: How Netaji lived on as Gumnami Baba in the minds of believers #IndiaNEWS #India Lucknow: Rarely ever in history has the enigma of a leader lived on for more than 77 years after his demise. Subhash

How Netaji lived on as Gumnami Baba in the minds of believers #IndiaNEWS #India
Lucknow: Rarely ever in history has the enigma of a leader lived on for more than 77 years after his demise.
Subhash Chandra Bose may have died in an air crash in August 1945, but for those who believed in him, he lived on and on as Gumnami Baba.
Gumnami, in Hindi, means anonymity.
Many believe that Gumnami Baba was actually Netaji (Bose) who lived in the guise of a sadhu at several places in Naimisharanya, Basti, Ayodhya and Faizabad.
He kept changing places, mostly within the city itself.
Baba, as he was called, remained a complete recluse and interacted with only a handful of believers who visited him regularly. He never stepped out of his house, rather room, and majority of the people claim to have seen him only from a distance.
One of his landlords, Gurbax Singh Sodhi, tried twice to take him to the Faizabad Civil Court on the pretext of some work but failed.
This information is corroborated by his son Manjit Singh in his deposition to Justice Sahai Commission of Inquiry, set up to identify Gumnami Baba.
Later a journalist, Virendra Kumar Mishra, too lodged a complaint with the police.
Gumnami Baba finally settled in an out-house of Ram Bhavan at Faizabad in 1983 where he reportedly died on September 16, 1985, and was cremated two days later, on September 18.
Strangely, there is no proof that any person really died. There is no death certificate, no photograph of the dead body nor of the people present during cremation. There is no cremation certificate either.
In fact, Gumnami Babas passing away was not known to people until, 42 days after his supposed death.
His life and death, both, remained shrouded in mystery and no one knows why.
A local newspaper, Janmorcha, had earlier conducted an inquiry on the issue. They found no evidence of Gumnami Baba being Netaji.
Its editor, Sheetla Singh visited Netajis associate Pabitra Mohan Roy at Kolkata in November 1985.
Roy said: We have been visiting every sadhu and mysterious individual in search of Netaji, from Saulmari to Kohima to Punjab. In the same manner, we also visited Babaji at Basti, Faizabad and Ayodhya. But I can say with certainty that he was not Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
Despite denials from sources official or others his believers refused to accept that Gumnami Baba was not Netaji.
Though the Uttar Pradesh government has officially rejected the claim that Gumnami Baba was actually Bose in disguise, his followers still refuse to accept the claim.
The Gumnami believers had moved court in 2010 and brought out a judgment in favour of their petition with the high court directing the UP government to establish the identity of Gumnami Baba.
Accordingly, the government set up an inquiry commission on June 28, 2016, headed by Justice Vishnu Sahai.