Date:24/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/24/stories/2008012461011200.htm

National

Netaji’s birth anniversary celebrated

Staff Reporter

— Photo: PTI

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi with Krishna Bose, sister-in-law of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and chairperson, Netaji Research Bureau, and her son Sugata Bose (left) and Professor Leonard Gordon, biographer of Netaji at a function in Kolkata on Wednesday.

Kolkata: The Centre is interested in opening a branch of the Netaji Research Bureau in New Delhi, the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here on Wednesday.

Mr. Mukherjee was speaking at the 111th birth anniversary celebrations of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, organised by the Netaji Research Bureau.

“An icon despite himself”

Netaji’s writings form the basis of the country’s Look East policy, Mr. Mukherjee said. “The Prime Minister is also willing and we will have to make this happen,” he added. Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, speaking on the occasion, said that Netaji had become “an icon despite himself”. “It is Hind, not himself, that he sought to pedestal,” Mr. Gandhi said.

Netaji’s ideals

Krishna Bose, chairperson, Netaji Research Bureau, said that for the youth to uphold Netaji’s ideal, they must work for the three communities that Netaji considered dormant, namely, women, the downtrodden and the labouring classes, including the peasants.

At a separate function Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu and Biman Bose, Chairman of the Left Front Committee, offered flowers at Netaji’s statue.