The search for a lost fragment of Netaji Bose’s Singapore memorial

For some Indian history buffs visiting Singapore, a pilgrimage to the Esplanade Park is essential. It is the site of what is locally known as the Former Indian National Army Monument. Here, in July 1945, Subhas Chandra Bose laid the foundation stone for a memorial dedicated to the unknown warriors of the INA.

Although the Japanese forces unveiled the completed monument later that August, it was swiftly demolished when British forces reoccupied the city-state. Decades later, in the 1990s, Singapore’s National Heritage Board, backed by financial contributions from the local Indian community, erected a new marker on the exact spot where Bose’s original structure once stood.

Yet, a fragment of that original monument survived.

When British forces destroyed the structure under the orders of Louis Mountbatten, a handful of INA members managed to salvage a fragment of it. Determined that this last remnant of a monument associated with the leader they called Netaji should not be lost, they secretly carried the relic back to India, risking punishment at a volatile moment in history.

By 1946, this fragment came into the possession of Shah Nawaz Khan, a former British Indian Army officer who served as major general in the INA.

Khan, a close associate of Bose, had been captured by British...

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