Here is an authentic account of a brief, momentous event that preceded India’s independence.  Nehru vividly described the period as “a political earthquake of devastating intensity”.

Dissatisfied with their treatment and conditions of service, Indian ratings of the Royal Indian Navy seized control of ships and shore establishments in February 1946. This unparalleled event was sparked off by the British Commanding Officer’s remark: “You are the sons of coolies...!”

This is a personal account by the author, a junior naval officer at the time, caught by chance at the centre of the disturbances in Bombay, and it indicates their far reaching implications: the historic trials in New Delhi, when Nehru was one of the defence lawyers of the Indian National Army; the references to it in the House of Commons, London; Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence; and the significance of India becoming the first Republic in the Commonwealth.

In his Foreword, Lord Sorensen refers to “such agitation fused, as in the French and Russian revolutions, in the resultant flames”.