely about catching traitors, but mostly about gathering information. 

The media is making a frenzied meal out of the alleged snooping of the remnants of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s family in Calcutta from 1948 to 1968. According to official sources in Japan, Bose died on August 18, 1945, from third-degree burns, when the overladen Mitsubishi K1-21 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from Taihoku in Formosa (Taiwan). Bose was accompanied by Lt. Gen. Tsunamasa Shidei, Vice-Chief of Staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria, and his secretary, Col. Habibur Rahman of the Indian National Army. While the Japanese crew and Gen. Shidei died immediately, Bose survived with severe burns. Col. Rahman escaped unscathed. Bose was treated by Japanese doctors but did not survive. He was cremated on August 20 and his ashes were flown to Tokyo and handed over to Rama Murti, president of the Tokyo Indian Independence League. On September 14, after a ceremony, the urn was placed in the Renkoji temple in Tokyo, where they still lie — unclaimed by a family which will not let him rest in peace and unclaimed by a government too afraid to provoke a storm.

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