The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946: Nationalist Competition and Civil-Military Relations in Postwar India

ABSTRACT This article argues for the importance of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 in two key aspects of the transition towards Indian independence: civilian control over the Indian military, and a competition for power between Congress and communists that undermined Indian workers and their student allies. The article begins with an investigation of the mutiny drawing on three sources: a first-person account from a lead mutineer, a communist history of the mutiny, and the papers published in the Towards Freedom collection. In 1946 a handful of low-ranking sailors sparked a naval mutiny that ultimately involved upwards of 20,000 sailors, and then crashed into the streets of Bombay with revolutionary fervour. The Communist Party in Bombay seized upon the mutiny as an opportunity to rally the working class against the British raj, with the hope of ending British rule through revolution rather than negotiation. Yet the mutiny proved less of a harbinger of what was ending and more of a bellwether for what was to come. Congress, sensing the danger of the moment, snuffed out support for the mutiny, and insisted on a negotiated transfer of power. Congress’s action thereby set a precedent for civilian dominance over the military in post-independence India. At the same time, however, Congress betrayed the effectiveness of some of organised labour’s strongest advocates, namely the Communist Party, Bombay students and Bombay labour, thereby undermining their costly mass protest, and hobbling them in future conflicts against Indian capitalists.

and communists that undermined Indian workers and their student allies. The article begins with an investigation of the mutiny drawing on three sources: a first-person account from a lead mutineer, a communist history of the mutiny, and the papers published in the Towards Freedom collection. In 1946 a handful of low-ranking sailors sparked a naval mutiny that ultimately involved upwards of 20,000 sailors, and then crashed into the streets of Bombay with revolutionary fervour. The Communist Party in Bombay seized upon the mutiny as an opportunity to rally the working class against the British raj, with the hope of ending British rule through revolution rather than negotiation. Yet the mutiny proved less of a harbinger of what was ending and more of a bellwether for what was to come. Congress, sensing the danger of the moment, snuffed out support for the mutiny, and insisted on a negotiated transfer of power. Congress's action thereby set a precedent for civilian dominance over the military in postindependence India. At the same time, however, Congress betrayed the effectiveness of some of organised labour's strongest advocates, namely the Communist Party, Bombay students and Bombay labour, thereby undermining their costly mass protest, and hobbling them in future conflicts against Indian capitalists. In February 1946, as the wartime powers of the British military continued their slow disarmament, Indian nationalist aspirations spilled into Bombay's military ports and harbours during the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny. The strike proved to be a pivotal testing ground for the means and methods of Indian independence. It ultimately involved thousands of sailors-low of rank and out of depth-and took on more interesting dimensions as nationalist parties struggled to secure a foothold in postwar India. The events of February 1946 continue to Introduction Mutinies, as a political problem, represent a loss of control within the military's strict hierarchical structure and signal a danger to the state's ability to control its armed forces. 4 They typically occur on a small scale and during times of low morale. 5 Rarely, mutinies spill into significant bloodshed, as in the Indian revolt of 1857. 6 In terms of character and danger to the state, the RIN mutiny of 1946 more nearly approached the Invergordon mutiny of 1931, wherein roughly 1,000 low-ranking British sailors refused to work because of an impending pay-cut of 25 per cent. 7 In both Invergordon and Bombay, the mutineers edged closer to an industrial strike than to a violent insurrection. Whereas the Invergordon mutiny involved critically important vessels such as the Hood and the Nelson, the RIN mutiny took place mainly on shore establishments, though once again with low-ranking ratings 8 leading the way. Most of the mutineers intended the strike to redress relatively minor grievances; nationalist aspirations represented a secondary concern. The mutiny of 1946, nevertheless, threatened the British with the loss of control over forces that played a crucial role in British victories in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe during the Second World War. The commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, Claude Auchinleck, and the naval chain-of-command responded firmly to the mutineers and demanded their peaceful capitulation. Violence within the ranks never amounted to more than a handful of casualties. Most of the bloodshed surrounding the mutiny occurred in the streets of Bombay during a communist hartal. In the words of historian Dipak Kumar Das, 'the British faced a legitimacy crisis on a scale and frequency as never before'. 9 Seeking to rekindle a close relationship with the British raj, the Muslim League and National Congress repudiated the communists and the hartal, and strongly advised the naval ratings to surrender. The firm opposition to any violence surrounding the mutiny pointed the way towards an independent India in which civilian government maintained a steady hand on the reins of military power.
Congress and the Muslim League used the mutiny to enhance their reputation as legitimate purveyors of liberal justice and liberal values, intent on working within a constitutional framework to establish Indian independence. They created political space between their own left-wing contingents and the actions of the communists. The Communist Party in India viewed the RIN mutiny as an opportunity to drive Indian independence in a more revolutionary direction; they called for a Bombay-wide hartal in support of the mutineers. For a short time, the communists garnered widespread support from Bombay students and workers, regardless of religious affiliation. Hundreds died in clashes with police and soldiers; police stations burned, buses overturned and life ground to a halt. Congress and the Muslim League quickly distanced themselves from the Bombay hartal and the RIN mutiny. Consequently, however, they also distanced themselves from the mass demonstrators who responded to the communist call for action. Congress leaders, including the socialist-leaning Jawaharlal Nehru and capitalist-leaning Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel, made no attempt to lead the students, workers and naval ratings to revolutionary victory. Congress and the Muslim League left the communists out in the cold, but at the cost of turning off the heat lamp for the demonstrators as well. United Hindu-Muslim political demonstrations became a dull instrument for social change; future demonstrations lacked a united Hindu-Muslim front and became increasingly communal in character.

Early Signs of Dissension within the Ranks
Unrest within the Indian military was not a sudden development. Poor conditions led to unrest throughout the war, especially in the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) and the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF), both of which 'remained on paper' throughout the 1930s only to expand suddenly in the early 1940s. 10 Wartime pressures resulted in inadequate officership, training and organisation. Recruiting posters twisted the story of the RIN's brief life to imply that it had a long and glorious history and that it was part of a strong tradition. 11 The pay for civilian labour rose faster than the basic pay for most soldiers. 12 Desertion from the RIN and RIAF remained endemic throughout the war. 13 In the RIN, work stoppages occurred when young recruits 'insisted on following caste taboos', and the rations were often insensitive to dietary restrictions. 14 As the war ended, Indian soldiers and sailors faced demobilisation and an uncertain civilian job market. 15 There were further signs of military discontent in the months leading up to the strike of the naval ratings. 16 In Bombay, the Free Press Journal reported that tensions arose at a Royal Indian Air Force camp between airmen and the camp commander over the wearing of civilian clothes in the dining facility. 17 On a more serious note, American journalists reported the desertion of hundreds of Indian soldiers in Indonesia, where 'British troops [were] disgusted with the dirty work of shooting Indonesian patriots'. 18 Both these events occurred in an atmosphere already fraught with tension due to the impeding court martial trials of soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA). The INA consisted of Indian-born British soldiers captured by Japanese forces, who then volunteered in small numbers to turn their arms on the forces of the British Empire. 19 The 1945 death of INA leader Subhas Chandra Bose left the INA rudderless, but not politically defenceless-recently released Congress leaders rallied to protect the soldiers of the former president of Congress. This show of support for the INA helped set the stage for the coming RIN mutiny. Nationalist leaders encouraged urban Indians to think of the INA soldiers and Quit India participants as heroes. 20 Loyal members of the armed forces were considered boot lickers. 21 Impending demobilisation and high civilian unemployment created an atmosphere of increasing tension within all branches of the Indian military, but especially in the newer, less conservative branches, the navy and the air force. 22 These tense conditions stacked up on top of the racial discrimination that was always at play in the armed forces. The British soldiers received better pay than the Indian soldiers, and they received better food and facilities. When the Indians protested, their officers invited them to gamely accept the difference in treatment as a competition between rival military units. The officers prodded the Indian ranks to prove they could do more with less; the efforts of the soldiers, the officers suggested, would result in equal treatment after the next training exercise-or, failing that, the next battle-or, if nothing else, then after the war. Equality became an ever-receding goal line, and the Indians could never cross it. 23 Frustration simmered throughout the Second World War, especially in the recently formed RIN and RIAF, and boiled over in 1946. 24 As veteran sailors awaited demobilisation, RIN officers foolishly insulted the ratings with tactless high-handedness, a disregard for overcrowded barracks and the assignment of mind-numbing menial labour. 25 The tension found its clearest expression at a moderately sized naval base that housed and trained signal operators along the shores of Bombay. One of those operators was B. C. Dutt, an aspiring nationalist and five-year veteran of the Royal Indian Navy. At the end of the war, he found himself redeployed to the very naval establishment where he had received his initial training: the HMIS Talwar. He was frustrated with the discrimination he had encountered throughout the war. He met many a kindred spirit in the Talwar canteen. 'Without quite realising it,' he later wrote, 'I became a conspirator.' 26 Dutt and his friends secretly assumed the name Azad Hindi (Free Indians) in a nod to both the INA (Azad Hind Fauj) and the Indian nationalist movement in general. During its brief four-month existence, the circle of conspirators never grew beyond a dozen sympathisers and twenty regulars. 27 But they eventually managed to have an outsized impact on the Royal Indian Navy.
The first act of Talwar sabotage came on Navy Day, 1 December 1945. The RIN commanders wanted to open Talwar to the public for the first time in history. But on the morning of 1 December, officers found the parade ground 'littered with burnt flags and bunting; brooms and buckets were prominently displayed from the masthead. Political slogans in foot-high letters were staring from every wall: "Quit India," "Down With the Imperialists," "Revolt Now," "Kill the British"'. 28 The officers and petty officers cleaned the Talwar as best they could before the public arrived. The mild success of the vandalism (and the weak response of the officers) left the small group of conspirators hungry for more. 29 The weakness of the response came in part from the military's awareness of changing political conditions throughout India. Commander-in-Chief Auchinleck had rung in the New Year with a letter to all commanding officers in which he implored them to remember the importance of cooperation between India and Britain and the need for a smooth changeover to self-rule; he also emphasised the need for tolerance, equality and goodwill between service members, all of which could provide a 'firm base' for the transition. 30 Auchinleck may not have liked the idea of letting go of India, but he took steps to prepare his military as best he could. This was partly to ensure the stability of a critical British interest. But stability and tolerance would also pave the way for British officers to continue to serve in the independent Indian army-a hope which eventually came to fruition. 31 In the near term, however, it perhaps placed his commanders on uneasy grounds for enforcing discipline, especially in the RIN and RIAF, the two newest and weakest components of the Indian military. 32 Unable to catch the guilty party, and unwilling to castigate the mass of sailors, the officers simply increased the pace of demobilisation, effectively hoping to push the conspirators overboard before they could cause any more trouble. 33 The conspirators thus rapidly dwindled in number, but those remaining (including B. C. Dutt) remained enthusiastic for nationalistic action.
As it happened, Auchinleck 34 was scheduled to visit the HMIS Talwar on 2 February 1946. As is often hoped for among general officers, the men on Talwar were, ironically, thrilled at the prospect of Auchinleck's visit. The possibility of being in the presence of their commander-in-chief emboldened B. C. Dutt and his fellow conspirators to take strong action. Sentries, however, barred the path of any unified vandalism. Thus the conspirators operated in even smaller groups than before, but still succeeded in their task. At dusk on 1 February, naval ratings quickly painted 'Jai Hind' and 'Quit India' on the platform from which Auchinleck was to take the Talwar's salute. 35 In the middle of the night, B. C. Dutt added a few smaller slogans. Then he used a bottle of glue to paste leaflets on barrack walls. In a touch that spoke to the complexity of RIN culture, the leaflets quoted the Bible. 'No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other', Matthew 6:24. 36 The sentries discovered the vandalism before sunrise. Before he could sneak back into his barracks, B. C. Dutt was caught with glue on his hands and the bottle and leaflets in his pockets. 'My locker was opened for inspection', Dutt recalled. '[The officers discovered] mimeographed copies of "Indian Mutiny, 1857" by Asoka Mehta, my diaries, the copies of the leaflet I had distributed and some incriminating letters.' 37 B.C. Dutt's almost comical capture soon resulted in unintended consequences for all involved. The capture transformed a bashful conspirator into a reckless catalyst. He claimed sole credit for all acts of vandalism. He announced his status as a political prisoner. He demanded a bench to rest on and a chair to sit on. In quick succession, he faced down five interrogating officers, including a rear-admiral. 38 Outside Dutt's confinement cell, the vandalism continued. And on 8 February Commander F. W. King, the British officer in command at Talwar, lost his cool when he heard naval ratings 'catcall some WRINs (Women in the RIN)'; when he entered the barracks to reprimand the ratings, they failed to leap to attention. 39 In response, King lashed out at his men. The context for King's invective against the ratings appears in Dutt's memoir, but drops out of the news reports (and official reports) appearing in the Towards Freedom collection. 40 Meanwhile, people were dying in the street protests occurring in much of urban India. In New Delhi, Calcutta and Bombay, massive marches continued to celebrate the soldiers of the INA, and nationalist leaders continued to harangue the British efforts to punish the offenders. Indian cities like Bombay were hotbeds of discontent, not only due to nationalist pressures, but also because of changing conditions for urban workers. Many Indian cities had more than doubled in population during the first half of the twentieth century, largely due to rural migration. 41 Urban workers, many with strong rural ties, often had to balance their urban and rural interests, thereby limiting their commitment to strikes and other forms of urban dissension lest they compromise their commitments to their rural families and friends. 42 In some instances, however, the remnants of their rural ties even provided a safety net in case worker protests led to unemployment. 43 Uncertainty surrounding the inchoate transfer of power perhaps encouraged further risk-taking among the urban population.
In the winter of 1945-46, the naval ratings made their mark with glue and paint, while the nationalist leaders made their mark with words. But the civilians of India painted the streets with their own blood in scores of clashes with the British authorities. 44 In the post-war environment, the brunt of nationalist unrest and the costs of mass expression occurred not within military ranks, but among organised urban students and workers. 45 And, for the first time, the ratings were about to touch that blood with their own hands.

The Strike Begins
And so the true spark for the naval mutiny was struck on 8 February, and not on an ocean-going ship but on the shore establishment Talwar. As eventually reported in the Free Press Journal on 18 February, the 'insulting behaviour' of Commanding Officer King infuriated the naval ratings under his command with taunts of 'Sons of Coolies' and 'Sons of Bitches'. 46 Dutt's memoir adds the phrase 'Sons of bloody junglees'. 47 Anger accumulated, and a hunger strike commenced on 18 February. 48 Embarking on a hunger strike, the ratings embraced tactics favoured in the nationalist movement. Now the officers on Talwar took the strike seriously, and quickly minimised the risk of violence and confusion through the dispersal of non-striking personnel away from the establishment. 49 What began at Talwar quickly spread throughout the harbours of Bombay. Some of the most significant actions took place at Castle Barracks, one of the shore establishments located near the Talwar. On the morning of the 19 February-the same day on which Whitehall announced a Cabinet Mission to India-the Castle Barracks ratings received newspaper accounts of the strike from the Free Press Journal. They saw B. C. Dutt on the front page. The headlines read 'Indian Naval Men in City on Hunger Strike', 'Insulting Behaviour of C.O. Infuriates the Ratings', 'Authorities Get Panicky' and 'Communications between India and Abroad Dislocated'. 50 According to Subrata Banerjee's pro-communist account of the RIN strike, the newspaper reports set off arguments among the ratings. 51 Interestingly, the poor quality of their breakfast seemed to arouse the strongest sentiment. The navy offered them 'just what we have been eating ever since we joined the service-foul-smelling, half-cooked and full of stones and husks'. 52 The ratings rejected the meal, and took action. They seized vehicles and spilled into the streets of Bombay. Some drove, some ran, some marched. All headed towards the Talwar. Their momentum drew 3,000 ratings together. The ratings took a largely non-violent approach to the mutiny. They even formed a Central Naval Strike Committee in anticipation of negotiations. B. C. Dutt assumed a supporting role on the committee. 53 All the members were under twenty-six years of age. 54 Some were Muslims, other Hindu. 55 At the conclusion of the initial meetings and rallies at the Talwar, the naval ratings dispersed, and for the most part returned to their ships and shore establishments. 56 The committee quickly generated a coherent list of demands. These demands suggest the precipitating conditions that led to the strike. First, they demanded the release of all political prisoners, to include the soldiers of the INA; second, unspecified action against Commander King for ill-treatment and insulting language; third, the speedy demobilisation of RIN personnel, but with provisions for peacetime employment; fourth, a revision of pay-scale, such that RIN personnel would earn equivalent pay to their counterparts in the regular Royal Navy; fifth, adjusted pay allowances for family and children; sixth, better food; seventh, no refund of clothing kit at the time of discharge-in other words, allow the ratings to keep all their uniforms upon completion of their service; eighth, better treatment from the officers; ninth, withdrawal of Indian forces from Indonesia. 57 Wider political concerns bookended the demands, but at their core was equality of pay between the Royal Navy (RN) and the Royal Indian Navy, as well as direct address to the needs of the Bombay shore establishments. The strikers refused to negotiate without the intervention of nationalist leaders, especially Aruna Asaf Ali, a popular Bombay political leader and wife of Asaf Ali, a man who was tipped to become the first defence minister in the new Indian government. 58 The ratings broadcast their action to ships throughout the Bombay area. At the end of 18 February, some 1,100 men on the establishment had joined the strike. 59 The next day, eleven additional shore establishments also joined the strike. The ratings boarded the twenty-plus naval ships in Bombay, and flew the Indian tri-colour flag rather than the Union Jack. 60 This brought the total number of ratings involved to around 20,000, though some estimates place the actual number of strikers much lower-perhaps fewer than 15,000. Thus, a strike that began with a handful of veterans quickly spread to thousands. Many of these were raw recruits.
Aruna Asaf Ali, a member of Congress whom the strikers cited as their preferred correspondent from the nationalist movement, responded in due course. On 20 February she saluted the ratings for refusing to 'submit sheepishly [to] the hectoring and swearing of their British rulers'. 61 Confident of broad support for the strike, she encouraged the ratings to maintain their stance, seek further guidance from nationalist leaders and undertake disciplined collective action. 'Firmness, discipline and unity on the [part] of the strikers and the pressure of public opinion should result in a successful conclusion to this spontaneous strike.' 62 The ratings adhered to Aruna Asaf Ali's guidelines for discipline and collective action-at least for the time being-but the political context darkened even as more military personnel fell in with the strikers. Some eighty ratings specialising in signal communications joined the strike from the naval headquarters in New Delhi on 20 February. 63 Members of the Royal Indian Air Force joined in the strike on the 21st. 64 The air-force strikers repeated the RIN demand for pay equal to that of the RAF. Nevertheless, 'the heady wine of freedom had run down noticeably' among the naval units of Bombay. 65 The strikers notified the Free Press Journal that they feared the government intended to deprive them of food. (Apparently the hunger-strike was stopped soon after it began on the 18th, or else not widespread.) In a move that initially baffled the ratings, flag officer commanding, Royal Indian Navy (FOCRIN), John Henry Godfrey, admiral, offered to accept the ratings' 'request' for better food. 66 The authorities even dropped off a truck of food at Castle Barracks. 67 Yet at the same time, General Sir Rob Lockhart, leader of Southern Command, assumed responsibility for subduing the mutiny. He deployed Indian troops-a battalion of the Mahratta Regiment-to herd the mutineers off the streets and into their quarters. 68 No one was hurt on the first day of Lockhart's operation, but that would soon change. 69 Through runners and telephone calls, the ratings began to discover that 'their heroes, the leaders of the liberation movement, had no use for them'. 70 The ratings in Bombay grew apprehensive as British Indian Army soldiers formed pickets around their facilities. Still, the Central Strike Committee relayed to their comrades that they should remain non-violent.
Dutt, Banerjee, British military reports and Indian government reports all differ as to who exactly made the next move, but in all versions violence occurred at Castle Barracks. 71 According to Dutt and Banerjee, the violence began with a prepared assault against the ratings. 72 According to official reports (which most nationalist leaders accepted), ratings at Castle Barracks attempted to break through Lockhart's picket on 21 February. 73 The pickets repulsed the ratings, and the ratings took up arms and fired on the pickets. The pickets-army trained-fired back at the naval ratings with rifles, Lewis guns and Tommy guns. Both sides tossed grenades. 74 With the onset of violence, the Central Strike Committee moved from the Talwar to the HMIS Narbada, a sloop and the most modern ship in the harbour at that time. The committee told all ships to prepare, if necessary, to take up battle stations throughout Bombay. They sent the message without using any attempt at code. The British easily intercepted the message. 75

National Politics, Local Consequences
The ratings expected broad support from the leaders of the Indian independence movement, but that support never fully materialised. From Congress and the Muslim League, the ratings received only words of sympathy and promises of legal assistance. Demarcating the severe limits of support for the RIN uprising required a test in the streets, newspapers and radio programmes of Bombay. The communists pushed for just such a test. As in Calcutta one month earlier, 76 the street demonstrations that ostensibly supported the revolutionary action of nationalist soldiers soon burned bright red as the communists rallied the urban masses towards their own vision of an independent India. Contrary to the claims of observers like M. R. Masani, the civilian population possessed no 'indelible conviction' that the Indian communists served as a mere 'fifth column of the Soviet Union', but could rally around the warmest nationalist ember, communist, Congress or otherwise. 77 Tensions within Congress, and between Congress and the communists, soon became apparent. Gangadhar Adhikari, a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee, called for a one-day general strike 'in all shops, schools, colleges, and mills as a mark of … disapproval of Government repression'. 78 But even as the communists called for hartal, Congress leaders like S. K. Patil, Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel appealed for peace, order and normality. 79 Patil, general secretary of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee (BPCC), led the local chamber in passing a resolution in support of the RIN ratings. The BPCC stayed in constant contact with the ratings, and urged the authorities to redress their concerns. Yet at the same time (and on the same day as Adhikari's call for hartal) he noted that 'some interested persons, wanting to take advantage of the situation or incapable of realising the consequences of their action, have asked the mills in the city to close as a part of general hartal'; he counselled Bombay that such actions did more harm than good. 80 It is our sad experience every time, that when the atmosphere is tense the hartals or the general suspension of business accentuate the tension rather than relieve it, and they afford an excellent opportunity to hooligans and irresponsible elements to intimidate people and lead them to violence. 81 Congress knew that the raj was on the way out and that they had an opportunity to play a decisive role in the transfer of power. Congress in 1946 could ill afford a military-led insurrection that might cost them their place at the negotiating table or a delay of the transfer. Nor could Congress risk the annoyance (or the destruction) of the Indian capital that formed their base of support. The sudden burst of patriotism from the mutinous, low-ranking ratings came too late in the raj's lifespan to convince the Congress leaders of its good effects. After all, the ratings, however low-ranking, were an integral part of the war machine that kept Gandhi, Nehru and Patel in prison throughout much of the war. From the Muslim League, Jinnah offered his services to redress the grievances of the RIN strikers, but on the condition that they adopt 'constitutional, lawful and peaceful methods'. 82 Jinnah, and his rivals in Congress, saw little use in calling for hartal or any other popularly charged sign of support for the naval ratings. It was a remarkable (albeit brief) moment of unity between the Hindu and Muslim workers in the streets who pressed for an immediate transfer of power; it was also a moment of unity for the Muslim and Hindu leaders who vehemently insisted on a more gradual process. 83 Regardless of the calls of Congress and the Muslim League, a hartal commenced throughout Bombay. Violence followed. The headline in the Free Press Journal read, 'Demonstrators Machinegunned'. 84 The disruptions began on Thursday evening, 22 February, and continued through the next day. Demonstrators set fire to military and police vehicles, constructed roadblocks and turned over tramcars. Eventually, military rule prevailed throughout the city, but not without opening fire on the crowds with heavy machine-guns. The hartal choked the life out of the city, at least for a day, and the streets 'presented a desolate and forlorn appearance' with the exception of a rare passing demonstration by students and labourers. Rioters looted government shops, as well as those of wealthy merchants, such as a wine shop in Cheera Bazar. 85 Thousands of clerks from the Great Indian Peninsula railway walked out in the early afternoon and joined the mill workers and other labourers in the streets. 86 An intelligence report on the following day placed the number of injured in the Bombay riots at 777, with 63 dead; the police also suffered casualties: 37 officers and 93 constables were injured, and two of the constables were killed.
The oral history archives at the Imperial War Museum in London include an account of the street violence from an anonymous, low-ranking British officer who considered himself a socialist. 87 He travelled to Bombay in civilian clothes in hopes of seeing a revolution; after seeing the mutinying ships quietly lining the harbour, he travelled deeper into the streets to be among the crowds of protesting workers. Shortly after his arrival a British Army 1,500weight truck came around a corner, the protestors threw themselves to the ground and a machine-gun from the back of the truck opened up. Many were wounded, but the officer, as the only white man among the crowd, began to fear a retaliatory lynching, and so he took a train to Sandhurst Rd, near the Communist Party headquarters. As the crowds passed down Sandhurst Rd, the people shouted 'Jai Hind' and 'Ink Zal Ind-Ibd'-Long Live the Revolution. 'Talking to the comrades during the afternoon and evening … they were wondering if this might be signal for revolution'. Mutiny played a large role in 'communist romanticism', reaching back to the uprising aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin in 1905. The police, in the officer's view, were not making a serious effort to stop the demonstrations, So it was not inconceivable that a Soviet might be declared and that Bombay might have been in the hands of revolutionary forces and that this might have spread to the whole of India and who knows what might have happened. 88 What in fact actually happened was that Indian National Congress leaders decided that the prospect of revolution must not get out of hand.
As the violence in the streets wound up, the naval ratings wound down. On 22 February, Admiral Godfrey, commander of the Royal Indian Navy, demanded their surrender, suggesting that he would annihilate the RIN rather than let it fall into chaos. 89 The ratings realised that no significant national leader offered unconditional support for their efforts. They had stumbled into the fight for Indian independence with naive expectations, and now they found they had little stomach for truly radical politics. When their Central Strike Committee failed to produce a national leader who could unequivocally guide the fight, the ratings lost confidence and enthusiasm. 90 Thus, back at the naval yard, the ratings at Castle Barracks surrendered their arms in accordance with the wishes of Vallabhbhai Patel. They attempted to renew the strike on a nonviolent basis, and paid their respects to 'those brave citizens and workers who have perished or have been injured … at the hands of the British authority'. 91 The mutiny also reared its head in Karachi and Calcutta, but was quickly contained in similar fashion. 92 Soon, all the ratings capitulated. Those that played a key role in the strike, like B.C. Dutta, were eventually discharged from the navy, never to return and never pardoned.
If the ratings found scant hope from the Bombay riots, most nationalist leaders found none at all. Mahatma Gandhi denounced the violence as unholy, even if it represented a united Hindu-Muslim action against the British forces. 'A combination between Hindus and Muslims and others,' he wrote on 23 February, 'for the purpose of violent action is unholy and will lead to and probably is a preparation for mutual violence-bad for India and the world.' 93 Not everyone agreed with the Mahatma. Aruna Asaf Ali pushed back against Gandhi on 25 February. She insisted that she would help bring the disturbances to an end only if the British military forces withdrew from the city and the government lifted the ban on meetings. 94 In the halls of the Central Assembly, Congress leadership shuffled the question of enquiries into subcommittees and out of the main chamber; they refused even to address the possibility of refuting any disciplinary actions taken against the mutineers. 95 With the ratings losing enthusiasm for revolutionary action, the Communist Party quickly sensed the closing of a small window of opportunity. Shripad Amrit Dange, a founding member of the Communist Party in India, alleged a systematic cover-up by the government. He said the violence in the streets of Bombay constitutes 'an unprecedented orgy of shootings … even for the British administration of this country'. 96 He charged the British with the mass shooting of 250 civilians during the Bombay hartal. He made the shootings out to be a class issue, saying that they mostly took place in working-class areas. 'One can understand the Government and its spokesmen raising the cry of hooliganism; but it is distressing to find Congress leaders like Sardar Patel lending support to this interpretation.' 97 Thus far, the difference in action between the Congress and communists seems straightforward. But this was not the case. The Towards Freedom collection juxtaposes S. A. Dange's criticisms of Congress with a private letter from Dr Mukund Ramrao Jayakar that offers a local reading of political tensions. In the letter, Jayakar, a member of the Constituent Assembly in India, explained to INA defence lawyer Tej Bahadur Sapru that the disparate actions of the communists and Congress leaders divulged the presence of subtle nationalist power struggles. 'There is a secret rivalry between the Communists and Congressmen,' he wrote, 'each trying to put the other in the wrong. In yesterday's speech Vallabhbhai almost said, without using so many words, that the trouble was due to the Communists trying to rival the Congress in the manner of leadership.' 98 The communists sought to rally support for the mutineers with a broad call for hartal throughout the city of Bombay. The communists used the hartal in an attempt to pry the support of the masses away from the hands of Congress. They wagered that initiating a politically potent hartal might grant them enough political momentum to drive the independence movement leftward. Patel, however, firmly repudiated the hartal, and instead concentrated even more political power in the direction of capital-friendly congressmen. Nehru's biographer, S. Gopal, noted that Patel grew annoyed when socialist-leaning Jawaharlal Nehru came to Bombay to look into the riots for himself. 99 British bureaucrats and Indian business leaders both preferred the orderly calls of capital-friendly Patel to the threat of revolutionary socialism. Patel's influence proved strong enough to wrestle left-leaning Congress leaders into line, and he effectively discouraged them from showing any support for the actions of the communists, the rioters or the ratings. In short, despite the burnt vehicles, tram shelters and post offices, and despite the massive movement of students and labour, the communist hartal effectively solidified the collusion between a moderated Congress, Indian capital and the British government. This was the absolute opposite of the intended effect. Jayakar's letter continued with a celebration of Congress's turn against the naval strikers: I feel often surprised at the wonderful change which has come over these big Congressmen. No hartals, no meetings [,] no processions, no closing of schools, no defiance … even the Mahatma now says that it is foolish to distrust the intentions of the British. 100 In noting the 'secret rivalry' between the congressmen and communists, Jayakar actually expected the communists to make political gains in national politics due to Congress's apparent meekness. These gains never materialised. The communists continued to excoriate Congress and the British military for their actions against both the naval ratings and the people of Bombay, but to no effect. 101 The communist denunciation of the Patel-organised surrender also seems to have had no effect.
In any event, both the communists and Congress in Bombay overestimated their ability to control the 'masses,' even if they could inspire occasional conflagrations. Contrary to the post-war expectations of Dr Mukund Ramrao Jayakar and his peers, historian R. Chandavarkar argues, incidents of urban strife (such as the mutiny) did not simply encourage further working-class cooperation, but could occasion further sectional splintering and rivalry for scarce jobs. 102 Urban strife encouraged uncertainty, mistrust and fierce competition among the workforce, not unity. From the 1940s onward, the fortunes of the communists in Bombay began to wane, being fully eroded by the 1970s. 103 Throughout the transfer of power, the inconsistent pattern of support that Congress showed for strikes reminded urban workers of their precarious political position; a labour force already fractured along sectional lines faced uncertain prospects of elite support, even if they managed to overcome the internal competition inherent among Bombay workers. 104 For years, Gandhi and other Congress leaders had fuzzily described the relationship between capital and labour using the metaphor of a family, 105 but now they had criticised the actions of labour even within the nationalist context of the 1946 mutiny. Based on Congress's past rhetoric, labour might have known that Congress's nationalist agenda did not perfectly align with the interests of urban labour, 106 but now workers had little certainty as to how they could use their basic political instrument-hartal-to support even the broadest nationalist agenda. Opposition to the British Empire had been a unifying element among members of the working class throughout the 1920s and 1930s, 107 but Congress's rejection of the working class's radical nationalist sentiment as expressed in February 1946 stands as a key moment when Congress doused working-class enthusiasm with an alienating reserve. The possibility of non-communal, cross-ideological revolution from 'below' was firmly closed, despite the brief sparks of Hindu and Muslim worker cooperation seen in Bombay and Karachi during the RIN mutiny. 108 Ironically, the coolness with which Congress treated the February 1946 hartal weakened an ally that Congress could have used to discipline capital in post-transition India. It was a pivotal moment in modern Indian history, but not in the way that the working class, the naval ratings or the communists could have expected.

The View from the Raj
Intelligence bureau reports from the time show the typical government employee as only too happy to distinguish between communist violence and Congress's moderation. But the political fallout remained uncertain until the smoke cleared. 'Congress were against today's hartal and Vallabhbhai Patel was emphatic about this,' wrote one intelligence officer, 'but the Communists' call for sympathy with the RIN ratings has won the day and the Congress Labour Union has been totally ineffective.' 109 A telephone report the next day drew a clear line between communist and Congress: 'Congress advised against the hartal yesterday. The communists however called for hartal and sent representatives distribution leaflets … there is no doubt that the Communists are directly responsible for the trouble.' 110 The intelligence reports failed to mention Congress member Aruna Ali Asaf's support for the hartal. Yet any successful mobilisation of labour proved short lived. The government curfew on 22 February effectively put an end to the rioting and violence, as well as to any working-class collective action. 111 Up at the very top, Viceroy Archibald Wavell took the mutiny in his stride. Before the onset of the strike, the INA riots in Calcutta on 12 and 13 February firmly held his attention. 112 Wavell described 19 February as 'a day of alarms but not excursions'. 113 Wavell felt that Auchinleck took the news harder than himself.
Though [Auchinleck] talked about sticking to our principles, he was really hoping hard that I would give a lead to recommend to H.M.G., surrender to public opinion and total abandonment of I.N.A. trials. I refused to play and said we should stick it out. What a cheerful day-prospect or reality of three mutinies and two strikes! However, I got in 18 holes of golf with Pompey Howard in between and played well. 114 Part of Auchinleck's angst may have derived from his personal tensions with FOCRIN Admiral John Godfrey. According to Major-General Shahid Hamid, Auchinleck's personal secretary, Godfrey had earlier resisted Auchinleck's efforts to encourage the navy to plan for demobilisation, as well as the 'Indianization' of the RIN's officer corps. 115 During the mutiny, Rear-Admiral A. R. Rattray, Godfrey's second-in-command, insisted on parleying with the mutineers; this annoyed Auchinleck, who wanted the RIN to hold firm and demand an immediate return to discipline. 116 On 20 February neither Wavell nor Auchinleck acknowledged any interest in giving way to the naval ratings; they hoped to severely punish the ringleaders of the mutiny and had yet to discover that the mutiny was largely rudderless. When the mutineers fired on their troops, Auchinleck and Wavell coolly refused the notion of any further parley with the mutineers. 117 Despite the threat of serious violence, Wavell telegrammed to Prime Minister Clement Attlee that the mutiny did not 'indicate any inherent rottenness in the R.I.N.', but that the 'proportion of experienced officers and petty officers is very small owing to rapid expansion during war, and number of young and excitable men'. 118 After two months marked by violence throughout the country, Wavell wrote on 27 February of his frustration with Indian political leaders for inciting mass action in the past, but showing little ability to control it in the present. 'They have often condemned "police rule", but it is at any rate better than student rule or mob rule, as they are beginning to find out.' 119 Neither Wavell nor Auchinleck associated the mutiny or the street protests with communist subversion, a starkly different response to the oncoming Cold War from that seen in the likes of MI5 back in England. 120 Still, the blithe response of the higher echelon of the imperial establishment seems to jar uncomfortably with the brutality shown in the armed response to the violence on the streets, and perhaps betrays how commonplace state-sanctioned violence remained in late 1940s India.
As winter passed into spring, and spring into summer, the military locked up the 'ringleader' naval ratings, discharged others and forgave the remainder. It reclaimed nearly all its vessels (and most of its equipment) intact. An exception was the sloop HMIS Hindustan, which had exchanged fire with Indian Army howitzers and required serious repairs. 121 In July the Bombay government advised against public trials of the mutineers. The trials, they felt, would strain the ability of capitalist-minded Congressmen to maintain ascendency over Congress Socialists who are at present bitterly critical of Vallabhbhai Patel and others for lack of support to the RIN mutineers. Public trials will give Congress Socialists an opportunity to strengthen their influence and this may make future negotiations for Congress participation in Central Government more difficult. 122 Also in July, freshly promoted Field Marshal Auchinleck softened his approach to the RIN participants. Falling in line with Bombay's advice, he opted for the more private (and less stringent) punishments made possible through summary proceedings, rather than the harsher prospects of court martial. He made one exception-Commander King, the commanding officer at Talwar who used racist language, would still undergo court martial for his use of unbecoming language and his failure to investigate a complaint when brought to his notice. 123

Conclusion
This article has offered a narrative of the RIN mutiny and its consequences from the perspective of the Towards Freedom collection, as well as narratives written or recorded by interesting participants and observers: the naval rating credited with sparking the mutiny, a communist essayist and a communist British officer hoping to witness the declaration of an Indian Soviet. As a consequence of its sources, especially the Towards Freedom collection, this article offers an 'elite' driven analysis of the event. Additional research could lean on sources recorded in local dialects and the local Bombay Home Department proceedings to better understand the urban dynamics of the mutiny and challenge elite assumptions about urban political behaviour.
Still, for the present purpose, the consequences of the mutiny can be summarised in terms of how the event affected Indian elites and their leadership of the country. The mutiny of the naval ratings burst upon the scene of national politics unexpectedly; it set off unintended reverberations that lasted for years. From one perspective, the affair ended tidily and possibly eased fears of an internal security dilemma within independent India. From another, however, the RIN mutiny put a firm wedge between organised labour and Congress, thereby spoiling the economic plans of Indian socialists for years to come. The RIN mutiny of 1946 thus helped shape the conditions depicted in two recent works of outstanding scholarship, each of which examines different aspects of India's political development: Zoltan Barany's The Solider and the Changing State and Vivek Chibber's Locked in Place. The findings of the present study indicate that neither outcome stemmed from strategic choice, but through happenstance.
Barany argues that Indian democracy benefited from Jawaharlal Nehru's relatively smooth assumption of executive military command at the time of the transfer of power. 124 The Indian Army, still an elite and disciplined force, calmly moved from one master to the next. But this outcome was far from certain prior to the mutiny. The military and Congress, after all, distrusted one another tremendously after standing on opposite sides throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and especially during the Second World War. Their opposition to one another hardly represented a promising start for civilian dominance over military affairs, itself an essential precondition for democracy. Curiously, the mutiny played a large role in ensuring civilian dominance over the military. As previously stated, a mutiny represents a threat to a government's ability to control its armed forces. In the case of the 1946 mutiny, however, the actions of Congress and the raj helped cement civilian dominance over military matters, and ensured the welfare of officers in the Indian military. Congress leaders like Patel and Gandhi sought to end the mutiny merely because it represented a threat to the progress of near-term negotiations between Congress and the British government. To ensure the fidelity of a transfer of power, they strove to use their leverage as national leaders to encourage the mutineers to a peaceful, negotiated settlement. The mutineers wanted active leadership, but instead received quiet advice. The mutineers claimed they were behaving in a politically legitimate way; Congress leaders coolly denied the claim. This set a precedent that held strong throughout the subsequent tumultuous decades: in the early years of independent India, military units were not welcome to take independent political action of any kind, thus mitigating their threat to the state. 125 The RIN mutiny ultimately had a negligible effect on the military's internal cohesion or discipline. 126 Second, Congress refused to support the hartal of workers and students; Congress's refusal staunched the confidence of labour-based political actors in India. Indian capital, already strengthened from their output throughout the Second World War, embraced Patel's willingness to quickly end the strike of the naval ratings. In Patel, the capitalists found a leader capable of speaking directly to strikers; Patel was equally capable of keeping the other Congress leaders from going too far in their support of movements that tasted of revolutionary socialism. But Patel's dispersal of the RIN mutiny and dismissal of the accompanying hartal eventually had far-reaching consequences: when it came time to implement Nehru's economic plans, India lacked the confident working class necessary to provide leverage vis-à-vis domestic capital. Congress's actions during the 1946 mutiny, though intended only to ensure a rapid transfer of power, perhaps had a serious influence on economic outcomes for decades to come, weakening the most likely political counterweight to capitalist campaigns against Nehru's attempt to build a 'developmental state'. 127 As B. C. Dutt reflected in his own memoirs some forty years ago, 'Indian society has so evolved that there is no room for revolution'. Indeed, for that fact, proponents of moderation might wish to thank an unlikely (and unlucky) group of young men: the Royal Indian Navy mutineers of 1946. 128 Notes 1. Historian D. O. Spence argues in 'Beyond Talwar' that the behaviour of sailors throughout the RIN was more complex and interestingly varied than typically described; he also argues for the role of organised crime in exacerbating and facilitating civil unrest in Bombay, a narrative completely absent from the Towards Freedom and Transfer of Power papers. In a separate series of recent articles, geographer Andrew Davies leverages the RIN mutiny to explore three related problems: the peculiar maritime character of resistance and discipline during the RIN mutiny, the multi-faceted identity of RIN sailors and the way that ocean-going service allowed sailors to develop