Royal Indian Navy Uprising

I came across the same old arguments about who contributed the most to India's struggle while preparing to write this article. Some views about what freedom means, and what should it mean. Common amongst all this literature are echoes from intellectual ghettoes, a place where the common Indian does not belong. So, I decided to find something we all often forget-the contribution of the common Indian folk.

Britishers called it "Rin Mutiny". They said it was just a fight for bread, pulse, and some service demand and suppressed the ratings' daring and most heroic deeds.

Indian Naval Personnel started calling themselves the Indian National Navy and offered left-handed salutes to British officers.

The revolting ships hoisted three flags tied together-those of the Congress, Muslim League, and the Red Flag of the Communist Party of India. This gesture signified the unity and understated communal issues among the mutineers.

The mutiny was called off after a meeting between the President of the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC), M.S. Khan and Vallabh Bhai Patel of the Congress. Jinnah too issued a statement later from Calcutta echoing Patel.

Arrests and court-martials were made, and around 476 sailors were dismissed. They were never reinstated ever again, either in Indian or Pakistani navies.

The trials of INA, the stories of Subhas Chandra Bose, and INA's fight during the Siege of Imphal and in Burma were trickling into the burning public eye at the time.

Between the years 1943 and 1945, the royal Indian Navy witnessed nine mutinies on board several individual ships. In the context of the 1946 Royal Air Force Revolt, the Viceroy at the time, Lord Wavell, noted, "I am afraid that [the] example of the royal air force, who got away with what was a mutiny, has some responsibility for the present situation."

HMIS Talwar was a shore establishment with a signals school at Colaba, Bombay. Most of the 1000 operators came as peasants and faced frequent racial discrimination. In late 1945, some 20 frustrated operators formed a secret group "Azad Hindi" and began undermining their senior officers. The response resulted from correspondences issued by Commander in chief Claude Auchinleck informing officers to maintain a degree of tolerance.

On 18th February 1946, all naval ratings below the rank of the petty officer at HMIS Talwar were refusing commands. They seized control of the shore establishment eventually. B.C. Dutt, who was confined 17 days earlier for vandalism, was also released. He was later found the prime instigators of the mutiny. On the same day, the uprising was joined in by the RIN operated wireless stations, including those as distant as Aden and Bahrain.

The next day, John Henry Godfrey sent out a message through the All-India Radio. It stated that the most stringent measures would be taken to suppress the Navy's mutiny and even destruction if they had to.

By 20th February 1946, Mutineers had overtaken Bombay Harbor, including all its ships and naval establishments. It included 45 ships, 10-12 shore establishments, 11 auxiliary vessels, four flotillas, and over 10,000 naval ratings.

The mutineers at the Bombay harbour had assembled at HMIS Talwar to elect the Naval Central strike committee as their representatives and formulate the charter of demands. Today, most of the members of the committee remain unknown, and many were under 25 years of age. Of those known were petty officer Madan Singh and signalman M.S. Khan, who the committee authorized to conduct the informal talks. The charter of demands consisted of political and service-related demands.

Discontent with the Congress and the Muslim League, their flags were taken down, earlier hoisted on the warships.

Rob Lockhart of the Southern Command was ordered to suppress the mutiny. Consequently, the Royal Marines and the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry were deployed in Bombay to push the agitating ratings back into their barracks. The naval ratings had taken positions at the harbour and were well armed in response to the warnings. The warships in the harbour were equipped with anti-aircraft guns and were pointed towards the advancing infantry. HMIS Narbada and HMIS Jumna also took their positions. They aimed their batteries at the oil storage and other military buildings towards the Bombay shoreline.

The Royal Navy's British flotilla, consisting of HMS Glasgow, three frigates and five destroyers were called in from Singapore. Bombers were flown over the harbour as warnings.

Godfrey passed a message to the British Admiralty requesting urgent assistance and informing that the mutineers could take the city under their control. The mutiny was, however, soon ceased by order of the Strike Committee.

The mutineers, unfortunately, received no support from the national leaders. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the revolt in a statement on 3rd March 1946. He criticized the strikers for revolting without the call of a "prepared revolutionary party" and the guidance and intervention" of "political leader of their choice". He also criticized the local Indian National Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali, one of the few prominent political leaders to support the mutineers. The Muslim League shared the sentiment and criticized the mutiny, arguing that however serious their grievances might be, the unrest amongst the sailors was not best expressed on the streets. The only significant political segment that still mentions the revolt are the Communist Party of India.

The RIN revolt is now known as the Naval Uprising, and the mutineers were honored for their part in India's Independence. Besides the statue, which stands in Mumbai opposite the Taj Wellington Mews, of two eminent mutineers, Madan Singh and B.C. Dutt have ships named after them.

The mutiny had nevertheless impacted the attitudes of the British. Clement Attlee initiated the Cabinet Mission to India following the rebellion. Although Indian historians have looked at the mutiny as a revolt for independence against colonial rule, British scholars note no comparable unrest in the Army. They have concluded that internal conditions in the Navy were central to the mutiny.

During a seminar in 1967, the British High Commissioner of the time John Freeman said that the British were terror-struck from a possibility of the 1857 Mutiny repeating itself and feared that they would be butchered to the last man this time.

He pointed out that the mutiny of 1946 had raised the fear of another large-scale rebellion from the over two million Indian soldiers who participated in WWII. The revolt accordingly been a significant contributing factor to the British leaving India.

The initiatives of the Cabinet Mission were short-lived, and the effects of the Naval Uprising were soon lost in the game of prolonged negotiations in Delhi and Shimla.

I only wonder, what the reality would have been if the unity of purpose and common interest would have been pursued? Could the common Indian strike that chord between Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Bengalis, and other communities if such mutinies were endorsed by the "higher-men"?