M. O. Mathai

Who was M. O. Mathai?

M.O. Mathai was assistant to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mathai worked with the United States Army in India before becoming an assistant to Nehru in 1946. He resigned in 1959 following Communist allegations of misuse of power and spying. Despite the allegations, Nehru remained maintained contact with him. He published his controversial memoirs in Reminiscences of the Nehru Age and My Days with Nehru, when Indira Gandhi went out of power in 1977.

One of Mathai's letters dug out by the Delhi-based non-profit trust Mission Netaji had become controversial in 2006. The letter indicated that the ashes of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose were received in India in the 1950s. This information is contradictory to the Indian government's opinion that Bose's ashes are kept in Renkoji temple in Japan.

Mathai died in 1981 of a heart attack in Madras at the age of 72 years.