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Jayasree, the magazine was started by Leela Roy, a famous revolutionary in 1931. Its cover page was designed by Nandalal Bose and the introductory message was given by Rabindranath Tagore. Because of its umcompromising stand during the British rule and its open support for the revolutionaries, it was banned for a brief period by the British. Jayasree was and still is a magazine dedicated to Indian Nationalism and in promoting the ideals of Subhas Chandra Bose.

Leela Roy, nee Nag, was an inspiration herself. She was a well respected freedom fighter, the founder of Sri Sangha and Deepali Sangha, a champion of woman’s emancipation who established schools for women’s education, the first M.A from Dhaka University. When she joined Sri Sangha, she met her future husband Anil Baran Roy, an erudite scholar and academician and revolutionary. Together they aligned with Subhas Chandra Bose, the rising star of Indian Nationalism. Leela was invited to speak on women’s role in the 1928 Congress organized by Subhas in Calcutta. She became a member of the planning commission of Congress when Subhas became the president of Haripura Congress in 1938. Before that she and her husband were in jail for 4-5 years, soon after starting Jayasree because of actively helping in the Chattagram uprising. Preetilata Wadeddar, an architect of Chattagram uprising and armoury raid infact belonged to Sri Sangha. When Subhas Bose went to East Bengal in 1940, Leela Roy and her organization became his pillar of support. Leela and Anil stayed with Subhas even when he was driven out of Congress, and joined the Forward Block. After Subhas’s escape, Leela and Anil were again jailed by the British. Netaji wanted to enlist Leela’s help. In fact he wanted her to come over to Burma and Singapore and join the INA. The plan was that when INA soldiers would cross the frontiers of India there would be a huge uprising in Bengal and Leela and Anil’s Sri Sangha would play a pivotal role. However betrayal and jealousy of some other revolutionary organizations derailed this plan. Leela and Anil came out of the British prison in 1945. Soon the news of Netaji’s plane crash came. The forward block had split into two and Leela and Anil formed the Subhasist Forward Block. They had a band of young followers who were staunch Subhash loyalists and would do anything for him. Leela played a very active role in helping the riot victims, esp. women in Noakhali and other parts of Bengal that were torn apart by the violence. Thousands of Hindu women were raped, others were murdered and forcefully converted. Leela and her organization worked among the victims to rehabilitate them, provide them strength and support. She was accompanying Gandhiji in his tour of the riot torn parts. In 1950 she lost her long time companion and husband.

In 1963, when prof Atul Sen discovered Bhagwanji in a Shivalaya in Neemsar, news reached Leela through Pabitra Mohan Roy, the ex INA intelligence officer who had been instructed to contact the beloved Didi. Dr. Roy was given a list of items to be procured but had no idea how to get hold of them and hence he approached Didi for the same. Leela got the items in no time and she also got the news of the return of the king. She was amazed but wanted to verify herself. “The eternal impossible comes in the disguise of eternal possibilities”, she wrote in her memoir. After a painful wait she finally met her “Leader” and what transpired after that was written in the books, “Gumnami Baba, a Case History” by Adheer Som, “Conundrum, Subhas Bose’s life after death” by Anuj Dhar and Chandrachud Ghosh, and other investigative reports on Bhagwanji that have been published since 1985. Leela took care of all material needs of Bhagwanji. She ensured that he got the best possible health care through her trusted revolutionary cum kaviraj Kamalakanta Ghosh and homeopathic doctor S.K Das. Then she sent words to several people who she knew would keep the secret. Bhagwanji had told her that the time was not ripe for him to come out and that his enemies whom he referred to as the “combination” were keeping a hawk eyed watch for any movement whatsoever. They knew that he had come back, but they did not know his coordinates, because of his extremely spartan lifestyle and his ability to keep himself out of the reach of common people. He never came out in public and always talked from behind a curtain. People who were lucky to see his face reported that they saw an unearthly glow. They could not keep looking into his eyes for long, so powerful and intense was his gaze. That would have hindered a normal conversation and hence he remained behind the curtain. But his voice was unmistakable and so was his mannerisms. In fact Leela Roy told him categorically that its good that he chose the remote villages of UP for hiding. Had he been in Bengal he would have been found out even if he had remained behind “seven walls”. She said that his style of delivering Bengali speeches remained unchanged, that little stammer, that prolonging of sentences… those words that were used, all remained exactly the same and she could vividly recollect the earlier interactions, the places, the circumstances. The style is the man himself. Bhagwanji was concerned and sought advices from Leela as to how he could change his style so that anybody else could not detect him. His ‘Lee” came back and informed a select group of intellectuals and her own band of die hard followers of Sri Sangha who never forsook Netaji even under extreme duress. She informed Dilip Kumar Roy who was a sannyasi in Haridwar that his friend had come back. She informed intellectuals who were staunch followers of Subhas and who had never got any favours from Nehru, like Dilip Kumar Roy, Swami Aseemanand Saraswati, Trailokya Chakrabarty Maharaj the eminent freedom fighter from East Bengal who shared the same cell in the Manadalay with Subhas, Ashrafuddin Ahamad Chaudhury, a minister in East Pakistan and a close former follower of Subhas, Ashutosh Ganguli, Beena Bhaumik nee Das, daughter of Beni Madhab Das, Subhas’s teacher, mentor and guide whose photo was found in the possession of Bhagwanji, and the Bengal Volunteer stalwarts Hemchandra Ghosh and Satyaranjan Bakshi. She sent her emissaries and trusted aides, Sunil Das, brother of revolutionary Anil Das, an ex INA man, Kamalakanta kaviraj, a revolutionary and a close associate of kaviraj Vimalananda tarkatirtha, who used to treat Bhagwanji, Santosh Bhattacharya, another Sri Sangha veteran who served Subhas when he was in East Bengal, Shailendra Das, Mrs. Shaila Sen, Apurba Ghosh, Dulal Nandy and later Bijoy Nag, her nephew. A day before he disappeared, Netaji had met Sunil Das and told him to remain prepared and also asked Hikari Kikan to equip him with transmitters and revolvers. Along with INA veteran Dr. Pabitra Mohan Roy, revolutionary Ashustosh Kahli met Bhagwanji and had correspondences with him. Another person who was in constant touch was Forward Block leader Professor Samar Guha. After 1979 however when Samar Guha had published a fake photo of Netaji to prove that he had come back, he fell in favour and Bhagwanji deburred him from further visits. It is to be noted that Bhagwanji never agreed for any photograph of his, also prevented others from recording his voice. Apparently somebody tried secretly to record his voice but he met with an accident on the same day and even though Bhagwanji was not informed of the incident, he told that person that he had been spared lightly and should not attempt any further misadventure.

Kamalakanta, Sunil Das and Santosh rendered all possible services. In fact after meeting Bhagwanji the sole concern and aim of life of Leela Roy was to take care of his health and material comforts. As testified by Rajkumar Shukla, before Leela came, they – his mother Saraswati Shukla, an unlettered widow, daughter of Mahadev Mishra, a priest in Nepal who accompanied Bhagwanji from Nepal to India, himself and Bhagwanji, had very little means for sustenance. In fact they had no place for living and lived under a polythene sheet for several months and ate whatever chance provided. In Bhagwanji’s own language he did “Akashvritti or Yayati Vritti” – most of the days they starved. It was after meeting Leela Roy that their material needs were taken care of. This was another mystery. Even though Bhagwanji knew all the bigwigs of UP Government and also several rich people, he never took any help from any of them. Up chief minister Sampurnananda, who fell out of favour with Nehru, who was once an ardent Subhas loyalist, was in constant touch, so was Charan Singh and so was Babu Banarasi Das who infact offered him a security perimeter, which Bhagwanji declined for obvious reasons. He also had contacts with some of the erstwhile royal families of Northern province, including descendants of the Nawab of Audh and the Sufu saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia.

After he had his “punarmilan” with his “Lee” Bhagwanji opened himself up. Many letters were written to Lee where he had provided spiritual and political advices to her, revealed his plan of action often in cryptic language which sometimes caused much chagrin to Lee. He also revealed his vision, plan and action to the group of die hard followers and those visions and plans appeared as extremely cryptic, often gibberish articles in the Jayasree patrika from 1966 onwards, written under pen name “Charanik”. People thought them to be the utterances of a spiritual person, but some astute people like Barun Sengupta, a young investigative journalist at that time, sensed something big and speculated about the possible “return of the king” in disguise. However nobody took them seriously. Later all these articles were compiled into the book “Oi Mahamanab Ase”. It was Sunil Das, also fondly called as “Mukul” by Bhagwanji, who wrote under that pen name. Later Sri Bijoy Nag took up that responsibility. Here Bhagwanji is referred as “Mahakaal” in reference to his worship of the divine mother Kali who had engaged him in his mission. To Bhagwanji, the eternal Shakti, mother Durga Kali also stood for his country, his “Janani janmabhoomi” Bengal and he was extremely pained and saddened by the partition inflicted upon her by power hungry, corrupt politicians, and to restore her back to her former self and old glory was his sadhana, his mission and purpose. For that he was ready to lead a life of complete self abnegation and self effacement. He had no plans of coming back to the political arena as in his own words, “Indian politics – ugh, it stinks.” He advised Pabitra Mohan Roy to resign from assembly and carry out mother’s work.

Slowly and steadily he opened up to his followers on his life as a “Mrito Bhoot”, the activities of the dead ghost and the earth shattering consequences of his mission and sadhana of accomplishing mother Kali’s tasks. “The Bengal shall rise, Godless greedy creed of communism will die at the place of its birth.” He had a vision of restoring India to her former glories and to her former shape, before partition and that was the end to which he and his “horizon” was working, often bringing major upheavals across the world to ensure the same. In fact his work and activity spread across the entire South East Asia, liberating nations from the tyranny of the western powers.

‘This time, No chances, No mistakes, No failures.” that’s why he had to live in secrecy, in deprivation.