Mangal Pandey... An Accidental Hero?

Was Mangal Pandey an accidental hero? This question has been much debated after the release of the Ketan Mehta movie. With the release, what ‘Mangal Pandey: The Rising’ did was open various arguments delineating the role of this martyr. Was he the hero that ‘The Rising’ showed him to be? Did his lone act of brashness actually result in the mutiny that followed?

On 29 March 1857, Pandey came out and challenged the British, even as he called out to his comrades and fellow sepoys. He attacked and injured his superior and wounded an adjutant with a sword. As the British, reacting to this sudden outburst closed in on him, Pandey tried to shoot himself but failed and was hanged for his act of ‘rebellion’.

After Aamir Khan’s portrayal of Pandey, a lot of discussion has risen as to whether Pandey was the hero that the Khan portrayed? Wasn't he intoxicated and in a frenzy when he decided to attack the British?

Rudrangshu Mukherjee has debated Mangal Pandey’s role as the instigator of the revolt in his book ‘Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero’. He puts forth a series of arguments supporting his statement of Pandey being an accidental hero. He vehemently says, “Nationalism creates its own myths – Mangal Pandey is part of that imagination of histories.”

The point that supports this claim is that not much has been written on Pandey. He probably figured in a few lines in the pages of Indian history and the struggle for independence. But then again, it must be noted that this argument relies heavily on the British records of the 1857 rebellion. The British underplayed the event as just a sepoy mutiny and did not attach any importance to Mangal Pandey.

Mukherjee goes on to say that history had recorded nothing about him that could be used to reconstruct an individual and locate his springs of action. It is true that there have been no documents to show Pandey’s thought process or his reactions to the introduction of the cartridge greased with animal fat. To reiterate - Mukherjee’s argument cannot be acknowledged precisely for the same reason – that there has been nothing written about him.

The main argument that Mukherjee makes is that Pandey was intoxicated with bhang when he decided to revolt. There was no record of his life except his one act of doubtful valour under the influence of bhang. But drinking was not something that was uncommon in the army. Every sepoy drank and not everyone ran out to nearly get killed after drinking.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee also says that “a rebellion is a collective will to overthrow a rebellious order. Pandey acted alone. He was a rebel without a rebellion.” He went on to say that Mangal Pandey meant nothing to the sepoys who raised the revolt in 1857. To hold 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.

So, in effect there is a view that Mangal Pandey was an ordinary sepoy who, in a state of intoxication, committed a foolhardy act for which he was hanged and his infantry dismissed. He was just that – an accidental hero, a man who got lucky. But if that is the argument then one cannot say that Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, was an accidental hero just because he was kicked out of the train! Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between...