Our Film Crit Historians

Regarding the authenticity of the events depicted in this film, RudrangshuMukherjee, who has recently published a study of the Mangal Pandey episode, isof the opinion that the film is a blatant attempt to pass off as history themyth surrounding a local hero like Pandey. True to his Oxford training as ahistorian, Mukherjee has gone through the rigours of the archives to claim thataccording to testimonies at the trial of Mangal Pandey, the sepoy was heavilyintoxicated when he committed the rather rash act of attacking the Britishofficers at his cantonment--he had no larger vision of contesting theCompany’s rule and was never supported by the other sepoys, though they maywell have sympathised with him. Mukherjee sets up a cause and effect chain,making the case that there was a good month and a half lapse between the Pandeyepisode and the outbreak of the rising that has variously been identified as theSepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence.

Another writer in a leading Bengali daily has drawn upon other historicalinaccuracies, such as Pandey’s participation in the Afghan War. At the otherend of the spectrum, British historian Saul David has criticised the film on theground that by 1857 slavery was legally abolished in the British Empire, andthat he has come across no historical evidence of slavery in contemporary India,nor any case of atrocities centering on the cultivation of opium, as shown inthe film.

Leaving aside the claims of various branches of Pandeys in UP and Bihar, orof organisations, such as the Mangal Pandey Manch, which have alleged distortionof history because the film shows Pandey visiting a prostitute, the criticismsof historians like Mukherjee and David raise the very important question of whatexactly we understand by history, and in what way a film like Mangal Pandeyis responsible for upholding that sense of history. Two of the larger questionsthat come to mind having followed these developments of the last week or so are(a) What history and what falsification are we looking at? (b) What kind ofresponsibility should we at all expect from a film such as Mangal Pandey: theRising?

Clearly, history as Mukherjee or David understands it is a positivisthistory, which establishes "facts" from studying established archives. Thequestion that has, however, confronted historians for a long time now is whetherofficial documents, such as the proceedings of Pandey’s trial, should bythemselves be used to reconstruct the past.

As studies of peasant and tribal uprisings in nineteenth and twentiethcentury India have shown, the official view was perpetually engaged in aminimisation of such events as sporadic, emotional acts, whereas a readingagainst the grain of such sources produces an altogether differentinterpretation of such uprisings. In the case of Pandey, the official view wouldnaturally be in favour of depicting this as a rash act, committed under theinfluence of bhang, more so if there had been any stirrings of discontent aroundthe introduction of the greased cartridges.

However, not being an expert on 1857, my concern is not whether Pandey was anationalist, or whether he was simply too intoxicated for his own good. Myconcern is with this understanding of history, which sees no grey areas between"fact" and falsification, or how myth has been integral to the veryunfolding of what we understand as history. The Pandey legend is just one suchcase in point.

Coming to the film itself, my idea here is not to embark on its defence. Forme, it is a popular film, enjoyable for good production values, star qualitiesand the like. Myconcern arises regarding attempts to impute some sort of fake historicity onthis kind of a text, which would not be concerned with such issues in the veryfirst place. The very logic of making a film like Mangal Pandey,at a time when the Mumbai film industry has reaped heavily on period films, andthose based on the lives of nationalist figures like Bhagat Singh, would entailits fitting into a popular nationalist perspective.

In fact, the idea of Pandey as a nationalist hero is very much theestablished discourse in school text books, and even in our college days, Iremember for every batch of history students studying 1857, one sure-shotquestion in the exam was "Was 1857 a Sepoy Mutiny or a National War ofIndependence?" The film Mangal Pandey, therefore, very much fits into anestablished official discourse of nationalism and cannot by itself be accused ofdisseminating a flawed history, if that discourse is already in place . Atthe most, it could be accused of being just another of those romanticizedhistories that has been the industry's forte, but then, that is what keeps theindustry going.

Also, it would seem that those concerned with the film’s depiction ofMangal Pandey as the first nationalist are primarily concerned about the"ordinary" filmgoer, who is, by their definition, without a"proper" sense of history. As one Calcutta intellectual writes, these peoplewill know history from the film, and take home a totally fabricated history. Onecannot help but sigh at this very patronizing sentiment, which ignores the verycomplexities of the viewing process, and the multiple levels at which audiencesmake meaning in popular cinema. In fact, one wonders whether there iseven an awareness of the discipline of cinema studies, when confronted by sucharguments, which work with the assumption that a film can produce only one setof meanings. This is not to say that there should be no conversation onthe politics of such films, or the history or histories of the period andcharacters they depict; only it should be prepared to engage with the traditionand complexities of the "Hindi film" and the viewing process, insteadof simply passing the whole thing at a tangent

In fact, this whole debate over the historicity of the film seems to be anon-issue. For the historian, the more acceptable version may well be that ofMangal Pandey as the foolhardy Sepoy, who was too intoxicated to know where hewas going. Indeed, I would agree that Pandey had no larger nationalist vision ofcontesting the company rule. However, it would be ridiculousfor the economic logic of the Mumbai film industry to make such a film on MangalPandey and to show the climax as being nothing but Pandey high on bhang! Whowould buy a film with such an anti-climax?

And, it does seem ironical thatpersons so dismissive of popular cinema have suddenly started engaging with it,and of all things, on the issue of historicity. Mughal-e-Azam, the mother of all period films is as loosely or closelybased on history as Mangal Pandey, yet no one in all these years hasthought of raising questions regarding its historicity; this trend of raining onMumbai film parade seems to have become fashionable only in very recent years.What could be better than being able to capitalise on the market value of Mumbaifilms and yet retain the classic Indian intellectual’s distance from thisbazaar culture?

Mumbai films sell, and, with globalisation, have made their presence feltinternationally. That, I suspect, is the root of the current debate, such as itis, on MangalPandey. Would any of our historians have taken notice if Mangal Pandey hadbeen made in Bengali, Oriya or Assamese?

Sharmistha Gooptu is working on her Ph.D on Indian cinema at theUniversity of Chicago.