The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 terrified the British into leaving, but was relegated as a footnote in India’s official history.
On February 18, India marked the 80th anniversary of a momentous but curiously overlooked event - the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946. While the Quit India Movement of 1942 has long been celebrated as the defining moment of India’s struggle for independence, declassified documents and historical accounts suggest otherwise.
On February 18, 1946, a smouldering rebellion erupted on the decks of HMIS Talwar in Bombay. What began as a protest by Indian sailors against miserable living conditions and racist abuse from their British officers rapidly escalated into a full-scale insurrection. Within days, thousands of naval ratings had seized control of 78 ships, multiple shore establishments and major ports from Karachi to Calcutta. The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, as it came to be known, marked one of the most dramatic moments in India’s struggle for independence. Yet, it remains curiously absent from mainstream historical narratives.
The absence is not accidental. India’s political establishment at the time had little use for a rebellion that upended the script of a peaceful transfer of power. For the British, the mutiny was a chilling confirmation that their grip on India had collapsed. For the Congress and the Muslim League, which were engaged in delicate negotiations over independence and Partition, the spectre of armed insurrection by Indian soldiers was an unwelcome disruption. The mutineers, despite their heroism, were abandoned by both history and the new Indian state.
The mutiny was ignited by a wave of nationalist sentiment that had swept across the subcontinent in the wake of the Red Fort trials of Indian National Army (INA) officers Prem Sehgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Shahnawaz Khan. The British sought to make an example of them, but their trial became a lightning rod for patriotic fervour. Mass protests erupted across India, forcing even the Congress, which had earlier distanced itself from Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA, to change course. Jawaharlal Nehru, eager to align himself with the rising tide of nationalist sentiment, donned his lawyer’s robes to defend the accused.
It was against this backdrop that the naval ratings of HMIS Talwar, fed up with deplorable conditions, took matters into their own hands. When their commanding officer, Frederick King, hurled racial slurs at them, calling them “black bastards” and “coolies,” it was the final straw. Within hours, the mutineers had seized control of their ship, and by the following day, a Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC) was formed. The rebellion rapidly spread, with thousands of ratings joining in across the country, demanding better pay, equal treatment and an end to colonial rule.
As the mutiny spread, British warships were deployed, but unrest deepened when Mahratta Light Infantry troops refused to fire. In Karachi, sailors seized ships, while a 10,000-strong march, joined by students, workers and the Royal Indian Air Force, turned it into a nationwide uprising.
During Clement Attlee’s 1956 visit to India, the British PM told P.B. Chakraborty, then acting governor of West Bengal, that the ‘Quit India’ movement had only a “minimal” impact on British calculations. What truly unnerved him was the realization that the British could no longer rely on the loyalty of Indian armed forces and faced the horrifying prospect of defending an empire without an army.
Yet, if the mutiny delivered a final blow to British rule, why was it excised from India’s nationalist mythology? The answer lies in its political implications. For the Congress, which had painstakingly built its narrative around non-violent resistance, an armed rebellion by Indian soldiers threatened to undermine its moral authority. A successful naval mutiny would have discredited the Gandhian approach, raising uncomfortable questions about whether India’s freedom had been won by satyagraha or by the mutinous actions of its own military personnel.
For the Muslim League, the mutiny presented an even graver ideological challenge. The rebels’ leadership, like that of the INA officers on trial, reflected the communal unity of Punjab: Madan Singh, M.S. Khan and R.D. Puri. Their example undermined the League’s argument for a separate Muslim state by demonstrating that Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs could fight side by side for a common cause. It is telling that the only major political group to support the mutineers was the Communist Party of India, which had no stake in either Congress’s non-violence or the League’s two-nation theory.
Under pressure from the British, both Congress and the Muslim League called for the rebels to surrender. Assurances were given that they would be reinstated with minimal repercussions. But these promises were broken. Hundreds of ratings were dismissed, arrested and left to languish in Indian prisons long after the British had left. Many spent the rest of their lives in obscurity, betrayed by the very nation they had fought to liberate.
Eighty years later, the mutiny remains a footnote in India’s history books. No grand memorials have been erected in honour of its leaders. No national holiday commemorates its anniversary. It is time to set the record straight. The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny was not a minor incident in India’s freedom struggle but its final battle. The mutineers did not fight for personal gain. They fought for dignity, for justice and for the belief that an India free of colonial rule should be an India free of oppression. Their story deserves to be told and remembered.
(The author is a political commentator and global affairs observer with a keen eye on South Asia’s evolving dynamics. Views personal.)
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