We went through events that transpired with the capture of
some INA agents a few months ago and learnt of the sad fate that befell TP
Kumaran Nair. In fact following those events and the wars fought in Burma,
Malaya and Assam, many INA agents were arrested and treated badly. The INA
movement did not quite take the Indian populace by storm and the British
bureaucracy were careful in ensuring that much of that information remained behind
closed doors or in sealed files. Some of them remain sealed even today.
The details of one such loosely connected event which resulted
in 1946 saw the light of the day, many years after the fact. Even today it is
not talked about or well known, though we did see a curious mention of it in an
recent Malayalam movie ‘Iyobinte pusthakam’ where Fahad Fazil playing the
protagonist Aloshi, is Iyob’s son and a RIN rating, who returns to Kerala after
the Royal Indian Naval mutiny on February 18, 1946.
Preceding the RIN mutiny was the RIAF strike where some 1200
airmen at Delhi and Calcutta went on strike on 15th Feb 1946 protesting
against racial discrimination and demanding gratuity, pay, bonus and pension. The
RIN mutiny which happened shortly thereafter was more complex, involved rioting
and largescale involvement of the naval top brass and the Indian political
units as well as the bureaucracy in London. Later Salil Chowdhury composed his
famous Dheu uthchhe, kara tutchhe song in its memory. Many books followed,
written both by major participators in the revolt as well as one by a British officer,
caught in the melee. The event was first termed a mutiny (a mutiny is defined
in the armed forces as an event when two or more men present the same grievance
at the same time!), then a revolt and finally revised in historic annals as a leftist
supported strike. I presume there were legal minds at work during those
renaming occasions, but whatever said and done, it was a revolt of sorts and
violent at times, involving arms and armaments. A number of Malayali’s were
also involved who after the event suffered in silence for the rest of their
lives, forgotten and discarded from the mainstream. Their fight for rights and
equality later flared out in support of Indian freedom, though originating from
a multitude of localized causes and some of the participants are still alive,
perhaps in the small group of nonagenarians. But to get to their story, we have
to travel northwest, to Colaba in Bombay where HMIS Talwar, the signals
training school was located. The people who revolted were mainly ratings, and
you must note here that this name rating applied to the so called
non-commissioned class such as seaman, petty officer etc. working below the
officer category. Talwar incidentally was opened in late 1943 as a Signals
School and trained officers and ratings of the RIN in communications and radar.
On September 2nd 1945 the Japanese formally surrendered in
Tokyo Bay. Demobilization issues were the reasons which made the people who
served the British army nervous. Some were worried about loss of livelihood
(Indians), some (the Brits who were unhappy and many qualified Indians) on the
other hand were worried about the slow rate of demobilization resulting in
overcrowded and horrible living conditions and the fact that being stuck in the
forces could mean that the plum civilian jobs were lost and so they wanted to
get out quickly.
As Collins explains - Unfortunately
there was a strong tendency, amongst officers and ratings alike, to believe
that a man was only to sit back and wait for the Government to find a job.
Steps were taken to inculcate into all ranks the correct outlook on
resettlement, which was that every man was expected to do everything possible
himself to resettle, and that the function of the Government was to advice and to
assist. In one direction the R.I.N. suffered a severe disappointment. It was
hoped that many released ratings would be given official preference when
seeking employment in India's Mercantile Marine. When the matter was mooted,
however, the Seamen's Union refused unconditionally to agree, the reason given
being that the number of jobs available was not sufficient even for the
non-Service members of the Unions.
What followed in Jan 1946 was the first of the
demobilization strikes at Karachi, rapidly spreading to a number of units all
around, including Kanpur. Interestingly, this involved British airmen, not
Indians and shook up the top brass. But it quickly influenced on to the Navy
and influenced many affected ratings who took up the example, as Lord Wavell himself
admitted later. What followed was the infamous 1946 naval mutiny and the
ransacking of Bombay.
A number of articles written since then detail the events at
Bombay starting from the 18th Feb and lasting 5 torrid days. While
the reasons range from bad food, discrimination and pay differences and
transfer of officers from Royal navy to RIN, abuse by the senior officer FW
King, officer King’s wolf whistling of the ladies in a WRIN parade, BC Dutt’s
solitary confinement and so on, other aspects such as INA solidarity and
patriotism were also mentioned. The INA trials, general discontent against the
British etc further augmented the matter. What followed was a largely
leaderless revolt which at first shook Bombay, but later on spread all over
India and invited the attention of the rulers at Delhi. The revolt however
found little support from the Muslim League and the INC, while the leftists
lent a proverbial shoulder for the rioters to cry. In fact none of them was
prepared for this event which came out of the blues and Indian politicians were
not too quick on the take.
Atlee speaking at the House of Commons on 22nd
explained it thus - On Monday, 18th
February, all ratings except chief petty officers and petty officers in h.
M.I.S. Talwar, R.I.N. Signal School, Bombay, refused duty. The ratings demanded
that a political leader be allowed to address them and shouted political
slogans. On Tuesday, the trouble spread to the Royal Indian Navy Depot (Castle
Barracks) Bombay, and to ships in Bombay harbor. Ratings in the streets became
rowdy and civil police made arrests of ratings involved in acts of violence.
The flag officer, Bombay, received 14 delegates from the mutineers and was
presented with a list of demands, including the following: Speedy demobilization
according to age and service groups; disciplinary action against the commanding
officer of H.M.I.S. Talwar for alleged improper treatment of ratings; best
class of Indian food; Royal Navy scales of pay and family allowance; retention
of kit on release; higher gratuity and Treasury pay on release; all demands to
be decided in conjunction with a national leader whose name would be
communicated.
Many years later, when asked about the extent to which the
British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942
movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly,
‘Minimal’." But as they say, it was the RIN Mutiny of 1946 which made the
British realize that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop
up the British and thus proved to be the proverbial straw which broke the camel’s
back.
As it is oft stated, the mutiny involved the whole navy
covering some 78 ships at Bombay, Karachi, Madras, Calcutta, Vizagapatnam,
Mandapam, Jamnagar, Andaman’s and almost all the naval shore establishments in
the country joined in, including that at Southerly Cochin (Venduruthy). Some 10
ships and 2 establishments remained unaffected, but even ships at Bahrain and
far off Aden were briefly affected. Members of the air force and army had
sympathizers for the strike, which made the authorities quite nervous indeed.
Things were not looking up at Talwar prior to the event, as
one can imagine. The unit housed 1500 officers and men out of which 700 were
communications ratings. In addition there were another 300 draft reserve
ratings around. The pay scales were vastly different, so also the food served
to the Indians as compared to the British. While the Indians had watery dal,
two chapattis, rice with lots of stones and some smelly meat, the British had
bread, eggs, butter and all kinds of other items. Complaints about the food
fell on deaf ears. Lt Commander Cole, a fairly benevolent officer, had just
been replaced by a nasty replacement named FW King who had little exposure to
India and possessed a definite racial bent. BC Dutt was arrested for writing
slogans on the wall and somebody went on to deflate King’s car tires and paint
slogans on his car. This broke his resolve, and he went on to publically abuse
the ratings as sons of coolies and bitches. A written complaint submitted after
this verbal abuse was ordered to be withdrawn while the petty officer in the
mess grandly stated that beggars (Indians) can’t be choosers. All this was
behind the start of the revolt which was waiting to erupt from years of pent up
frustration. Thus on Feb 18th 1946, the ratings went on strike.
Officers brought in new ratings from HMS Braganza, but that did not help. Soon
the news was broadcast on the AIR and by 19th the ratings decided to
meet and make plans for the next steps.
By 19th most of the shore units and ships had
joined the strike and some 20,000 ratings were united. Soon the ratings hit the
streets and marched, sparing no whites in sight. They were trashed and stores
burnt and looted. The US flag at the USIS was burnt, and Bombay was a mess.
Three new flags were hoisted, Red, Muslim league, and Congress. Formal demands
included release of INA prisoners, action against FW King, quicker
demobilization, same pay and allowances as for the Royal Navy ratings, better
food and canteen access, retention of kit after demobilization, and finally
withdrawal of Indian troops in Indonesia.
On 20th MS Khan was elected strike president and
the ratings had started to prepare their own food as the systems and routines
broke down. Some 3000 ratings from HMIS Akbar marched down to Bombay from
Thane, and the British were by now alarmed and planning a quick offensive to
stop the mutiny.
On 21st shooting as resorted to at Castle
barracks as the Maratha forces were found to be siding with the strikers. It is
said that among the signal men, many were Malayali’s and the first to die was
perhaps one, a sick berth attendant named Krishnan. Other ships from British
fleet moved in and all out shelling was expected in Colaba.
The situation was changing fast and rumors went around that
Australian and Canadian armed battalions were arriving to encircle the dockyard
where most ships were berthed. The Royal Air Force flew bombers over Bombay harbor
in a show of force, and Arthur Rattray, Flag Officer issued an ultimatum asking
the ratings to raise black flags and surrender unconditionally. Things were
going from bad to worse in Karachi with shelling of ships and by now 7 ratings
and some 240 civilians were dead.
Negotiations moved fast, keeping in view the extreme
sensitivity of the situation and most of the demands of the strikers regarding
welfare measures were conceded in principle. The mutiny was called off following
a meeting between the President of the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC),
M. S. Khan, and Vallabhai Patel of the Congress, who had been sent to Bombay to
settle the crisis. Sardar Patel and Jinnah advised the strikers to surrender
and promised that there would be no victimization, while Gandhiji deplored the
event and Nehru avoided it. Aruna Asaf Ali was the only supportive politician initially.
Immediate steps were taken to improve the quality of food
served in the ratings’ kitchen and their living conditions. But the promises
about victimization were never kept (Patel himself said later that there should
be no questions about discipline in the armed forces) and these were followed
up by court-martials and large-scale dismissals from the service. None of those
dismissed were reinstated. Some 500-600 of these strikers were rounded up and
interned at Mulund prison camp in inhuman conditions. They had to go on a
hunger strike before being released and dismissed from service.
As one could infer, the naval mutiny was easily suppressed
by the use of force with minimal casualties. But it made its mark, for as is
repeatedly uttered - it led to the realization
that Britain could no longer depend on Indian soldiers, sailors and airmen to
uphold her authority over her colonies in the East. This perhaps contributed
in the advancement of the date of Indian independence from June 1948 to August
1947.
FW King was apparently reprimanded and dismissed from Talwar
after the trial in July. Arthur King another officer was sympathetic and we see
from a recent ‘Telegraph’ report - Afterwards suspected ring-leaders were
placed in a camp at Mulund outside Bombay and King was put in charge with a
guard drawn from the Mahratta regiment. He was pained that among the sailors
were many he knew personally, though it was some consolation that a few weeks
later he was allowed to drive his prisoners to the railway station at Thane
where they were given tickets and allowed to go home.
The Nehru Government also held on to the British military
policy that service personnel, once removed on account of ‘mutinous’ acts,
should never be taken back. As the Indian government let the ratings rot in the
prisons other jobless ex-ratings wandered around the streets in search of jobs.
Many of these brave men thence led a life of misery for choosing the path of
armed struggle for the liberation of India. One of the people who left the navy
following the rebellion is the famous Malayalam writer Kovilan (Kandanisseri
Vattomparambil Velappan Ayyappan).
The Commission produced a 600-page report, which has not
been made public. A short summary, was published in January 1947 and it
exonerated most British officers who were responsible for the revolt. The 600
page report which has never been aired did not make pretty reading according to
Wavell – he said that it showed that men were treated badly by a ‘not very good
lot’ of officers.
Some of those who were thrown out were lucky as an article
by Bharadwaj at Purpleberets reveals - Post partition, the newly formed
Pakistan Navy absorbed the 27-year-old, Mohammed Shariff Khan as an officer. He
expanded and tweaked his name from MS Khan to read as Mohammed Sharif. Surely,
MS Khan was smart and intelligent; he was quickly promoted to the rank of Rear
Admiral. During the 1971 war, he commanded the Eastern Naval Command.
Immediately after signing the ‘Instrument of Surrender’ he was taken as
Prisoner of War (POW) by the Indians. On his return to Pakistan, Mohammed
Sharif was promoted to Vice Admiral’s rank and in March 1975, was catapulted to
be the chief of Pakistan navy as a four star Admiral. According to a new source - 1946, the Last war of Independence, by Pramod Kapoor, a book published in 2022, MS Khan did move to Pakistan, but is not the same person as the late Adm MS Khan, indicated above. He ascertained this with the latter's daughter, living in Pakistan.
Politically the timing was wrong for the negotiating
congress and league who were close to a handover solution, they wanted the
officers around after transfer and did not want a disintegration in the naval
ranks. So I presume a decision was taken to mothball the mutiny, and that was
what happened. In addition the new rulers did not want leftists to gain any
mileage from all this.
Cdr SG Karmarkar who was in INS Shivaji at Lonavala, doing
routine work was rushed to INS Talwar to mediate as the mutiny was diffused. He
was promoted later as Rear Admiral and Flag Officer Bombay in the Indian navy.
A bright person who read this painstakingly would ask – why
was Indonesia mentioned in the demands? Therein lies another interesting tale.
By the end of August 1945, a central Republican government had been established
in Jakarta, and adopted a constitution drafted during the Japanese occupation. The
British Indian army participated in this campaign against the Republicans, but
many of the soldiers started to wonder why they should fight somebody trying to
move out of the imperialistic yoke. Anyway while they were there, the event
took a religious turn and some 600 Indian Muslim soldiers inspired by the republican
religious war cry, defected to the republic with their weapons. 75 of these
soldiers survived the war; some decided to stay in Indonesia when others
returned to India or Pakistan. This news of course reached India and the Muslim
league possibly wanted to show their brotherhood, hence their timely demand
during the revolt.
References
The Indian naval revolt of 1946 – Percy S Gourgey
The RIN Strike Subrata Banerjee
RIN mutiny 1946 Biswanath Bose
A sudy in the royal indian uprising of February 1946 Dipak
Kumar das
