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The Rediff Special/Admiral J G Nadkarni (Retd)

Mutiny Over The Bounty

Napoleon once remarked that "an army marches on its stomach." The great general recognised the need to keep his soldiers’s morale high by making sure that the small comforts of life were given to them.

Much has changed since those days. Armies no longer fight hand to hand. In naval warfare time has long passed since adversaries could even sight each other. And in air it is more a case of victory to the pilot of the plane with the superior technology rather than better flying skills.

Yet, the profession of arms is still a dangerous and demanding one requiring courage, patriotism and leadership of the highest quality. It is not, so to say, just another job, but more a way of life. Nearly 200 years ago in Britain’s navy, in the days of Admirals Nelson and Hood, able bodied men were largely forced into joining by means of ‘press gangs’. The rest comprised convicts serving life sentences and merchant sailors whose ship was commandeered by the Royal Navy for its own use. Very few, if any, joined the service on their own. Naturally, there was much discontent simmering below the surface, made worse by the appalling living conditions that the men were subjected to on board of one of His Majesty’s ships.

Concepts like man-management was unheard of; the captain was the sole arbiter of the welfare of his men, and most captains turned to the ‘cat’ for sorting out any sailors who vented their resentment. Men were often driven by the tyranny of their officers to rise up in arms against them – in other words to ‘mutiny’.

The 'Mutiny on the Bounty' is perhaps the most well publicised of these incidents, though a much more serious mutiny took place in the Royal Navy in 1797. Yet great leaders did emerge; who not only endeared themselves to their subordinates by their behaviour, but by sheer personal example exhorted them to lay down their lives for their country.

It took a lot to compel men to mutiny in those days. The 1797 mutiny was the result of prolonged sub human conditions which the sailors of the Royal Navy faced for centuries. The practice of press-ganging was in many cases exacerbated by being exercised against unfortunate sailors, who had just got off their ships after a long voyage, so that often they went for years without leave. The appalling state of provisions, years-old leathery salt meat biscuits whose tastiest aspect were the numerous weevils within them, stale water and widespread scurvy due to lack of fresh vegetables, constituted a horrific diet. Seamen’s pay, at 10 shillings a month, had not been increased for over a hundred years, medical treatment was often more feared than wounds themselves, and excessive flogging was frequently imposed by Captain Bligh-style martinet officers.

Today, the circumstances under which men join and serve the armed forces have undergone a sea-change. Most democracies, of which India proudly claims to be the largest, do not require their young men to undergo compulsory military service. Though the offences for which men can be punished have largely remained the same, the draconian punishments themselves, such as flogging and keel hauling have been replaced with slightly more civilised ones such as imprisonment and removal from service. Service men are paid handsomely in comparison to their counterparts of two centuries ago, and enjoy all the privileges that their service has to offer such as free rations, housing, medical cover and canteen facilities, to name but a few.

Yet, despite all these changes, discontent still remains, the latest manifestation being the so-called ‘strike’ by technical officers, airmen and their wives against the disproportionate increments given to pilots in the Indian Air Force. We are living in a society where material values have long since overtaken and left in the dust the idealistic ones. A society in which one is constantly comparing oneself with the next-door neighbour, to find out what he has that we do not. Therefore it is galling to find out that for doing the same amount of work, or even less, someone else is being paid 10 times as much.

However, the services have always had a way of dealing with these problems. The system of redressal of grievances has worked in most cases, though there have been instances when it has been bypassed by direct resort to the courts and media. The crux of the system is that each grievance must be voiced as an individual one by the person who is so affected. In fact, the Navy Act of 1957 defines mutiny as 'the assembly or combination of two or more persons... with the common object of disobeying or resisting naval authority...' The army and the air force have similar laws.

With this definition even if two service men were to put their signatures on a joint statement, expressing discontent with some facet of the service, be it so mundane as poor food in the mess, or so complicated as the Pay Commission report, it would in the ultimate analysis have to be termed as ‘mutiny’.

Admiral J G Nadkarni, continued

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