‘1946: Last War of Independence’: Royal Navy mutiny gets its due

Salil Misra

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The two centuries of British rule in India were marked by many protests and opposition to it. These protests can be classified as those from within and from outside. History writing has concentrated much more on those from the outside. But the ones from within were no less significant. They played their part in the eventual overthrow of the British rule.

The rebellion of 1857, in which nearly 90,000 Indian soldiers of the British army rebelled, was, of course, the high point of the struggle from within. During the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-34), Chandra Singh Garhwali, an Indian officer of the Royal Garhwal Unit of the British army, was sent along with his unit to Peshawar to quell the rebellion of the Pathans under the leadership of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. When asked by his British officials to fire on the unarmed crowd, Garhwali refused to fire on the ground saying that their job was to fight a war with other countries, not to kill fellow Indians. Garhwali was arrested, charged with sedition and awarded death sentence. Then there were the 60,000 soldiers of the British Indian army who were captured by the Japanese during World War II and taken prisoners of war. They were asked if they were ready to fight “from the other side” against the British. They agreed and joined the Azad Hind Fauj under the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. They fought a heroic battle against their erstwhile paymasters, the British. History is replete with examples of such struggles “from within”. ‘1946: Last War of Independence’adds yet another chapter to this compendium.

In February 1946, after WW-II had ended, nearly 20,000 ratings of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) posted in 78 ships in different Indian ports rebelled against their masters. Their rebellion was only partly against their officers; it was just as much against the occupation of India by the alien British rulers. It was part of a saga of India nationalism. The book admirably tells this story and thus fills a big gap in the popular imagination of the freedom struggle.

Many Indians were recruited as ratings in the British Indian navy around WW-II. This was also the time when the ideology of anti-imperialist Indian nationalism reigned supreme over the minds and hearts of Indian people. It was quite clear that their act of joining the British navy was simply to gain employment. Their commitment was unambiguously with the forces of Indian nationalism. Their frustration of having to side with the British and fight for them was compounded with the prospect of being demobilised at the end of the war. False promises made at the time of recruitment, horrible working conditions, unpalatable food and racial discrimination practised by the British officials towards their Indian juniors would have added to their frustration. The multiple frustrations accumulated into a big rebellion in February 1946. They were also inspired by the heroic tales of the INA soldiers and the great solidarity shown towards them by the Indian people.

The demands made by the ratings were not simply about their material conditions. These also included release of Indian political prisoners and of the soldiers of the INA, and withdrawal of Indian troops from countries such as Indonesia and Egypt. It is quite clear from the charter of their demands that their basic issues extended beyond their individual careers and encompassed larger national concerns. Their rebellion reflected not just their narrow group interests, but much larger nationalist concerns. In this they were one along with the millions of other Indians fighting for independence from the alien British rule.

However, this was also the time when the struggle for independence entered a new phase of negotiation and settlement. The British government sent the Cabinet Mission to India to discuss and settle the terms of Indian independence. The Indian leadership, negotiating the terms of independence, looked at the rebellion by the RIN ratings as an embarrassment and an obstacle. They made an appeal to the ratings to surrender and promised to look into their demands after independence. The ratings agreed to surrender but the promises made to them were not fulfilled.

The patriotism of the RIN ratings was never in doubt. Their great desire to serve their country was second to none. It is, however, an irony of history that they were destined to serve the country largely with their failures. What is more, they failed not once or twice, but thrice over. The first failure occurred when their rebellion was suppressed and they were made to surrender. The second failure happened after independence when their heroic struggle and contribution were not recognised and their demands for rehabilitation were ignored by the national government. The third failure was that of history writing. In the annals of freedom struggle, their saga was reduced to a mere footnote. The present generation of young Indians, enjoying the fruits of freedom, knows very little about the contribution of the RIN ratings towards Indian freedom. It is the third failure that is addressed in this book.

Meticulously researched and lucidly written, it tells the story of failed men. But their failure was not without its own glory and grandeur. Pramod Kapoor, the author, deserves our gratitude for performing a much-needed task of filling this major gap in history writing on Indian nationalism.