Gumnami Baba lived in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Faizabad till 1985, and many believe he was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. After the high court called Gumnami Baba 'an extraordinary person', it directed the UP government in 2013 to set up a panel to end the controversy about his identity.

#Gumnami #Proenjit #MovieReview Gumnaami (2019) is an upcoming Indian Bengali mystery film written and directed by Srijit Mukherji and produced by Shrikant M. Amazon.in - Buy Gumnami Baba- A Case History book online at best prices in India on Amazon.in. Read Gumnami Baba- A Case History book reviews & author details and more at Amazon.in. Free delivery on qualified orders. Lucknow, July 24 The controversy over whether the Gumnami Baba of Faizabad was actually Subhas Chandra Bose, is about to be put to rest. The Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission's report on the mysteriou. Extract from the foreword: I, many of the Bose family and millions of Indians have long been of the firm view that Netaji did not die in a plane crash at Taihoku Aerodrome on 18 August 1945, for the simple and excellent reason that there was no plane crash at Taihoku Aerodrome on 18 August 1945On 22 September, I appeared before the “Gumnami Baba” Commission of Inquiry.

Gumnaami is an Indian Bengali-language mystery film directed by Srijit Mukherji,^[2] which deals with Netaji's Death Mystery, based on the Mukherjee Commission Hearings. It has been produced by Shrikant Mohta, Pranay Ranjan and Mahendra Soni under the banner of Shree Venkatesh Films.^[3] Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee plays the roles of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Gumnaami Baba.^[4]

The principal photography began in May 2019 in Asansol, West Bengal.^[5] The film was released theatrically on 2 October 2019.^[1]

Plot[edit]

The film is based on the Mukherjee Commission Hearings and shows a dramatized version of the works of Anuj Dhar, Chandrachur Ghose and the Mission Netaji. The film shows the three theories trying to explain the death or disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose.The film starts with Subhash Chandra Bose at the Congress Conference. A courageous Subhash disagrees to follow the nonviolent methods of Gandhi and resigns from INC. He then travels the world disguised himself to make allies while confronting the British Army.In 2003, journalist Chandrachur Dhar(Anirban Bhattacharya) is given an assignment for sending reports on Subhash Chandra Bose Death mystery. He takes up the assignment and spends months to gather evidence and knowledge about Bose. His neglecting attitude towards his wife(Tanusree Chakraborty) compelled her to divorce him. Mentally frustrated Dhar quits his job and forms a group entirely dedicated to the purpose for solving the mystery.

At the 2005 Mukherjee Commission he addresses the jury in a bold manner dedicated to bring the truth to the world. According to him, there was no plane crash at all in 1945. Bose had preplanned to fake his death to the world and asked his most trustworthy soldier of INA Habibur Rehman to be with him and not to disclose his fake death to anyone. To support his statement he showed numerous evidence like why he went to a six seater fighter plane when there was already 12-seater plane at that time, like there was no recorded plane crash that year, there was no news of death of the Japanese soldiers. After the judge was convinced that there was no plane crash on the stipulated date but asked where could he have possibly gone. Then he propagated the Siberia journey which was not the case. He lived as an ascetic in Uttar Pradesh without revealing his identity or face, the masses who visited him just used to hear his voice. A few people recognised him as soon as they heard his voice. However, they never revealed it to any third person. Even his close colleague and revolutionary, Leela Roy, and her husband recognised him when they visited him and sent letters. It revealed that the family members knew quite well about the fact that he was there alive. Numerous pieces of evidence were lying with them. Local P.D soon came to know but they could not track him. Gumnaami Baba lived long and died on 1985 one morning. Their disciples regretted as they felt that there should have been more than 13 lakh people should present at the funeral of a national hero, but only 13 disciples were present.

The next day, the commission concluded that there was no plane crash and Bose did not die in 1945. However, in 2006, the Government refused to accept the verdict and discarded the report. Angry and frustrated Dhar burns all his work and contemplates the purpose of his hard work of 3 years. His former wife encourages him to fight as Bose did for the country for 30 years. They vowed to keep on fighting till justice is served. This teaches that fighting is more important than victory, and so the fight to do justice to Netaji- by pressuring the government and authorities to bring an end to the mystery -will also go on.

In a flashback, Subhas Chandra Bose is seen singing Subh Sukh Chain, the National Anthem of the Provisional Government of Free India, along with the Indian National Army.

Cast[edit]

• Prosenjit Chatterjee as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Gumnaami Baba
• Anirban Bhattacharya as Chandrachur Dhar
• Tanusree Chakraborty as Ronita Dhar
• Biplab Dasgupta as Mr. Paul
• Shyamal Chakraborty
• Surendra Rajan as Mahatma Gandhi
• Sanjay Gurbaxani as Jawaharlal Nehru
• Akshay Kapoor (Kolkata) as Srikant Sharma Kanha
• Satyam Bhattacharya as Habibur Rehman, INA Soldier
• Prantik Banerjee
• Pallavi Chatterjee in Lolita Bose (cameo)

Marketing[edit]

The teaser of the film was released on 15 August 2019 by Shree Venkatesh Films.^[6] Later, the trailer of the film was released on 8 September 2019 also by Shree Venkatesh Films in Bengali^[7] and Hindi.^[8]

Release and reception[edit]

The film released on 2 October 2019. The Times of India rated the above-mentioned movie 3 out of 5 stars.^[9]

Soundtrack[edit]

The soundtrack of the film is composed by I.N.A. and D. L. Roy, whereas background music and score is done by Indraadip Dasgupta. The lyrics are by D. L. Roy and Capt. Abid Ali Mumtaz Hussain.

Controversy[edit]

The director of the film Srijit Mukherji courted a controversy in February 2019, after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose criticized him over portrayal of Gumnami Baba as Netaji in his upcoming film.^[10][11]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc'Gumnaami'. The Times of India. 16 August 2019. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
2. ^Sarkar, Roushni. 'Filmmaker Srijit Mukherji announces film on 'Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose' with Prosenjit Chatterjee'. Cinestaan. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
3. ^'Srijit's next is on Gumnami Baba? ?'. The Times of India. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
4. ^'সৃজিতের ছবিতে 'গুমনামী বাবা' হচ্ছেন প্রসেনজিৎ চট্টোপাধ্যায়?'. Zee24Ghanta.com (in Bengali). 21 August 2018.
5. ^'Gumnaami: Shoot for Film Based on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Begins in Bengal'. News18. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
6. ^'Gumnaami (गुमनामी) - Teaser (Hindi) - Prosenjit Chatterjee - Anirban Bhattacharya - SVF'. YouTube. SVF. 15 August 2019.
7. ^'Gumnaami (গুমনামী) - Trailer - Bengali - Prosenjit Chatterjee - Srijit Mukherji - Anirban - SVF'. YouTube. SVF. 8 September 2019.
8. ^'Gumnaami (गुमनामी) - Trailer - Hindi - Prosenjit Chatterjee - Srijit Mukherji - Anirban - SVF'. YouTube. SVF. 8 September 2019.
9. ^'Gumnaami Movie Review'. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
10. ^'Srijit Mukherji on Netaji film Gumnaami: Put me in jail, will write more scripts'. India Today. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
11. ^'Srijit Mukherji on Netaji film Gumnaami: Put me in jail, will write more scripts'. India Today. 22 February 2019. Retrieved 18 August 2019.

External links[edit]

• Gumnaami on IMDb

When did Gumnami Baba, the reclusive sadhu touted by many to be Subhas Chandra Bose, appear in Ayodhya? Was it in the early 1970s as is suggested by those who claim he was Netaji? Or did he live there even in the late 1950s, when he was known as ‘Kaptan Baba’? If so, what made Kaptan Baba vanish for over a decade before re-emerging as Gumnami Baba?

These questions seem to have been the plank on which rested an investigation into unearthing the identity of Gumnami Baba after his death on September 16, 1985. The search was abandoned a few months later. But its lost thread may provide an important lead for the one-man commission of enquiry set up by the Uttar Pradesh government under retired judge Vishnu Sahai in June this year.

“The identity of Gumnami Baba continues to remain a mystery… And sources in the police said they were investigating whether it was KD Upadhyay [known as Kaptan Baba] who was hiding in the guise of Netaji,” said a report in the Lucknow edition of Hindi daily Amrit Prabhat on November 8, 1985. “The government, however, has not made any formal announcement in this regard.”

An investigation by Scroll.in has found that there is more to the Netaji-turned-Gumnami Baba theory than what has been circulated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party and a section of the media.

KD Upadhyay, aka Kaptan Baba

The rumour first started doing the rounds over a month after the sadhu’s death in the servant’s quarter of a BJP leader’s house in Faizabad city near Ayodhya in 1985. It took a serious turn on October 28 that year when a local Hindi daily, Naye Log, published a lead story claiming the sadhu was actually Netaji in disguise.

A different version of Gumnami Baba’s identity, however, emerged soon after. On November 2, 1985, Janmorcha, another Hindi paper in Faizabad, received an anonymous letter claiming “the name of the Baba, who is being projected as Netaji, was KD Upadhyay, who had disappeared after killing Pandit Brahmadev in a meeting at Gayatri Bhawan”. It went on to say that Upadhyay was also known as Kaptan Baba, that he lived in a temple in Ayodhya, and that before disappearing, he had left his personal belongings on the banks of the Saryu river to give the impression that he had committed suicide. Janmorcha published a single-column item on the letter and its content in its edition the next day.

But only a half-hearted effort seems to have been made by the local administration to follow this lead back then.

And now, three decades later, there are ample indicators to suggest the claim in the anonymous letter was not entirely baseless.

A killer in hiding?

One such pointer in this direction is the autobiography of Suryanarayan Mishra, the brother of Pandit Brahmadev Shastri, which carries important details of the murder in 1958. According to the book, Meri Jeevani (published in 1967), Upadhyay and Shastri were on the board of trustees that managed the Gayatri Brahmacharyashram Sanskrit Vidyalaya in Ayodhya and had a running feud over a financial matter. Shastri was killed on October 10, 1958, just as a meeting of the board was coming to an end.

“The murder took place in full public view in the evening of that day, when the trustees were holding a meeting in the open space in front of the Hanuman temple (at the centre of the school),” Pandit Ramabhilash Mishra, the temple priest and the lone surviving witness, told Scroll.in.

“Krishna Dutt Upadhyay, who was not present at the meeting, suddenly appeared from behind the temple with a rifle in his hand and shot at Brahmadev Shastri, who died instantly,” Ramabhilash Mishra, who is close to 100 years old now, said. “Kaptan Baba (as Upadhyay was called) was never seen after that day.”

Suggesting a link between Upadhyay and Gumnami Baba, the anonymous letter received by Janmorcha claimed, “Upadhyaya fled to Nepal following the killing incident. After some time, he started living in Basti.”

According to Gumnami Baba’s followers, the sadhu also came to Ayodhya from Basti, a town in Uttar Pradesh. After staying in several places in Ayodhya, he moved to Faizabad and lived the rest of his days in the servant’s quarter of Ram Bhawan, the home of the BJP leader.

Indu Kumar Pande, who was district magistrate of Faizabad between 1985 and 1986, said, “There was a rumour that he (Gumnami Baba) had killed somebody and was in hiding. We tried to establish his identity. But the investigation was closed after the Allahabad high court took over the matter following a plea by Netaji’s niece (Lalita Bose) seeking preservation of Gumnami Baba’s possessions.”

Mutual friends

There is one more fact that hints at Gumnami Baba and Upadhyay being the same person.

According to Suryanarayan Mishra’s autobiography, Upadhyay had a few wealthy friends who were regular donors to the school. Seth Ishwardas Beni Prasad, a Kolkata-based businessman, was apparently the most regular and the closest to Upadhyay. Upadhyay had, in fact, had Prasad’s name engraved on a stone slab above the main gate of the on-campus temple. The slab remains to this day.

Later, Prasad emerged as a prominent well-wisher of Gumnami Baba and was in constant touch with him, a fact confirmed by Laxmi Mishra, the wife of Dr RP Mishra, a retired civil surgeon of the district hospital. The couple were among the sadhu’s closest aides, serving him for almost a decade from 1975 till his death in 1985. It was the surgeon who arranged for his stay at Ram Bhawan and helped him move from Ayodhya.

RP Mishra could not answer this reporter’s question because of ill health, but his wife said she remembered everything related to Gumnami Baba.

“Seth Ishwardas Beni Prasad never visited Faizabad, but he often travelled from Kolkata to Varanasi, where Dr Mishra would meet him at Gumnami Baba’s behest,” she said.

“The meetings were held at regular intervals, but I don’t know what transpired between them or whether Dr Mishra brought some kind of financial help from him [Prasad] for Gumnami Baba,” she added.

For now, an unbiased investigation to fix the real identity of the mysterious Gumnami Baba – one that is free from the interference of those bent on establishing that the sadhu of Faizabad is none other than freedom fighter – will go a long way in solving one of India’s greatest mysteries.

Gumnami Baba Book Review There There