British wanted Padmanabha Temple watched for Netaji

Mtoday news / PTI

Thiruvananthapuram, August 7: The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple here, now in the limelight for the huge treasures discovered in its vaults, was once closely monitored at the behest of the British rulers who suspected freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose lived there secretly for a while, according to a little known archival record.

 

 

The temple was brought under surveillance after an anonymous letter came to the attention of a senior British official in Madras (Chennai), the Southern headquarters of the British administration in pre-independence India. The letter claimed that Bose, who travelled abroad in 1941 to muster support for his anti-British struggle, returned to the country secretly and lived in disguise in the temple premises in the princely state of Travancore.

According to a docket in the Kerala State Archives, on seeing the letter, the then British Resident for the Madras State, Lieutenant Colonel GP Murphy, forwarded a copy of it to Dewan of Travancore Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer requesting to "closely watch" the area around the grand temple.

The request was immediately complied with but no clue whatsoever of the possible visit of the Netaji, as Bose is endearingly called by his followers and admirers, was found around the temple complex. The letter, received by British officials in Calcutta and passed on to Murphy, said “Bose is in the near vicinity of Sree Anantha Padmanabha of Travancore and still further in the Rameswaram side..It then continued ’he (Bose) has gone to find out the truth of Lord Sree Krishna’s teaching.”