The President of the United States sat with a serious face as an official read out the executive order Thursday on declassifying files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
“That’s a big one,” Donald Trump said as he signed the order at the Oval office. “A lot of people have been waiting for years. For decades. And everything will be revealed. Okay.”
Trump has reportedly directed his attorney general and director of national intelligence to give him a plan within 15 days “for the full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy”.
On October 14, 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on X (then Twitter), “Process of declassification of files relating to Netaji will begin on 23rd January 2016, Subhas Babu's birth anniversary.”
JFK to Trump is what Bose is to Modi
JFK was a Democrat. Trump is a Republican. Subhas Bose was a socialist who harboured strong views against the Hindu Mahasabha. Modi is from the BJP, known for its Hindu hardline and conservative views.
Trump and Modi have a common enemy. A shadowy global Left-wing deep state under the supposed aegis of the likes of currency speculator George Soros trying to destablise their citadel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to a portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his birth anniversary, at Central Hall of Samvidhan Sadan in New Delhi, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (PTI)
The BJP and the Republicans have similar views on immigration, refugees. Both Trump and Modi like blaming past leaders, governments for all ills in their country. Both have stormed to power on the promise of cleansing a rotten system – Trump promising to “drain the swamp” and Modi vowing to give back power to Bharat from Lutyens’ Delhi.
And a large portion of their supporters, especially online, feed on conspiracy theories.
JFK and Subhas Chandra Bose, at the other end
JFK remains one of the most popular US Presidents of all time despite being in power for just two years. Subhas Chandra Bose’s popularity extends from India’s northeast to the southern states.
Given the time critical period of history they belonged to, both were anti-imperialist.
“The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent,” JFK told the US Senate in 1957.
“The great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism – and today that means Soviet imperialism and, whether we like it or not, and though they are not to be equated, Western imperialism…If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security… I am concerned today that we are failing to meet the challenge of imperialism – on both counts – and thus failing in our responsibilities to the free world.”
JFK, in his 1960 election campaign, called out the Eisenhower administration on its Africa policies and remained focused that the US should be anti-colonial and pro-self-determination during the Cold War.
These comments stand out just as much in contrast against Trump’s statements as do the comments of Bose against Modi’s party’s words and actions.
“The Hindu Mahasabha has sent monks and nuns with tridents in their hands begging for votes,” Subhas Bose said in a speech in Jhargram, Bengal, in 1940. “Hindu Mahasabha has entered politics by taking advantage of religion and has desecrated it. Every Hindu needs to condemn them.”
In a 1939 issue of a Forward Bloc publication, Netaji wrote about V.D. Savarkar, whom Modi’s party eulogises: “We cannot oblige Mr. Savarkar by ignoring the contributions of the nationalist Muslims to the cause of India.”
JFK assassination theories return
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), the 35th US President, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. A democrat, he was in power from January 20, 1961.
All the conspiracy theories about his assassination have come flooding back on the internet after Trump’s order. Including videos claiming to have been newly released. Spoiler alert, they aren’t.
But the Internet is rife with theories — linking CIA, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Mossad, the mafia and the erstwhile Soviet Union.
Trump’s health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr believes the same about his uncle. “There’s overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in his murder,” he has said. “It’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.”
JFK’s grandson, the journalist Jack Schlossberg, differed.
“JFK conspiracy theories —The truth is a lot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme. Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it,” Schlossberg wrote on his X handle.
The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose ‘mystery’
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s family also differs widely about his death, which is one of India’s longest running mysteries in the minds of many people.
Netaji is believed to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan, while on his way to Saigon, on August 18, 1945 and died in an army hospital. His ashes are said to be preserved at Japan’s Renkoji temple.
Three commissions were formed – Shah Nawaz commission in 1956, GD Khosla Commission in 1970 and Justice MK Mukherjee Commission in 1999 – to probe his death. The last one concluded that Netaji did not die in the aircrash – but the then Congress-led UPA government refused to accept the report.
There are many theories. Some say he escaped to Russia and died in a gulag there, others say he lived as a hermit in Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh in 1985 – even though DNA evidence has ruled that out, according to the Mukherjee Commission.
A Japanese war-time report declassified in 2016 said Netaji did die in the aircrash.
Like JFK, there have been scores of books and movies on Netaji. Because conspiracies don't die. They can always be revived for mass consumption.
