If you imagine yourself in the years after the War ended, it will be easy to understand the situation in the country. People were restless because of food shortages, rationing of food, high prices, black marketeering and hoarding. Workers were angry about low wages. Railway, postal employees and other government employees were planning to go on India wide strike against prices.
On 18th February 1946, the guards or Ratings of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay harbour went on hunger strike to protest against bad food and behaviour of their British officers. The strike rapidly spread to other naval men on the Bombay shore and all the naval bases in India. The navy men put up the tricolour, the crescent and the hammer and sickle flags jointly on the mast of the ship. A Naval Central Strike committee was elected with M S Khan as its head. The strike committee demanded better food, equal pay for white and Indian sailors. They also demanded for the release of INA and other political prisoners and withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia.
78 ships, 20 shore establishments, and 20,000 Ratings took part in the strike. Hundreds of students, both Hindus and Muslims, came out on the streets of Bombay to support them. They also clashed with the police and the army. On February 22, 3 lakh mill workers put down their tools in Bombay and fought violently for 2 days on the streets with the police and the army. The year 1946 was a year of strikes and work stoppages in factories and mills in many parts of the country. CPI and the Socialist parties were active in these movements. The countryside was also on the boil.
An agitation was started in Bengal by small and poor peasants who took land of the bigger landowners to cultivate. They demanded that their share of harvest should be increased to two portions out of three instead of half or even less. This was eventually given to them at that time. This was called the Tebhaga movemet and was led by the Provincial Kisan Sabha.