Netaji's Army: How the INA and the 1946 Naval Mutiny Shook the Raj

In the winter of 1945, the British put three Indian soldiers on trial inside Delhi's Red Fort, and accidentally put the Empire itself in the dock. The court-martial of INA officers, followed months later by a mutiny of Indian sailors in Bombay harbour, did what decades of petitions could not: it convinced London that the sword-arm of the Raj, its own armed forces, could no longer be trusted. This is the story of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army and the 1946 naval mutiny that many historians call the last war of Indian independence.

The making of a rebel: Bose's road to the INA

Subhas Chandra Bose was twice elected Congress president, at Haripura in 1938 and Tripuri in 1939, on a platform of uncompromising nationalism and socialist planning. His differences with Gandhi over method and timing led to his resignation, after which he founded the Forward Bloc in 1939 to rally the Congress left. Where Gandhi sought to convert the British, Bose sought to defeat them, if necessary with foreign help.

Placed under house arrest by the British in 1940, Bose slipped out of Calcutta in January 1941 in a daring escape, travelling through Afghanistan to reach Berlin and eventually, by submarine, Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. By mid-1943 he was in Singapore, where a liberation army of Indian prisoners of war was waiting for a leader of his stature. His famous calls, Delhi Chalo and Give me blood, and I will give you freedom, turned the INA from a demoralised remnant into a crusade.

The Indian National Army: birth, battles and the tricolour at Moirang

The INA's first incarnation was raised in September 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh, using Indian soldiers captured after the fall of Singapore, with the backing of Rash Behari Bose's Indian Independence League. It collapsed within months over disagreements with the Japanese. Bose reorganised and revitalised it in 1943, welding roughly 45,000 prisoners of war and civilian expatriates into a disciplined force.

In October 1943, from Singapore, Bose proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India, Azad Hind, declared war on Britain, and won recognition from the Axis powers. Fighting alongside the Japanese, INA units advanced through Burma toward India's northeast in 1944, reaching the Imphal and Kohima campaigns. At Moirang in Manipur, INA soldiers raised the Indian tricolour on liberated Indian soil for the first time, a moment of enormous symbolic power, even though the military campaign ultimately failed against superior Allied forces.

What the INA achieved without winning a battle

The INA's military defeat matters less than its political detonation. It demonstrated communal unity in arms, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fighting side by side under one flag. It proved that Indian soldiers could defy the Raj's ultimate sanction, military discipline, and survive in public esteem. And it radicalised the very armed forces Britain depended on: within months of the INA trials, discontent exploded in the Royal Indian Navy.

The Rani Jhansi Regiment: women in uniform

Bose created a separate women's regiment of the INA, the Rani Jhansi Regiment, commanded by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (later Lakshmi Sehgal), drawing about 1,500 volunteers, many of them young Tamil women from Malaya's plantations. What began as nursing and support duties evolved into combat training, and the regiment's detachments served in the Burma theatre, including during the Imphal campaign.

The regiment shattered the convention that women's contribution to the freedom struggle must be auxiliary. It was arguably the first time in modern Indian history that women were organised as soldiers of a liberation army, a precedent that echoed in every later debate about women in the armed forces.

The Red Fort trials: Britain's biggest miscalculation

After Japan's defeat, the British decided to court-martial captured INA men for waging war against the King. The first and most famous trial, held at the Red Fort in Delhi from November 1945, put three officers in the dock: Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, deliberately, a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, which backfired spectacularly by embodying the unity the prosecution wanted to deny.

The Congress formed the INA Defence Committee in 1945, and the defence team read like a roll of honour: Bhulabhai Desai led the arguments, with Asaf Ali, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Kailash Nath Katju, Sarat Chandra Bose, and Jawaharlal Nehru himself appearing in his barrister's robes after decades. The trial became a national spectacle: student strikes, hartals, and open sympathy from serving Indian soldiers. Though the men were convicted, the sentences were remitted, the British dared not enforce them.

Why the trials hastened the end of the Raj

The trials told every Indian in uniform that London now feared its own army. The wave of sympathy, cutting across Congress, League and Communist supporters, showed the British that repression would only manufacture martyrs. Coming right after the INA saga, the trials were the direct emotional trigger for the naval mutiny of February 1946.

The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny of 1946: the last war of independence

On 18 February 1946, ratings of HMIS Talwar in Bombay struck work. The sparks were immediate, racist abuse by a British commander, bad food, poor pay, menial duties, and no channel for grievances, but the fuel had accumulated through the war: rapid expansion had brought non-traditional recruits into the navy, exposure to Allied rhetoric about freedom, and the electrifying example of the INA trials. Within days the revolt spread to 78 ships and 21 shore establishments, from Bombay to Karachi, Calcutta and Madras, drawing in nearly 20,000 sailors who hoisted the flags of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party together.

Bombay erupted in sympathy: a general strike, street battles, and barricades. Yet the established leadership recoiled, the Congress and the Muslim League both pressed the sailors to surrender, Gandhi condemned the revolt as lacking disciplined leadership, and only the Communist Party openly backed the mutineers. The mutiny was crushed within a week, but its message was indelible: the instrument of British power in India had turned.

Was it really the last nail in the coffin?

The UPSC itself asked this in 2014, and the answer is a qualified yes. The mutiny exposed that Britain could no longer rely on Indian troops, the foundation of colonial control since 1857. It arrived alongside the INA trials, the 1946 elections and the Cabinet Mission, compressing London's timetable for withdrawal. Historians like Sumit Sarkar read it as the culmination of the wartime radicalisation of Indian servicemen. Its limitation was political: without party backing or centralised leadership, it could dramatise the crisis but not direct it, that task fell to the negotiators of 1946-47.

Key Terms

• Congress and the Muslim League both pressed the sailors to surrender: This refers to the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946, when ratings in Bombay revolted over poor service conditions and sympathy with the INA trials. Both the Congress and the Muslim League urged the sailors to surrender, fearing the uprising would disrupt constitutional negotiations with the British. Vallabhbhai Patel persuaded the strikers to call it off. For UPSC, it shows mainstream parties containing a radical revolt that nonetheless hastened the British decision to quit India. The mutiny began on 18 February 1946 aboard HMIS Talwar in Bombay and spread to Karachi and Calcutta.
• Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon: Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon is the trio of Indian National Army officers tried for treason at the Red Fort in 1945 to 1946 for waging war against the British. Defended by Bhulabhai Desai, their trial triggered nationwide protests and united the Congress, League and Communists in their defence. The sentences were remitted. It matters for UPSC because the INA trials mark the climax of the freedom struggle and a standard modern-history question. Red Fort trials, November 1945 to 1946
• Give me blood, and I will give you freedom: Give me blood, and I will give you freedom is Subhas Chandra Bose's famous rallying cry, delivered in a speech to the Indian National Army in Burma in July 1944. The full line, It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom, demanded supreme sacrifice from Indians in exchange for liberation from British rule. For UPSC, the slogan captures Bose's militant nationalism, the INA's role in the freedom struggle, and the power of leadership in mass mobilisation. the July 1944 INA rally in Burma where Bose issued this call for sacrifice
• culmination of the wartime radicalisation of Indian servicemen: This fragment describes the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946 as the culmination of the wartime radicalisation of Indian servicemen. Exposure to anti-fascist propaganda, INA trials and Congress agitation politicised ratings, who struck at Bombay over poor conditions and racial discrimination before the revolt spread to other ports. For UPSC, it explains why 1946 convinced Britain that India could no longer be held by force. Royal Indian Navy mutiny, Bombay, February 1946
• Jawaharlal Nehru himself appearing in his barrister's robes: The phrase captures Jawaharlal Nehru, trained as a barrister at the Inner Temple in London, appearing in his barrister's robes as part of the defence team in the INA trials at the Red Fort in 1945 to 1946. His presence turned a court martial into a national political event. It matters for UPSC because the image symbolises how the Congress leadership publicly aligned with the INA, turning the trials into a rallying point of the final freedom struggle. Nehru joined the defence team led by Bhulabhai Desai at the first INA trial, which opened at the Red Fort in November 1945.
• Provisional Government of Free India, Azad Hind: The Provisional Government of Free India, or Azad Hind, was the government-in-exile proclaimed by Subhas Chandra Bose at Singapore on 21 October 1943 during the Second World War. Backed by the Indian National Army and recognised by Axis powers, it claimed jurisdiction over Indian territory and took charge of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. For UPSC, it symbolises the revolutionary strand of the freedom struggle and Bose's international diplomacy. Proclamation at Singapore, 21 October 1943
• direct emotional trigger for the naval mutiny: The direct emotional trigger for the naval mutiny is the incident that converted long-simmering grievance into open revolt: the arrest of rating B. C. Dutt for painting Quit India slogans on HMIS Talwar, combined with racial abuse by Commander King, who called the ratings sons of coolies. On 18 February 1946 the Talwar ratings struck, and the uprising spread to about 20,000 sailors. It is a favourite prelims cause-and-effect question. Arrest of B. C. Dutt; HMIS Talwar hunger strike, 18 February 1946
• Red Fort in Delhi from November 1945: The Red Fort trials were the 1945-46 court-martials held at Delhi of Indian National Army officers, beginning in November 1945, for waging war against the King. The accused included Prem Kumar Sehgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Shah Nawaz Khan, defended by Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, and Jawaharlal Nehru. The nationwide protests against the trials weakened British legitimacy and hastened independence. It matters for UPSC modern history as a turning point of the freedom struggle. The trial of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sehgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, November 1945
• reorganised and revitalised it in 1943: Reorganised and revitalised it in 1943 refers to Subhas Chandra Bose assuming leadership of the Indian National Army in Singapore in July 1943, rebuilding the disbanded first INA into a disciplined force with civilian volunteers. He then proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India. It matters for GS-1 as the revival of armed struggle in the freedom movement. Bose assumed command of the INA in Singapore on 4 July 1943
• September 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh: September 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh marks the formation of the first Indian National Army at Singapore. Captain Mohan Singh, an officer of the British Indian Army captured after the fall of Malaya, raised an army of Indian prisoners of war with Japanese support to fight for India's liberation. It was disbanded after disagreements with the Japanese and revived by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943. For UPSC, it is a key GS-1 date in the freedom struggle's revolutionary phase.
• 78 ships and 21 shore establishments: The scale of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946: beginning at HMIS Talwar in Bombay, it spread within days to 78 ships and 21 shore establishments from Karachi to Calcutta and Madras, drawing in nearly 20,000 sailors. It showed British authority crumbling among Indian personnel. For UPSC, the mutiny, alongside the INA trials, proved the armed forces were no longer a reliable prop of the Raj. The mutiny's outbreak at HMIS Talwar on 18 February 1946 over poor food and racial discrimination.
• no longer rely on Indian troops: After the INA trials of 1945 and the naval mutiny of 1946, the British concluded they could no longer rely on Indian troops, the very sword-arm of the Raj, to hold India by force. UPSC significance: GS-1 modern history; this loss of the army's loyalty is what made British withdrawal a matter of timing rather than choice. Example: the Royal Indian Navy mutiny at Bombay in February 1946. the Royal Indian Navy mutiny at Bombay (February 1946)

Two armies, one name: the INA at a glance

Indian National Army (INA), also called Azad Hind Fauj: Mohan Singh founded the India National Army (INA), also known as Azad Hind Fauj, for the first time in 1942. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose resurrected it to ensure India's complete independence from the British Raj.

The trial categories: Blacks, Greys and Whites

The British sorted captured INA men into three boxes. Those who seemed misled by Japanese and INA propaganda, the Greys and Whites, were released or re-enlisted into the army. The more devoted, the Blacks, were subjected to court martial. The labels themselves reveal how rattled the Raj was: loyalty to India had become a punishable category.