INA Trial and RIN Mutiny

INA Trials and the RIN Mutiny (1945–46)

History Optional Notes {PDF}

Complete Notes Package (Paper I & II) | 4500+ Pages | Instant Download

Discounted Price | Buy Now @ ₹1,180 →

Background: India after the Second World War

• The years following the Second World War witnessed prolonged and difficult negotiations between the British Government, the Congress, and the Muslim League, conducted against a backdrop of escalating communal violence that would eventually culminate in independence and partition.
• This period also saw sporadic, localised, but often intensely militant and unified mass action by workers, peasants, and the peoples of princely states, taking the form of a countrywide wave of strikes. This activity found expression in the INA Release Movement, the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) revolt, the Tebhaga movement, the Worli revolt, the Punjab Kisan Morchas, the Travancore peoples’ struggle (notably the Punnapra-Vayalar episode), and the Telangana peasant revolt.
• When the government lifted the ban on the Congress and released its leaders in June 1945, it expected to encounter a demoralised populace. Instead, it found tumultuous crowds impatient for action — popular energy had resurfaced after three years of repression, and expectations were further heightened by the leaders’ release.
  • The Wavell Plan, backed by the outgoing Conservative Government in Britain, had already failed to break the constitutional deadlock.
• In July 1945, the Labour Party came to power in Britain, with Clement Attlee as the new Prime Minister and Lord Pethick-Lawrence as the new Secretary of State for India.
  • In August 1945, elections to the central and provincial assemblies were announced.
  • In September 1945, the government announced that a Constituent Assembly would be convened after the elections, and that it was proceeding in the spirit of the earlier Cripps Offer.

Reasons for the Change in the British Government’s Attitude

• The war’s end had reshaped the global balance of power: Britain was no longer a leading power, while the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers, both broadly favouring Indian independence.
• The new Labour Government was considerably more sympathetic to Indian demands, in keeping with a wider post-war wave of socialist and radical governments across Europe.
• Britain’s soldiers were war-weary, and its economy lay severely weakened.
• An anti-imperialist wave was sweeping South-East Asia — in Vietnam and Indonesia — as local populations resisted attempts to restore French and Dutch colonial rule.
• British officials feared a fresh Congress revolt — a repeat of 1942, but far more dangerous given the possible combination of attacks on communications, agrarian unrest, labour trouble, and disaffection within the army, police, and civil administration, compounded by the presence of INA veterans with military experience.
• Elections were, in any case, overdue: the last elections had been held in 1934 for the centre and 1937 for the provinces. Although the British would eventually have had to retreat regardless, the Labour Government’s arrival simply hastened the process.

The Congress Election Campaign and the INA Trials

The Election Campaign as a Tool of Mobilisation

• Elections were held over the winter of 1945–46. Their most significant feature was that the Congress campaign sought to mobilise Indians against British rule itself, rather than simply appeal for votes.
  • The campaign gave voice to nationalist resentment over the state’s repression of the 1942 Quit India upsurge, through the glorification of its martyrs and the condemnation of responsible officials.
  • The bravery of the leaderless resistance of 1942 was extolled; memorials were erected for martyrs; relief funds were raised for those who had suffered; officials responsible for repression were publicly condemned; and promises of inquiry, along with threats of punitive action against guilty officials, were openly made.
• The government’s failure to check such rhetoric had a corrosive effect on the morale of its own services, and the prospect of returning Congress ministries — especially in provinces where repression had been harshest — heightened official anxiety, making some form of a “gentleman’s agreement” with the Congress appear necessary.

The INA (Red Fort) Trials

• The Indian National Army trials, popularly known as the Red Fort trials, were a series of British Indian courts-martial of INA officers held between November 1945 and May 1946, on charges variously of treason, torture, murder, and abetment of murder.
• The first and most celebrated of the roughly ten trials — held at the Red Fort in Delhi against the backdrop of the general elections — was the joint court-martial of Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan.
  • All three had served as officers in the British Indian Army before being taken prisoner in Malaya, Singapore, and Burma; like many fellow soldiers, they subsequently joined the INA and fought alongside Japanese forces at Imphal and in Burma under the banner of Azad Hind.
  • They were the only INA defendants charged with “waging war against the King-Emperor” — since the Indian Army Act, 1911 did not provide a separate charge of treason — in addition to murder and abetment of murder; all later defendants faced only these latter charges.
• Given the case’s political significance, the government opted for a public trial at the Red Fort, with provision made under the Indian Army Act for defence and prosecution counsel; Sir Naushirwan P. Engineer, then Advocate General of India, was appointed prosecution counsel.
• A second set of trials followed, involving Abdul Rashid, Shinghara Singh, Fateh Khan, and Captain Malik Munawar Khan Awan. In light of the unrest provoked by the treason charge and the public glorification of the first trial’s defendants, the treason charge was dropped, and the venue shifted from the Red Fort to an adjoining building.
• The trials drew intense publicity and public sympathy for the accused, widely regarded as patriots, along with growing unease and unrest within the ranks of the British Indian Army itself.
  • Both the Congress and the Muslim League made the release of the three Red Fort defendants a central political demand during the independence agitation of 1945–46.
• Mounting mass pressure against the trials — described at the time as sitting on “an edge of a volcano” — forced a decisive shift in government policy. The British had originally planned public trials for several hundred INA prisoners, besides dismissing them from service and detaining roughly 7,000 of them without trial.
  • During the trials, mutiny broke out in the Royal Indian Navy, spreading across its ships and shore establishments from Karachi to Bombay and Vizag to Calcutta; a separate army mutiny also erupted at Jabalpur in the last week of February 1946, soon after the Bombay naval mutiny, and was suppressed by force — including bayonet charges by British troops — over roughly two weeks.
  • Anti-imperialist sentiment within urban India and the army was further stoked by the deployment of Indian Army units to help restore French and Dutch colonial rule in Vietnam and Indonesia.

Congress Support for the INA Prisoners

• At the first post-war Congress session, held at Bombay in September 1945, a strong resolution was passed declaring Congress support for the INA cause.
• The defence of INA prisoners in court was organised by Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Kailash Nath Katju, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Asaf Ali, through the newly formed INA Defence Committee.
• The INA Relief and Enquiry Committee distributed money and food, helped arrange employment for affected soldiers and their families, and organised fund-raising for the cause.

The INA Agitation as a Landmark Movement

• The intensity of the campaign for the release of INA prisoners was unprecedented, sustained through extensive press coverage, daily editorials, pamphlets (some carrying threats of revenge), graffiti, public meetings, and the observance of INA Day (12 November 1945) and INA Week (5–11 November).
  • The agitation extended beyond conventional non-cooperation and non-violent protest to include mutinies and wavering loyalty within the British Indian Army itself.
• Despite this widespread opposition, the court-martial proceeded, and all three Red Fort defendants were sentenced to transportation for life. This sentence was never carried out, however: sustained public pressure forced Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, to order their release.
  • Most INA soldiers were eventually freed after being cashiered and stripped of pay and allowances. On the recommendation of Lord Mountbatten, and with Nehru’s agreement, INA soldiers were barred from re-induction into the Indian Army as a precondition for independence.
• The INA agitation marked the last major campaign in which the Congress and the Muslim League acted in genuine alignment.
  • Its geographical reach was extensive, drawing participation from diverse social groups and political parties; while its nerve centres lay in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, the towns of UP, and Punjab, it spread as far as Coorg, Baluchistan, and Assam.
  • Participation took many forms: fund contributions from film stars, municipal committees, overseas Indians, gurudwaras, and even tongawallas; attendance at public meetings; shopkeepers closing their shops in protest; political groups demanding the prisoners’ release; and student meetings, class boycotts, kisan conferences, and demonstrations by the All India Women’s Conference.
  • Beyond the Congress, supporters of varying degrees included the Muslim League, the Communist Party, the Unionists, the Akalis, the Justice Party, the Ahrars of Rawalpindi, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Sikh League.
  • Pro-INA sentiment even surfaced within traditional bulwarks of the Raj: government employees raised funds, titled loyalists urged the government to abandon the trials for the sake of Indo-British relations, and members of the armed forces attended meetings, welcomed released soldiers (often still in uniform), and contributed funds.
• At its core, the agitation raised the question of Britain’s right to decide a matter concerning Indians, and the INA issue increasingly took on the character of a straightforward Indian-versus-British confrontation.

The Three Upsurges of Winter 1945–46

• Nationalist sentiment, having reached a crescendo around the INA trials, erupted into violent confrontation with the authorities over the winter of 1945–46, in three major upsurges:
  • 21 November 1945 — in Calcutta, over the INA trials;
  • 11 February 1946 — in Calcutta, against the seven-year sentence handed to INA officer Rashid Ali; and
  • 18 February 1946 — in Bombay, the strike by ratings of the Royal Indian Navy.
• All three followed a similar three-stage pattern: defiance and repression of an initial group, the joining-in of city populations, and expressions of sympathy and solidarity from other parts of the country.

Upsurge One: Calcutta, 21 November 1945

• A student procession — comprising Forward Bloc sympathisers, activists of the Student Federation of India (SFI), and students of Islamic College, who marched with the flags of the League, Congress, and the Communist red flag tied together as a symbol of anti-imperialist unity — advanced towards Dalhousie Square, the seat of government in Calcutta.
• The protestors refused to disperse and were lathi-charged; they retaliated with stones and brickbats, and police firing left two persons dead.

Upsurge Two: Calcutta, 11 February 1946

• This protest, led by Muslim League students and joined by some Congress and communist student organisations, escalated after arrests provoked students to defy Section 144. Further arrests followed, and the agitating students were lathi-charged.

Upsurge Three: The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) Mutiny, 18 February 1946

• The Royal Indian Navy mutiny, also known as the Bombay Mutiny, began as a strike by the ratings of HMIS Talwar at Bombay harbour and quickly escalated into a full-scale revolt across ships and shore establishments throughout British India — from Karachi to Calcutta — eventually involving 78 ships, 20 shore establishments, and roughly 20,000 sailors.
• The revolt’s immediate causes included:
  • racial discrimination, particularly demands for equal pay between Indian and white sailors;
  • poor food and living conditions;
  • abusive treatment by superior officers; and
  • the arrest of a rating for scrawling “Quit India” on HMIS Talwar.
• Broader forces also fed the unrest: the circulation of stories about the INA trials, Subhas Chandra Bose (“Netaji”), and the INA’s fighting at Imphal and in Burma, spread through radio and print, stoked discontent; so too did demands for the withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia.
  • In January 1946, British airmen stationed in India had already staged the Royal Air Force Revolt of 1946, chiefly over delayed demobilisation, though some also protested continued support for British colonial rule; Viceroy Lord Wavell himself noted that this episode influenced both the RIAF and RIN mutinies.
• By dusk on 19 February, a Naval Central Strike Committee had been elected, with Leading Signalman M.S. Khan and Petty Officer Telegraphist Madan Singh chosen as President and Vice-President respectively.
  • In Karachi, revolt broke out aboard HMIS Hindustan off Manora Island, with mutineers taking over the ship and shore establishments before the unrest spread to HMIS Bahadur.
• The strike drew immense popular support: crowds brought food to the ratings, and shopkeepers offered them supplies freely. Solidarity actions included a one-day general strike in Bombay, which spread to other cities and drew in the Royal Indian Air Force and local police forces; British garrisons in Madras and Poona also faced revolts within Indian Army ranks, and rioting spread widely from Karachi to Calcutta.
  • Notably, the mutineers hoisted the flags of the Congress, the Muslim League, and the Communist Party (CPI)’s red flag tied together, signalling communal unity in the ranks.
• An alarmed Clement Attlee ordered the Royal Navy to suppress the revolt; Admiral J.H. Godfrey, commanding the RIN, broadcast the stark order to “submit or perish.”
  • As the unrest took on an increasingly political character, the Royal Air Force flew a show of force over Bombay harbour, while Admiral Arthur Rullion Rattray issued an ultimatum demanding unconditional surrender.
  • In Karachi, the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch was called in, as authorities lost confidence in the loyalty of Indian troops; ratings holding the Hindustan opened fire on troops attempting to board, before the island was secured by British forces the following morning.
• The mutiny resulted in seven RIN sailors and one officer killed. It was finally called off following a meeting between M.S. Khan, President of the Naval Central Strike Committee, and Vallabhbhai Patel, sent by the Congress to defuse the crisis.
  • Patel’s appeal to the strikers to stand down was echoed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah on behalf of the Muslim League, and under this combined pressure the ratings relented — though, despite assurances from both parties, widespread arrests, courts-martial, and large-scale dismissals from service followed regardless.

Lack of Political Support for the Mutineers

• The mutineers received no support from mainstream national leaders and were, in effect, leaderless throughout.
• Mahatma Gandhi openly condemned both the riots and the ratings’ revolt. In a statement on 3 March 1946, he criticised the strikers for acting without the call of a “prepared revolutionary party” or the “guidance and intervention” of “political leaders.”
  • He further criticised Aruna Asaf Ali — one of the few prominent Congress leaders to support the mutineers — remarking that she would rather unite Hindus and Muslims “on the barricades” than on the constitutional front, and adding: “If the union at the barricade is honest then there must be union also at the constitutional front.”
  • This response has been read as reflecting an implicit acceptance, even then, of the looming reality of partition.
• The Muslim League issued similarly critical statements, arguing that sailors’ grievances were not best expressed on the streets, and that legitimacy for any movement could only come from recognised political leadership — spontaneous, unregulated upsurges risking the disruption of political consensus altogether.
  • It has been suggested that mainstream parties also feared that the rapid rise of militant mass demonstrations could erode central political authority once power was eventually transferred; some later historians have concluded that this discomfort reflected the parties’ own weakening hold over the masses at a time when negotiations with the British had yielded little success.
• The Communist Party of India, then the third-largest political force in the country, extended full support to the naval ratings and mobilised workers on their behalf — in contrast to the two principal parties, Congress and the Muslim League, both of which refused support out of alarm at the uprising’s overtly class character, urging the ratings instead to surrender; on this issue, Patel and Jinnah — representing opposite sides of the communal divide — stood united.
  • Aruna Asaf Ali remained the only prominent nationalist leader to back the mutineers.
• Communist writings have since portrayed the RIN Revolt as a spontaneous nationalist uprising with the potential to have averted partition, ultimately betrayed by mainstream nationalist leadership. More recently, the episode has been renamed the Naval Uprising, and its participants honoured for their contribution to independence.

Phase Two: The City People Join In

• This phase was marked by a fiercely anti-British mood that brought Calcutta and Bombay to a virtual standstill, with meetings, processions, strikes, and hartals; attacks on Europeans, police stations, shops, tram depots, railway stations, and banks; and the forcible blocking of road and rail traffic through squatting and barricading.

Phase Three: Sympathy and Solidarity Elsewhere

• Students boycotted classes and organised hartals and processions in sympathy with fellow students and the naval ratings, while sympathetic strikes broke out in military establishments in Karachi, Madras, Visakhapatnam, Calcutta, Delhi, Cochin, Jamnagar, Andaman, Bahrain, and Aden.
• The Royal Indian Air Force also struck in Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, Jessore, and Ambala. On 23 February, Patel and Jinnah together persuaded the ratings to surrender, with an assurance that the national parties would prevent any victimisation.

Evaluating the Potential and Limits of the Upsurges

• The three upsurges carried real significance: they demonstrated fearless mass militancy, exerted a powerfully liberating effect on the popular mind through the revolt within the armed forces, and came to be viewed as marking the effective end of British rule in India.
• They also prompted a series of British concessions:
  • on 1 December 1946, the government announced that only INA members accused of murder or the brutal treatment of fellow prisoners would face trial;
  • imprisonment sentences against the first batch of convicts were remitted in January 1947;
  • Indian troops were withdrawn from Indo-China and Indonesia by February 1947;
  • the decision to dispatch the Cabinet Mission was taken in January 1946; and
  • a parliamentary delegation to India was decided upon in November 1946.
• Yet the deeper question remained: could the communal unity displayed during these upsurges, if built upon, have offered a genuine way out of the communal deadlock? Several factors suggest the potential was limited:
  • Unlike earlier, largely peaceful demonstrations of national solidarity, these upsurges took the form of direct, violent conflict with authority — a mode of struggle only the most militant sections of society could realistically join.
  • They were also short-lived and confined to a handful of urban centres, unlike the general INA agitation, which had reached even the remotest villages.
  • The communal unity on display was, in practice, more organisational than popular: Muslim ratings sought guidance from the League, while others turned to the Congress and the Socialists.
  • Despite considerable erosion in the morale of the bureaucracy, British repressive infrastructure remained intact, and the authorities regained control quickly — notably, it was a Maratha battalion that rounded up the Bombay ratings and returned them to their barracks.

Congress Strategy towards the Upsurges

• The Congress did not officially endorse these upsurges, objecting to both their tactics and timing. Negotiation had remained central to Congress strategy — to be exhausted before any mass movement was launched — particularly once the British appeared to be preparing for eventual withdrawal.
  • This reluctance stemmed from two considerations: a fear that such a situation could spiral beyond Congress’s control, and a conviction that a disciplined armed force was essential for a free India.
  • Some have argued that had the Congress leadership resisted this cautious calculus, a different path to independence might have unfolded.
• Even so, these upsurges were arguably an extension of nationalist activity that the Congress itself had fostered — through its election campaign, its advocacy of the INA cause, and its constant highlighting of the excesses of 1942.
• Gandhi, for his part, characterised the mutiny as “badly advised”: if the sailors had mutinied in the cause of India’s freedom, he argued, they were doubly mistaken; and if they had specific grievances, they ought to have awaited the guidance of established leaders.

The Elections of 1945–46

Congress’s Performance

• The Congress secured 91 per cent of the non-Muslim vote and captured 57 of 102 seats in the Central Assembly.
• In the provincial elections, it won a majority in most provinces except Bengal, Sindh, and Punjab — its majority provinces notably included NWFP and Assam, both regions being claimed for Pakistan.
• In Punjab, a Unionist–Congress–Akali coalition under Khizr Hayat Khan assumed power.

The Muslim League’s Performance

• The League secured 86.6 per cent of the Muslim vote and captured all 30 reserved seats in the Central Assembly.
• In the provincial elections, it won majorities in Bengal and Sindh.
• Unlike in 1937, the League now firmly established itself as the dominant political voice of India’s Muslims.

A Significant Feature: Communal Voting

• Despite the strong anti-British unity visible in the upsurges of the same period, the elections themselves were marked by pronounced communal voting, owing chiefly to:
  • the system of separate electorates; and
  • a highly limited franchise — under 10 per cent of the population could vote in the provincial elections, and under 1 per cent in the elections to the Central Assembly.

The Cabinet Mission to India (1946)

Composition and Purpose

• The UK Cabinet Mission of 1946 was dispatched to discuss and plan the transfer of power from Britain to Indian leadership, and thereby to chart a path to independence.
• Formed at the initiative of Clement Attlee, the mission comprised Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State for India), Sir Stafford Cripps (President of the Board of Trade), and A.V. Alexander (First Lord of the Admiralty); Lord Wavell, the Viceroy, did not participate.
• Its stated purposes were to:
  • hold preparatory discussions with elected representatives of British India and the Indian states to secure agreement on the method of framing a constitution;
  • set up a constitution-making body; and
  • establish an Executive Council enjoying the support of India’s main political parties.
• The Mission held talks chiefly with the Congress and the Muslim League, the two largest parties in the prospective Constituent Assembly, seeking a power-sharing arrangement between Hindus and Muslims that could avert communal conflict, and a resolution to the question of a unified versus divided India.
  • The Congress sought a strong central government with greater powers than the provinces.
  • The Muslim League, under Jinnah, sought to keep India united but with political safeguards for Muslims — notably a guarantee of “parity” in the legislatures — reflecting a widespread Muslim fear that British withdrawal would simply produce a “Hindu Raj,” and reflecting the League’s self-conception as the sole legitimate voice of Indian Muslims.
• After preliminary talks, the Mission proposed its plan for the composition of the new government on 16 May 1946 — an announcement that followed the earlier Shimla Conference of 1945.

The Plan of 16 May 1946

• India would achieve independence as a united Dominion, organised as a loose confederation of provinces.
• Muslim-majority provinces would be grouped into two sections — Sind, Punjab, and the North-West Frontier Province in one group, and Bengal and Assam in another — while Hindu-majority provinces in central and southern India would form a third group.
• A central government at Delhi would handle nationwide matters such as defence, currency, and diplomacy, with remaining powers vested in the provinces, coordinated through the three groups.
• Consensus broke down over this grouping provision: the Congress strongly opposed the idea of Muslim- and Hindu-majority provinces being grouped so as to “balance” one another at the centre, while the League could not accept any dilution of this arrangement, since the same principle of “parity” underpinned its demand for political safeguards against unchecked Hindu-majority rule.
• Faced with this impasse, the British proposed an alternative plan on 16 June 1946.

The Alternative Plan of 16 June 1946

• This plan proposed dividing India into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority India — the latter to be later renamed Pakistan — since the Congress had firmly rejected the principle of “parity” at the centre.
• It also drew up a list of princely states that would be permitted to accede to either dominion, or to attain independence in their own right.

Congress and League Reactions to the Plans

• Neither plan received formal Congress approval.
  • The CWC resolution of 24 May 1946, responding to the May plan, stated: “The Working Committee consider that the connected problems involved in the establishment of a Provisional Government and a Constituent Assembly should be viewed together… In absence of a full picture, the Committee are unable to give a final opinion at this stage.”
  • The CWC resolution of 25 June 1946, responding to the June plan, went further: “In the formation of a Provisional or other governance, Congressmen can never give up the national character of Congress, or accept an artificial and unjust parity, or agree to a veto of a communal group. The Committee are unable to accept the proposals for formation of an Interim Government as contained in the statement of June 16. The Committee have, however, decided that the Congress should join the proposed Constituent Assembly with a view to framing the Constitution of a free, united and democratic India.” (Both resolutions are useful primary-source material for a Mains answer on the Congress’s constitutional stance in 1946.)
• On 10 July 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking in Bombay, declared that the Congress had agreed only to participate in the Constituent Assembly, and “regards itself free to change or modify the Cabinet Mission Plan as it thought best.” The Congress rejected the June 16 plan outright, viewing it as tantamount to fragmenting India into small states.
• Following consultations, the Viceroy invited 14 members to join the interim government on 15 June 1946:
  • five from the Congress — Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, and Hari Krishna Mahtab;
  • five from the Muslim League — Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Mohammed Ismail Khan, Khwaja Sir Nazimuddin, and Abdul Rab Nishtar; and
  • Sardar Baldev Singh (representing the Sikhs), Sir N.P. Engineer (representing the Parsis), Jagjivan Ram (representing the Scheduled Castes), and John Mathai (representing the Christians).
• When the Congress nominated Zakir Hussain among its five representatives, Jinnah, on 29 July 1946, objected and announced that the League would not participate in forming the Constituent Assembly, holding that only the Muslim League had the right to nominate Muslim candidates.

Formation of the Interim Government

• The Viceroy pressed ahead with plans to transfer power to a Congress–League coalition, but Jinnah, denouncing the Congress’s hesitant and conditional approval, rescinded League acceptance of both plans altogether.
• On 12 August 1946, the Viceroy invited Nehru to form the provisional government. After consultation, 12 members of the interim government were announced: Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Asaf Ali, C. Rajagopalachari, Sarat Chandra Bose, John Mathai, Sardar Baldev Singh, Sir Shafaat Ahmed Khan, Jagjivan Ram, Syed Ali Zaheer, and C.H. Bhabha — a list comprising five Hindus, three Muslims, and one member each from the Scheduled Castes, Christian, Sikh, and Parsi communities, with the Congress filling the seats originally set aside for the League.
• Congress leaders thus entered the Viceroy’s Executive Council, or the Interim Government of India: Nehru became its head — formally Vice-President, but exercising executive authority — while Patel took charge of the Home portfolio.
• Congress-led governments were formed in most provinces, including NWFP and Punjab (the latter in coalition with the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Unionist Muslim League), while the League governed Bengal and Sind. The Constituent Assembly was instructed to begin drafting India’s new constitution.

Coalition and Breakdown: Direct Action Day

• Jinnah and the League condemned the new government and vowed to press for Pakistan by any means necessary; disorder soon erupted in Punjab, Bengal, and the cities of Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta.
• The League’s Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) — remembered as the Great Calcutta Killings — triggered widespread rioting and bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta, marking the beginning of what came to be called the “Week of the Long Knives.”
  • The League had called for Direct Action to demonstrate the strength of Muslim feeling to both the British and the Congress, driven by fears that a British withdrawal without adequate safeguards would leave Muslims at the mercy of an overwhelming Hindu majority. Communal riots subsequently spread across the country.
• Viceroy Wavell delayed central intervention to halt the violence, leaving the matter to provincial governors, who took little decisive action. To contain the escalating bloodshed, Wavell encouraged Nehru to invite the League into government; while Patel and most Congress leaders opposed conceding to a party actively fomenting disorder, Nehru agreed in the hope of preserving communal peace.
  • League leaders subsequently entered the Council under Liaquat Ali Khan — later Pakistan’s first Prime Minister — who took charge of the Finance portfolio. The coalition, however, never functioned harmoniously: the League held separate meetings, and both parties routinely vetoed each other’s major initiatives, laying bare their deep ideological and political antagonism.
• With the arrival of the new — and, as it proved, last — Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, in early 1947, Congress leaders concluded that the coalition was fundamentally unworkable, a realisation that paved the way for the eventual proposal and acceptance of the Partition of India.