After he was long reported dead, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose continued to live a life of virtual solitary confinement and misery in the guise of a spiritual recluse, Gumnami Baba, in various parts of Uttar Pradesh. These findings presented in two books by Chandrachur Ghose and Anuj Dhar — Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s life after death and Government Doesn’t Want You to Know. This finding is now turned into a web series Conundrum by Democratic India. The series will be directed by Pritam Sarkar and Kingshuk Dey.

A press meet was organized to unveil the poster of the web-series Conundrum. The press meet was graced by Nabin Kumar Saha (producer), director Pritam Sarkar, Kingshuk Dey, Jayanti Rakshit, Arnab Jyoti Paul, and Anuj Dhar, and Chandrachur Ghose.

The finding that the so-called Gumnami Baba was Netaji is backed by handwriting analysis conducted by a leading American handwriting expert Curt Baggett, a consultant with the leading American crime series ‘Crime Scene Investigation’, who is willing to testify before a court and one of India’s foremost experts Ashok Kashyap. 2

For the last 15 years, Chandrachur Ghose and Anuj Dhar meticulously followed every conceivable lead on the mysterious disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose before zeroing in on the catastrophic truth about the fate of the man who freed India.

The authors rummaged through a host of material, most important of which are the letters Gumnami Baba wrote to Dr. Pabitra Mohan Roy, a former INA intelligence man who was sentenced to death in 1944 by the British authorities but was let off along with other INA men as public pressure mounted. Roy’s son made these letters available to the authors. In these, Gumnami Baba referred to events of his past life as Netaji as well as events related to Netaji in the 1960s and beyond. He wrote about the plane crash incident of 1945, which he said was a smokescreen for his escape, and referred to the time he spent in Siberia in Soviet Russia after he was reported dead.

The finding debunks the negative opinion given by government forensic experts before Justice Manoj Mukherjee Commission, which prevented the commission from arriving at the same conclusion the Ghose and Dhar do now. After his inquiry got over Mukherjee, a former SC judge was inadvertently caught on tape saying that he was 100 percent sure that Gumnami Baba was Netaji but could not prove it.

The two books co-authored by Ghose and Dhar further demonstrate that DNA tests conducted in two Government labs are not reliable.

Why does Gumnami Baba/Netaji did not emerge in public? The two books assess several theories in consultation with psychologists, that his non-appearance could be attributed to an apparent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which manifested in occasional false memories and delusions (paranoid and grandiose) in him.

The conclusion reached in these two books that Gumnami Baba was Netaji is clinching because it is backed by far stronger evidence—eyewitness, documentary and forensic—than what the Govt of India has adduced in favor of the air crash theory of Netaji’s death.

Many films and web-series have been made on Netaji, but with this web-series focus will be given to the disappearance of Netaji and his life after the plane crash.

It is a great series to look forward to!!

Priyanka Dutta