As rightly remarked by Shyam Benegal, a footnote in the history of the freedom movement has been turned into an exciting and important account in Pramod Kapoor\u2019s 1946 Last War of Independence: Royal Indian Navy Mutiny<\/em>. Pramod himself stumbled onto this forgotten story while researching for his book on Gandhi: \u201cAfter the draft of the Gandhi book was done, I re-read the Royal Indian Navy mutiny episodes and realised the magnitude of the event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reports of the revolt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Pramod began his research, he discovered hundreds of reports by British admirals, commanding officers of ships and shore establishments, cables and letters exchanged between London and Delhi, proceedings in the British parliament and debates in the Legislative Council in India. They were \u201chonest,\u201d but were told from the British point of view. For another view, Pramod waded through hundreds of newspaper reports and documents at libraries, met people with knowledge of the revolt and toured HMIS Talwar, the signal school of the Navy at Colaba, where \u201cinflammatory slogans\u201d had been written on the walls and \u201cseditious pamphlets\u201d were circulated. A tour of the dockyard and areas of Navy Nagar in Mumbai helped him understand the \u201chistory and geography of the area where the uprising took place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February 1946, ratings, or the lowest rung of sailors in the Royal Indian Navy hierarchy, staged a revolt. The young sailors were protesting against the fact that things they were promised at the time of recruitment had not been honoured: living conditions were horrible; the food worse and there was rampant racial discrimination. Also, says Pramod, inspired by the Indian National Army (INA), they were politically charged and keen to play a part in India\u2019s freedom movement. Within 48 hours, the strength of the mutineers grew to 20,000, and they took over ships afloat and on-shore establishments. Servicemen in the army and air force, and civilians joined the protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pramod Kapoor transforms a footnote in history into a remarkable account of a rebellion that convinced the British it was time to leave India As rightly remarked by Shyam Benegal, a footnote in the history of the freedom movement has been turned into an exciting and important account in Pramod Kapoor\u2019s 1946 Last War of Independence: … Continue reading ** 1946 Last War of Independence Royal Indian Navy Mutiny\u00a0review: The 1946 naval uprising<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,206,5,18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazing-feats","category-defence-services-airlandsea","category-education","category-history","category-records-india-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15275,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15273\/revisions\/15275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalrecordsindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}