Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s daughter Anita Bose Pfaff and her husband Martin Pfaff. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s daughter Anita Bose Pfaff tagged the 129th birth anniversary of the late freedom fighter to ask all Indians to support the demand for his remains to be brought to India from Tokyo in Japan.
In an email statement issued on the eve of the anniversary, marked as Parakram Diwas (Day of Valour), she said for Netaji Bose the worst thing was contemplation of exile. She wrote that Netaji would have been deeply distressed that his remains are still kept outside his motherland more than 80 years after his death and 78 years after India became free.
“As Netaji’s daughter I invite the Indians of today who still revere him to support his posthumous return from exile; to support the transfer of his mortal remains to India for a final and fitting disposal,” Ms Pffaf said in a statement.
In her statement she recounted that following Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Netaji Bose set out from Singapore for Tokyo but met with a fatal air crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945. Though he survived the initial crash with severe burns, he succumbed to his injuries later that day. He was cremated in Taipei, and his ashes were later taken to Tokyo.
His ashes were held in safekeeping by the chief priest of the Renkoji Temple in Japan, where they lie even today.
While there are sections who believe Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose survived the crash to lead an itinerant life thereafter, Ms Bose has accepted that her father perished in the air crash in 1945. This is also not the first time she has asked for the repatriation of her father’s ashes to India, making a similar appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2025.
Published – January 23, 2026 11:36 am IST
