An Earlier Royal Indian Navy?

Shortly after the Great War at the request of the Dominion Prime Ministers the British government sent Admiral Jellicoe on a tour of Australia and New Zealand to advise on the creation of domestic navies. On his way there he also stopped in India to review the situation and make recommendations, and by most accounts he wasn't all that impressed by what he saw. The Royal Indian Marine, the forerunner of the Royal Indian Navy, wasn't a combatant force and generally only signed locals up for a year or so of service leading to high turnover and loss of efficiency, he described it as '...there can be no shadow of a doubt that [the RIM] is a Service which has no place in a naval organisation.' He recommended that it be brought up to full combatant status, be led by senior Royal Navy officers on loan, recruit locals for longer terms of service and higher promotion, that it should include
  • One aircraft carrier
  • Five to seven light cruisers
  • 3 sloops
  • 6 submarines
  • 20 escort vessels
as well as being supported by local defence flotillas, a minesweeping service, and appropriate dockyards, intelligence and communications organisations. For various reasons this didn't go ahead, but what might be some of the knock-on effects of an earlier Royal Indian Navy? Points of departure include their taking up Jellicoe's suggestions, the government of India borrowed Read Admiral Mawbry to look into things in 1920 and suggest improvements but they were all rejected and he resigned or in 1928 they tried to pass the Indian Naval Discipline Act but failed by one vote in the legislature and had to have some minor changes made before it finally passed in 1934.

Personally I think that Jellicoe was being way too optimistic with the idea of a carrier, so many cruisers and submarines. But how about if they dropped say the carrier and submarines plus one light cruiser and instead replaced them with a couple of heavy cruisers? The really big changes though would be the supporting infrastructure and services that come along with a proper navy and expansion.
 
I don't know a lot about this sort of thing, but I find it unlikely that they would get an aircraft carrier. If they did, I think India would be taken far more seriously as a great power after independence, and a competition between the Soviets and the Americans over getting them to join the Soviet camp, or benevolent neutrality, respectively.
 
Wiki sez there was one, bur its purpose, of course, was to help hold down the colony.

There were carriers and a real navy stationed near, in, in Sri Lanka, but it, of course, was the Royal Navy.

Neither force was allowed to be admiralled or commanded by any actual Indians, of course. I've seen a note written up about RN to that effect in an appendix in Churchy's Creat Crisis, about WWI. Yes, I'm so geeky that I vacuum appendices.
 
Conceptually its feasible but requires changes to British policy in India either between the wars or pre ww1( which is both more likely and better fun) with having a 'fleet unit' planned for India that would be a battle-cruiser, three cruisers, six destroyers and three submarines.

I doubt if that is possible to man but if the planning is there and the start of the infrastructure (training bases, etc) elements may be available mid/late WW1 and carry on through the 20's.

IF that sort of thing is available in the late 30's then I would expect during the course of WW2 there would be an RIN CVL or at least CVE with an escort force in place at the end of the war. Of course the changes necessary to make it happen with Indian personnel change many other things.
 
Personally I can't see an earlier Indian Navy because of the cost and infrastructure involved.
However, I think it more likely and more plausible to have an earlier Indian Air Force -though like the British controlled Indian Army commanded by British (RAF) officers.
 
Giving the RIN that much autonomy would imply that India itself would probably be a Dominion prewar ITTL.
How so? There was already the British Indian Army, distinct from the British Army in India, without there having become a Dominion. Considering that they'd be starting from scratch I would have thought it would be more about building up a solid base of local ratings and officers under Royal Navy officers on loan, one of the problems of the RIM being that terms of enlistment being so short and turnover correspondingly high that there was no way to build up an institutional memory or body of skilled petty officers. Doubt the Indian officers would have time to progress far enough through the ranks to command large posts such as cruisers but maybe some of the smaller ships.


Personally I can't see an earlier Indian Navy because of the cost and infrastructure involved.
From the brief reading I did when I posted most sources I could find said that the government of India was paying the Royal Navy £100,000 a year to carry out duties for it in the Indian ocean, with anywhere from another £20,000 to £40,000 or more a year depending on who you read for other various duties as well. My thought was that if the British government is looking to make some cutbacks and saving after the war one easy way would be to tell the Indian government, who always seemed to take a rather high handed attitude in relations with other governmental departments and even the government on occasions, that they have to start looking after their own defences needs from now on out of their own funds. They're mandated to build up their own shore facilities and a force of several light cruisers and associated smaller ships and coastal vessels to take care of local issues they were paying the Royal Navy for whilst the Royal navy continues to to provide the heavy units like battleships and carriers in the region, pretty much a mirror image of the British Indian Army-British Army in India set-up.
 
More naval facilities, and probably some extra ships ought to help the allies in SE asia. Of course, it MIGHT just mean more ships sunk, come wwii. Otoh, singapore might hold out longer. ?...
 
The key issue for establishing an RIN of some size would be the shore establishment and enlisted/PO training. Officer training - at least career officer training could be done vie RN a lot of indian native officers were trained at sandhurst interwar (well some but high calibre) and there is no in principle reason why they could not have progressed up to say Lt Cdr in RN ships and be ready for RIN command as vessels became available.

It probably does not affect the course of the war directly just the crewing of CW ships.
 
I think more autonomy is necessary here because of the development of the infrastructure involved, especially with the force proposed at the beginning of this thread. To maintain these forces you´d need extensive dockyard facilities capable of resupplies and refits as well as more extensive training activity.

As India was kept unindustrialised by design this would have to change.
There would also need to be more exensive training facilities for officers and senior ratings.

If we go with the 1928 PoD then there will probably be similar proposals for the airforce before long.

During WWII the very least this would do is ease the manpower crisis somewhat. It would also have interesting implications during the war what with the distinct possibilites of British Ratings being obliged to follow orders from RIN Officers.
 
It probably does not affect the course of the war directly just the crewing of CW ships.
I wasn't really thinking about WW2 to be honest, more just to see whether it might be possible in and of itself and possibly for what it might do in the post-war/early independence period.


I think more autonomy is necessary here because of the development of the infrastructure involved, especially with the force proposed at the beginning of this thread.
Jellicoe's grand ideas were never go to fly, but I wouldn't of thought a few light cruisers and shore installations/infrastructure would of been massively technically challenging, but I could well be wrong.


To maintain these forces you´d need extensive dockyard facilities capable of resupplies and refits as well as more extensive training activity. As India was kept un-industrialised by design this would have to change.
There would also need to be more extensive training facilities for officers and senior ratings.
Whilst India had been kept un-industrialised by the early to mid-30s IIRC they were starting to move in the right direction, people like the Tatas had already started their own steel companies with the largest plant in the Empire by the late 30s, been running their own power companies and building hydroelectric dams to supply power since the 20s and started moving into the chemical industry. With stuff like that plus the slow opening of limited involvement of locals in government I wouldn't of thought a few shipyards would be all that extraordinary.
 
Good point but this represets greater local investment in local infrastructre.
The increasing economic autonomy is going to lead to demands for greater political autonomy before long.

At the very least it would lead to a more concerted effort toward the Indianisation of the armed forces and I doubt the Government of India Act would be suspended as in OTL.
 
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