Death of Subhas Chandra Bose

In the consensus of scholarly opinion, the death of Subhas Chandra Bose occurred from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 after his overloaded Japanese plane crashed in Japanese-occupied Taiwan (then called "Formosa"). However, many among his supporters, especially in Bengal, refused then, and have refused since, to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death. Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have had a long shelf life, keeping alive various martial myths about Bose.

Introduction
Subhas Chandra Bose, a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement that sought an end to the British Raj, was reported to be flying to Tokyo with Tsunamasa Shidei, a general of the Imperial Japanese army, when their plane crashed at Matsuyama aerodrome (now Songshan Airport) in Taipei, northern Formosa (now Taiwan). After cremation, Bose's ashes were taken to Japan and interred at the Renkōji Temple in Tokyo. The news was withheld by the Japanese government for five days before being announced by a Japanese news agency, Domei.

After India's independence, the matter was looked into by three official panels formed by the government of India following the public demands. These panels were: Shah Nawaz Committee, Justice GD Khosla Commission & Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry. The Shah Nawaz Committee and the Justice GD Khosla Commission upheld the Taiwan crash version. The Mukherjee Commission's report concluded that Bose was not killed in an airplane accident, but the report was not accepted by the government.

There have been allegations that the Indian Intelligence Bureau had doctored an intelligence report to "prove" Bose's death.

However, it has also been alleged at various times that the Indian government and political leadership was aware that Bose may have been alive, and according to one theory, in captivity in Soviet Union,  but chose to ignore or actively collaborate to suppress this information after Independence.

Shah Nawaz Committee (1956)
In April 1956, the Jawaharlal Nehru Government formed a committee headed by Shah Nawaz Khan. Khan had earlier risen to the rank of Lt Col in the Second Indian National Army, before he was captured by allied troops after the fall of Hind and was one of the three charged with treason in the Red Fort Trial. He was thus seen as an appropriate person to head the inquiry. Two other members of the inquiry commission were SN Mitra and Suresh Chandra Bose, Bose's elder brother. The committee's report that Bose had indeed died in Taipei became disputed due to several reasons. The most important among them was the dissentient report of Suresh Bose. Suresh Bose refused to agree with the findings of his colleagues and accused them and the Government of India of trying to coerce him into agreeing with their views.

In mid-1990s the released archives of Indian Political Intelligence proved conclusively that Bose was killed in 1945. Since rumours were circulating that he was still alive, Indian Political Intelligence arranged for Military Intelligence in New Delhi to investigate the matter. Captain Turner of the War Crimes Liaison Section in Taiwan(formerly called Formosa) was put on to the case and he managed to locate the last person to have seen Bose alive. This was Captain (Medical), who was under arrest in Stanley He gave a statement that resolved the matter: ‘I personally cleaned his injuries with oils and dressed them. He was suffering from extensive burns over the whole of his body, though the most serious were those on his head, chest and thighs. During the first four hours he was semi-conscious...he murmured, and muttered in his state of coma, but never regained consciousness. At about 2300 hrs he died. I injected Formalin into the body and also had the coffin partly filled with lime.’ The coffin was then taken away and Bose's body was cremated.

G. D. Khosla Commission
The Khosla Commission was set up in 1970 to probe the disappearance of Bose. The commission concluded that Bose died in the plane crash. The report was accepted by the Indian government, then led by Indira Gandhi.

Later, protests by M.P.s during the prime ministership of Morarji Desai resulted in Desai saying that ""The Shah Nawaz Committee and the Khosla Commission hold the report of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's death following a plane crash as true. Since then, reasonable doubts have been cast on the correctness in the two reports and various important contradictions in the testimony of the witnesses have been noticed. Some further contemporary official documentary records have also become available. In the light of those doubts and contradictions and those records, government finds it difficult to accept that the earlier conclusions are decisive."

Mukherjee Commission (1999)
In 1999, following a court order, the Bharatiya Janata Party led Indian government formed a one-man board called the Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry. It was headed by Justice (rtd) M.K. Mukherjee of the Supreme Court of India. The commission perused hundreds of files on Bose's death drawn from several countries and also visited Japan, Russia and Taiwan.

Mukherjee's findings were that the news of Bose's death in Taipei was a cover-up for his escape to the USSR. The Commission, however, stated that they could not confirm Bose's presence in the USSR for want of evidence.

The Mukherjee Commission submitted its report to Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil on November 8, 2005. The report was tabled in the Indian Parliament on May 17, 2006. The Congress Party led Indian Government rejected the findings of the Commission.