Subhas Bose's relatives were under surveillance

Indian Intelligence Bureau kept relatives of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the legends of India's freedom struggle, under close surveillance for two decades, mostly during Jawaharlal Nehru's tenure as the first prime minister.

The Intelligence Bureau files, declassified recently, revealed Bose's close relatives, including two of his nephews, Sisir Kumar Bose and Amiya Nath Bose, were spied upon for 20 years between 1948 and 1968.

Reacting to being snooped on, Prof Sugata Bose, Subhas' grand nephew and also a lawmaker, said:

"Yes, it is a poor reflection on the quality of India's democracy in the first two decades that there was such invasion of privacy of freedom fighters. It is not just a family matter.

"The most disgraceful aspect of this surveillance is that private letters between my father and his aunt (Netaji's wife) were being opened and read and copied. It's a matter of great disrespect to the freedom struggle and freedom fighters."

Anuj Dhar, the author of the book 'India's Biggest Cover-up', had stumbled upon the files at National Archives while researching on Bose.

Bose quit Congress before independence over differences with Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi and launched an organised military resistance against the British after raising the Indian National Army in South East Asia.

His death, reportedly in a plane crash in Taiwan in August 1945, remains a mystery to this day.