Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose did not want fame or power. He wanted to liberate his country from foreign shackles and he was largely successful. Largely because brown sahibs continued in place of whites using the same tactics of rule in a more subtle way. To quote Not by struggle would India become free, Mason was saying. Not by struggle did she, the twelve volumes of India: The Transfer of Power announce. The instruments of governance were not won, they were delivered, in the manner of the father handing the car keys to his son. Among those instruments, perhaps chief among them, was the Indian Army. It was to be passed on as it stood, regimental flags, battle honors, the full range of practice and tradition, untouched and inviolate. It was because Bose and his Jiffs had by their very presence threatened to bring the structure down, that it had been thought necessary (Bose being dead) to put Jiffs on trial."
The Indian Marxist historians have deliberately followed the footsteps of their colonial masters to obliterate the legacy of the freedom fighter, just as they have done for other heroes like Shivaji. They have acted like court historians and have upheld the legacy of a particular mode of freedom struggle that suited their narratives and enabled them to get more rewards. Government has tried to give as minimal space as possible to the real selfless heroes of the freedom movement just to build the narrative in favour of a political party, naming all the country’s assets in their leaders’ names. Self seeking, selfish political leaders would not find Subhas and INA’s selfless contribution palatable. So the legacy is erased. INA soldiers were denied a place and position in Indian Army or were asked to start at the very bottom of the ranks, their pensions withheld and many of them were denied to freedom fighter’s benefit and made to remain under poverty. Some of the INA heroes were bought off by offering them plum posts and positions. The other factor behind it was jealousy and fear. The Congress Government always were afraid of the fact that the plane crash was fake and Subhas would come back to claim his rightful place. That’s why they tried hard to erase his memory while secretly always trying to locate him.