A FINAL CALL TO ARMS
By revisiting the events of the 1946 Indian naval mutiny, Pramod Kapur has shone light on an oft-ignored chapter of our military history
It is only in recent years that Indian professional historians have started to pay serious heed to Indian military history. This is an interesting anomaly as the country has a rich military heritage. Most importantly, India, as a British colony, made significant contributions in both blood and treasure to the two World Wars. In recent years, journalist Shrabani Basu has written evocatively about Indian soldiers on the Western Front in World War I; and the historian Srinath Raghavan, in turn, has written authoritatively on India’s role both at home and abroad in World War II.
Despite this growing interest in military history, apart from the memoirs of participants, few, if any, historians of note have written about the Indian naval mutiny of 1946. Written by an amateur historian, the present book, 1946 Royal Indian Mutiny: Last War of Independence, though not without its shortcomings, is an attempt to fill this gap.
The book, a mostly narrative account, starts out with a description of the scope of the mutiny among ratings of the Royal Indian Navy in Mumbai (Bombay). The original site of the uprising was on the RINS Talwar, a signal school located in Colaba. However, it quickly spread to as many as 78 ships, 21 shore establishments and involved more than 20,000 ratings. Interestingly enough, the ratings, though of diverse religious affiliations, proved united in their nationalist fervour, raising the flags of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party of India, after they lowered the Union Jack.
Kapur makes abundantly clear that the ratings had tired of the dishonest recruiting practices of the British, the
MUCH OF THE BOOK IS AN ACCOUNT OF HOW THE REVOLT UNFOLDED AND THE HARSH MEASURES THE BRITISH TOOK TO SUPPRESS IT
execrable working conditions in the RIN, and the racism that they had endured at the hands of their British officers. All their pent-up grievances merely needed a spark to ignite them. This came when the British in the waning days of empire chose to try key members of the Indian National Army (INA) at the Red Fort.
Much of the book is devoted to a blow-by-blow account of how the revolt unfolded and the harsh measures that the British colonial and military authorities took to suppress it. Kapur also provides a detailed political backdrop to the episode. He is quite critical of the role of prominent political leaders ranging from Sardar Patel to Gandhi, Nehru to Jinnah. His principal quibble is that none of them offered a full-throated defence of the rebels and instead counselled moderation. This criticism, frankly, is misplaced. As leaders of nationalist movements on the verge of realising their aspirations, they could ill-afford to support an armed mutiny. The frustration and anger of the mutineers was understandable; nevertheless, they had broken the sacred oath of office. Expecting nationalist politicians to offer them unequivocal support was clearly beyond the pale. ■