 compensation. The only prominent leader from nationalist ranks who supported them was Aruna Asaf Ali.
The only major political segment that still mentions the revolt are the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The literature of the communist party portrays the RIN Revolt as a spontaneous nationalist uprising that had the potential to prevent the partition of India, and one that was essentially betrayed by the leaders of the nationalist movement.
More recently, the RIN Revolt has been renamed the Naval Uprising and the mutineers honoured for the part they played in India's freedom. In addition to the statue which stands in Mumbai opposite the sprawling Taj Wellingdon Mews, two prominent mutineers, Madan Singh and B.C Dutt, have each had ships named after them by the Indian Navy.
Legacy and assessments of the effects of the revolt
The grievances focused on the slow pace of demobilisation. British units were near mutiny and it was feared that Indian units might follow suit. The weekly intelligence summary issued on 25 March 1946 admitted that the Indian army, navy and air force units were no longer trustworthy, and, for the army, "only day to day estimates of steadiness could be made". The situation has been thus been deemed the "Point of No Return."
However, probably just as important remains the question as to what the implications would have been for India's internal politics had the revolt continued. The Indian nationalist leaders, most notably Gandhi and the Congress leadership apparently had been concerned that the revolt would compromise the strategy of a negotiated and constitutional settlement, but they sought to negotiate with the British and not within the two prominent symbols of respective nationalism—-the Congress and the Muslim League. By March 1947, the Congress had limited partition to only Punjab and Bengal (thus Jinnah’s famous moth-eaten Pakistan remark).
In popular culture
The rising was championed by Marxist cultural activists from Bengal. Salil Chaudhury wrote a revolutionary song in 1946 on behalf of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Later, Hemanga Biswas, another veteran of the IPTA, penned a commemorative tribute. A Bengali play based on the incident, Kallol (Sound of the Wave), by radical playwright Utpal Dutt, became an important anti-establishment statement, when it was first performed in 1965 in Calcutta. It drew large crowds to the Minerva Theatre where it was being performed; soon it was banned by the Congress government of West Bengal and its writer imprisoned for several months.
The revolt is part of the background to John Masters' "Bhowani Junction" whose plot is set at this time. Several Indian and British characters in the book discuss and debate the revolt and its implications.
- Spithead and Nore mutinies
- Chilean naval mutiny of 1931
- HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (1909)#Revolt in the Indies
- Kronstadt rebellion
- Kiel mutiny
- Invergordon Mutiny
- Revolt of the Lash
- Royal Canadian Navy mutinies 1949
Notes and references
- Notes on India By Robert Bohm.pp213
- Ronald Spector, "The Royal Indian Navy Strike of 1946", Armed Forces and Society (Winter 1981) 7#2 pp 271–284
- Encyclopaedia of Political Parties. By O.P. Ralhan pp1011 ISBN 81-7488-865-9
- Glimpses of Indian National Movement. By Abel M. pp257.ISBN 81-7881-420-X
- Chandra, Bipan and others (1989). India's Struggle for Independence 1857–1947, New Delhi:Penguin, ISBN 0-14-010781-9, p.485
- Jawaharlal Nehru, a Biography. By Sankar Ghose. pp141
- Bipan Chandra and others, 'Indian Struggle for Independence' (New Delhi, Penguin, 1988), p. 486
- Subrata Banerjee, The RIN Strike (New Delhi, People’s Publishing House,1954).
- James L. Raj; Making and unmaking of British India. Abacus. 1997. p598
- Subrata Banerjee, The RIN Strike (New Delhi, People’s Publishing House,1954) The RIN uprising would have developed in a different direction; had it not been for the policy pursued by them in relation to every struggle that broke out in that period, we would have seen something different from th