In an interview to mark the 80th death anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on August 18, his great-nephew, author and journalist Ashis Ray, has revealed that Bose’s daughter, professor Anita Pfaff, has repeatedly written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking to meet him so she can arrange to bring her father’s ashes to India. Modi has not even acknowledged the letters leave aside reply to them, Ray said.

“She has written letters more than once to Narendra Modi. Not once has he even acknowledged these letters let alone provide a proper answer. That tells you again the attitude of the Government of India," he said.

In the interview, Ray spoke of a meeting with Union external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in London. Jaishankar was the foreign secretary at the time. Ray asked him to arrange for permission for Netaji’s ashes to be brought to India. Ray said: “I had a chat with Jaishankar … the purpose of my meeting was to impress upon him that he should impress upon the Government of India – Modi had become Prime Minister by that stage – to bring the remains back … what do you think was the response? He said ‘why do you want this thing to come back? Let it be’ And that kind of thing. I was pretty shocked by this response.”

Watch the full interview.

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