Remembering the rebels

Exclusive excerpts from veteran publisher Pramod Kapoor’s new book on a forgotten chapter in India’s pre-independence history

- Pramod Kapoor

IN FEBRUARY 1946, sailors of the Royal Indian Navy rose in rebellion. Enraged by terrible working conditions, discrimination and neglect, as many as 20,000 men captured 78 ships and 21 shore establishments, and replaced British flags with that of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party of India. Ordinary people took to the streets to support the mutiny.

To quell it, the British sent warships and fighter planes. The ratings responded by training naval guns on the Gateway of India, Yacht Club and dockyards.

It was, writes award-winning publisher Pramod Kapoor, India’s last war of independence—one that hastened the end of the British Raj. But the details of the mutiny have been left out of popular narratives of India’s freedom struggle. After years of research, Kapoor has come out with a book that brings to light a forgotten chapter in India’s freedom struggle. Exclusive excerpts from 1946 Royal Indian Navy Mutiny: Last War of Independence:

BOMBAY WOKE TO what became the bloodiest day of the mutiny. On Friday (February 22, 1946), even as the political leadership turned their backs on the ratings, ordinary citizens took to the barricades to bravely face tanks and bullets in support of the strikers.

Newspaper reports estimated that somewhere between 350 to 700 people were killed and between 1,000 to 1,500 people were injured, some gravely.