You don`t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
Who would have thought that a nondescript sepoy of the East India Company in the 1850s, Mangal Pandey, Sepoy No. 1446 of the 34th Regiment of the Native Infantry, would become the subject matter for leader writers in the fifth year of the 21st century? But thanks to the sort of idiocy only politicians are capable of, that is exactly what happened last week.
All major newspapers wrote about Mr Pandey, or rather, the film about him called `The Rising` in which he is depicted variously as a hero and a whore-lover. The film which was funded by the UK Film Council has sparked off a controversy over `historical inaccuracies` in Britain too. The Brits don`t believe that the Company could burn an entire village because it was producing and selling opium to a private trader.
To me the edits revealed two things; how short of subjects the leader writers were, and how effortlessly they dash off edits. Is it any wonder that no one reads them?
Only the Telegraph of Calcutta made a sensible point, which is not surprising considering its edit page editor and chief leader writer did his Pd D from Oxford on the 1857 mutiny. He has also written a very short booklet (68 pages) published by Penguin three months ago.
Pointing to the completely gratuitous reference by the Prime Minister to Mangal Pandey in his Independence Day speech, it wrote, "There are two names that inevitably crop up when the prime minister of India addresses the nation on the morning of August 15... Jawaharlal Nehru…and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. To these two, Mr Singh added an unusual third... He invoked the memories of the leaders of the uprising of 1857."
It went on to point out something we all need to keep in view, namely, that "all the leaders of the 1857 rebellion were anti-modern; all of them harked back to the era of feudal hierarchy. Their aspirations, despite their heroism, were antithetical to the making of a modern nation. The aims and objectives of the great rebellion of 1857 and the goals of the Indian national movement were radically different. Similarly, the significance of 1857 and the significance of Gandhi are not reconcilable since one stood for the violent overthrow of British rule and the other for non-violence. Such incongruities sit uneasily with the erudition of Mr Singh."
The Hindu didn`t know quite how to tackle the issue and opted for `balance`. "What infused in Mangal the prescience and spirit to lead a death-defying revolt against British authority? A recent scholarly work suggests he may have been an accidental hero." Suggests? Had the writer read the book, he would have said `proves`.
Not being comfortable with the idea of administering a gentle rap on Dr Singh`s knuckle as the Telegraph did, it turned to the foolish controversy over the film. "The fierce attack on the film — for such things as its depiction of Pandey getting tipsy on bhang, rescuing a sex worker, and striking up a friendship with a British officer — emerges from a standpoint that is a combustible mix of obscurantism and political opportunism." One would easily say that of the Left as well.
The Indian Express had a different take on it. It reduced the fuss being made in over the film to the truth behind it: politics. "The clamour is not about Mangal Pandey and the film on him. It`s about the competitive political jostling for the Brahmin Vote in hopelessly fragmented UP."
That much is right. But then having to fill space, the paper needlessly widened the ambit of the edit. "More than that, it`s about a rising intolerance. An invisible thread may run through the protests against Mangal Pandey, the latest fatwa from Deoband that seeks to bar or inhibit Muslim women from contesting elections, the new law in Dharam Singh`s Bangalore that seeks to control ``Public Entertainment`` and put all citizens to bed by 11:30 pm." Nonsense.
A couple of columnists, also short of a subject, chose to comment on it. Swapan Dasgupta write in the Pioneer that "The great thing about The Rising is that it has helped rekindle some interest in the events of 1857, just as Sir Richard Attenborough`s Gandhi did about the Mahatma and Shyam Benegal`s The Forgotten Hero did about Subhas Chandra Bose. A country needs heroes to nurture its sense of nationhood. Once upon a time, these values were imbibed in schools. Unfortunately, they only teach science and mathematics in schools these days."
The Tribune and Deccan Herald did not comment. Sensible.