This skewed ‘skills’ demographics almost delayed the commissioning of India’s first post-independence acquisition, the Leander class cruiser INS Delhi (former HMS Achilles), which was undergoing a refit in Chatham (England).

Recalls Lt. Cdr. VA Kamath (later Vice Admiral), “Partition came in August 1947, and the only gunner I had with me at Whale Island (UK), Sharif Khan, and all the Muslim ratings who opted for Pakistan, were returned to Karachi. Unfortunately, those who opted for Pakistan formed the bulk of the gunnery ratings and we had to wait a few months before fresh batches of ratings who had opted for India were sent to England to start (training) all over again…”

The two navies, upon their formation on 14 and 15 August, continued with the prefix ‘royal’ as both countries, till the adoption of their respective constitutions, were dominions under the British Commonwealth. Hence, in India’s case, there was no change in name for the RIN. Additionally, to ensure a smooth transition for both navies, they were headed, till the mid-1950s, by British commanding officers – the first to head the independent RIN was Rear Admiral JTS Hall, and the Royal Pakistan Navy was headed by Rear Admiral James W Jefford.

There was the urgency to develop the Indian Navy into a blue water fleet that could sustain itself at sea for many days without touching port, as the role of the Navy changed with Independence from playing a supportive role to the East Indies Fleet of the Royal Navy (headquartered in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka) to operating on its own.

Then there were the challenges of a vast coastline (7500 km) and its territorial seas that required rigorous patrolling from incursions, infiltrations and smuggling. What’s more, the country’s then remote and most critical maritime asset were the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which were closer geographically to Burma (Myanmar) and Sumatra (Indonesia) than they were to the Indian mainland, an argument that the UK made in order to retain them as a naval and air force base, much like the present American naval base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Post independence and the 1965 Indo-Pak War

By 25 August 1947, the first plan paper on the reorganisation and development of the Indian Navy by Commodore Martin Nott was submitted to the government. The recommendations of this first report dominated Indian naval thinking for decades with its central theme of developing two fleets (Western and Eastern) around two light fleet carriers, supported by surface warships, four submarines, and smaller miscellaneous supporting ships.

Notably, most Indian naval acquisitions were sourced from the UK, for the first 15 years, based on this plan. But there was an exception: Britain withheld its submarines and the training of submarine personnel.

This was a critical factor in India turning to the Soviet Union in 1965, at first for the acquisition of submarines and anti-submarine boats. The Russian-built OSA anti-submarine boats were expedited first due to the continuing threat to Bombay from the Pakistan Navy’s long range submarine, the PNS Ghazi. The spectre of the PNS Ghazi was first sensed during the 1965 India-Pakistan War.

The sightings of PNS Ghazi and its periscope lurking in the seas off Bombay, and its stalking of newly inducted aircraft carrier INS Vikrant during this War, was a psychological turning point for the Indian Navy. It was compelled to break away from its dependence on the UK and the West for sourcing naval hardware and look to more willing sources, like the Soviet Union.

This change in naval acquisitions policy had a cascading effect through every tier of the Indian Navy. Where once the Royal Navy’s legacy on the subcontinent impacted everything — from training, acquisitions and protocols — now, for the first time, the Indian Navy had the flexibility to choose what was best for it. Its stunning naval victory in the 1971 India-Pakistan War was the fall-out of these choices.

This article was first published by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read the original article here.

Sifra Lentin

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