good movie

The “facts” that were presented by George W. Forrest may have been those from the British point of view. What is it that someone said about victors writing history. :-)

Mangal Pandey’s dissension to cartridges was a Mutiny.

Lakshmibai’s was a War of Independence.

Why color history, when it is already in gray.
And why have the Indian historians and chroniclers not done a better job of putting together unbiased accounts of our history?

1. The British Troops in the Indian Mutiny 1857ñ59
2. Bengal Cavalry Regiments 1857ñ1914
3. The British Army on Campaign (3)

Of course,please do bear in mind, the historians are obviously British and therefore you would have to exercise your bettah judgement.

Yet, we ought to study our history in its context. And that context should be unbiased, not concocted.

The cartridges at Barrackpore or other cantonments, have not been proved conclusively to be laced with Bovine Tallow or Porcine Lard. Consequently, it is only fair to assume that in 148 years since the event, no empirical proof has been suggested or submitted by Indian historians to conclusively settle the issue of greased cartridges in favour of Mangal Pandey’s claim.

The aggressive conversion activity of missionaries made the caste Hindus (of which the Sepoys, who were overwhelmingly Brahmin were foremost concerned) wary and uneasy of their identity.

Resentment built up for other reasons too. For example, the Sepoys were from chiefly agrarian occupations wherein they had seen the British apply coercion to discourage food crop cultivation in lieu of cash crop cultivation viz. indigo and opium for the China Trade.

The Barrackpore Mutiny of 1857 was not the first instance of mutiny by Sepoys. There were stray mutinies prior to that as well. The reason why the 1857 Mutiny acquired such a strong imprimatur in Indian and Raj chronicles is because it happened to be at the genesis of a chain of seemingly related incidents, which in effect were really a confluence of distinct and parallel events.

The nature of History, as taught in “official” versions by any culture and government, as well as the academic posturing and counter-debate, leads to the reconstruction of a manufactured causality. This is an act of reflex and not a reflection. The purpose is to invent a narrative that helps create a distinct “them” versus a common “us”. A version that serves well the purpose of justification of certain acts, certain national mythololgies, certain national perceptions and in the end define a fait accompli … which justifies the means. To call it propaganda would be too much of a stretch, but it comes very close. History, not narrated without bias and with the intent of forging an artifical sense of belonging, falls just short of propaganda. It ceases to deal with facts and spawns factions.

The British version of history is not unbiased, but nor is the Indian version. There is an entire spectrum of historians from Arnold Toynbee to Niall Ferguson, who have sought to define the British Raj and none has been entirely convincing. Not the least, Mr.Ferguson. Then there have been Indian historians such as Romila Thapar, whose interpretations are sanitized of any Indian perfume. What is our option?

The British incursions into India, as well as those of the Portuguese, Dutch and French incursions, all happened primarily due to a number of factors.

1. Foreigners were welcome :
- Commodity trade – British were welcomed by the Mughals
- Slave trade – Portuguese were welcomed by the Zamorin (Yes, Saurashtra merchants were engaged in the African slave trade alongwith the Portuguese)
- Political alliance – French were welcomed by Tipu to offset the British inroads.

2. The internal fractiousness of :
- Hindus and Muslims
- Caste Hindus and “Untouchables”

3. The technological stagnancy of the Indian industry.

4. The moribund debate over political reform and representative social institutions. Why didn’t a single royal state, move towards granting greater autonomy to citizens, prior to the advent of the British?

5. The prevalence of a stupendously stuporous and superstitious mindset in both Hindus and Muslims. Do not Sati, child marraige, injunctions against foreign travel, female infanticide, Shariah and Manu based legal codes all qualify as superstition?

The British systematically stripped the Indian sub-continent of its natural resources and made it a dumping ground of their industrial output and by so doing made the arguably richest economy, the largest contiguous stretch of pauperized mass … a civilization enslaved. History books will well record the infinite instances of their perfidy. The moral weight of their immorality shall not sit lightly on their shoulders. But, our leaders and the trajectory of our history, is also to blame.

For look around, do not our politicians and we, excuse ourselves from our complicity in the sorry state of national and social matters, presently?

What gives? History or us?

I wish all Desis the best.
Let us read our history, not merely recount it.

So, what if he has done this with the influence of bhang.

After Mangal Pandy was hanged, the unrest in british india continued and finally in the month of May , 1857 the first war of independence again started. This continued till september.

Check these links. They are truly fantastic. They are the eye witness accounts of the 1857 revolt.

http://www.kapadia.com/TheMutinyinDelhi.html

http://www.kapadia.com/zafar.html

The eye witness was Khwaja Hasan Nizami. He has written the book in Urdu during those times. It was translated in to English during the 20th Century.

We must remember that history of any nation is written,most of the times, by the oppressors, not from the side of the oppressed. And as far as Mangal Pandey is concerned there is very little about him that all of us know.

People should not compare the movies with the realities.Movies are there for your own entertainment, for your enjoyment. They are saying that Mangal pandey did not have an affair with a prostitute, his and Gordon’s friendship is fictitious…….maybe this is true….but would the indian audience have accepted a movie without girls dancing with the heroes???? We all know the answer to this!! But the fact is that Ketan Mehta did try to make a movie on a person who we know very little of and yes he did stress on the point that after what Pandey did there was a ‘Uprising’ in the Nation.

I think most of the critics of the movie are missing the point. Yes, there is a lot of kisch; YES, the director has taken artistic liberties with historical facts; and YES, you may not want to see the movie a second time. But that does not detract from the fact that a very large number of the people who will see the movie will become more aware of one part of Indian history. And some of those will get fired with a little more pride in ourselves than formerly (one also expects a resurgance in hirsute adornments). That, to my mind, is another validation.

India is one of the world’s most amazing experiments in living: a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual democracy (with many shades of red thrown in) that has repeatedly been written off as having no rationale or chance of surviving. And yet here we are. We owe so much to those who fought for freedom that it’s easy to forget their sacrifices.
‘Mangal Pandey’ puts a human face to one of the earliest known martyrs – which, to my mind, is a great achievement.