Between fact and fiction
By Anita Joshua
Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Penguin, Rs. 150.
TRUTH, it is often said, lies somewhere in between. So, what the British prefer to call the Revolt of 1857, goes down in Indian history as "The First War of Indian Independence", and the debate rages even as India is set to celebrate the 150th anniversary of that event in 2007.
Likewise, argues Rudrangshu Mukherjee in his book on Mangal Pandey, the truth of the "sepoy" — eulogised as the man who single-handedly started the 1857 Rising — lies somewhere in between the title of his book: "Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero".
Toeing a line that could well be seen as irreverent to nationalist history, Mukherjee's contention is: "The reason for the attention given to Mangal Pandey lies not in the significance of his own actions but in the actions of the sepoys of north India who took to arms in the summer of 1857. Historians have assumed a link between Mangal Pandey and the uprising of 1857 and thus a legend has been created around his name."
To buttress his argument, Mukherjee cites the practically-unheard-of mutiny in Barrackpore itself 33 years before Mangal Pandey's action. Over 200 soldiers were killed, yet the first full-scale study of the 1824 mutiny in Barrackpore — which managed to spread only as far as Rungpore in Assam the year after — appeared only in 2003!
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