12 April 2015

Jawaharlal Nehru spied on Subhas Chandra Bose's family for 20 years

April 10, 2015

Bose and Nehru at a Congress meet.Two recently declassified Intelligence Bureau (IB) files have revealed that the Jawaharlal Nehru government spied on the kin of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades.

The files, which have since been moved to the National Archives, show unprecedented surveillance on Bose's family members between 1948 and 1968. Nehru was the prime minister for 16 of the 20 years and the IB reported directly to him. The files show the IB resumed British-era surveillance on the two Bose family homes in Calcutta: 1 Woodburn Park and 38/2 Elgin Road. Apart from intercepting and copying letters written by Bose's family members, agency sleuths shadowed them on their domestic and foreign travels. The agency seemed especially keen to know who all the Bose kin met and what they discussed. A series of hand-written messages shows the agents phoned in 'Security Control', as the IB headquarters was called, to report on the family's movements.

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