Bengal: Netaji’s Kurseong House, Where He Wrote Several Historic Letters, Turned Into Museum

In 1936, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was at Gidda Hill in the then Kurseong. He was a prisoner of the British government. He stayed at his house for seven months, and then again resided in it in October 1937.

This historic house is now the Netaji Museum under the umbrella of the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies.

He sent many important political letters from this place, including several letters to his wife Emilie. In 2005, the house became a museum under the auspices of the Calcutta Museum. All the letters written by Netaji are carefully preserved here.

Apart from these precious historical letters, the Netaji memorial house at Gidda Hill in Kurseong has many pictures of him. Netaji used to do his morning walk here. There is also a picture of Netaji’s morning walk by the hill spring at Paglajhora. There are also many photographs of Netaji with the Bose family. Apart from that, the cot, dressing table, study table and chair used by Netaji are all there. Netaji’s elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose planted a camellia tree there in 1934, which is still present today.

Padambahadur Chhetri is the caretaker of the newly-opened musem. It is known from him that Netaji’s elder brother freedom fighter Sarat Chandra Bose bought this house in 1922 from the then Assam Deputy Superintendent of Police Peter Leslie.

The house was under the Bose family until 1996. The state government renovated the house in 1997. The house was inaugurated in 2000 as a new museum. Netaji wrote the Haripura Congress speech sitting in this house. He also wrote letters to Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru from here.

Bose family members used to visit this house every year during summer holidays or Puja holidays. And Netaji came several times with the Bose family members. According to the information, from 1922 to 1939 is Netaji stayed at this house. Netaji secretly sent many instructions to the freedom fighters through Chowkidars (Guard) during his house arrest here.

Again, Netaji played hide and seek with his nephews sitting in this house, rode in the swings. Padambahadur Chhetri got the house maintenance job from Shishir Basu and Krishna Basu, members of the Basu family, in 1973 for 2 rupees per day.

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