Kolkata: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) long quest for a resonant Hindutva icon in West Bengal has a new candidate – but not if his family has anything to do about it.

For the last few years, the party has attempted to co-opt a wide range of historical figures. From nationalist hero Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda to the ancient king Shashanka, alongside its traditional icon in Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee, BJP has never stopped trying to find its local hero in Bengal. But these efforts have yielded little in terms of electoral gains. 

Now, their focus has turned to Gopal Mukherjee, better known as 'Gopal Patha', a figure many scholars identify as a local strongman who fiercely defended Hindus during the brutal Calcutta riots of 1946. This latest experiment at historical appropriation, however, appears to be collapsing even before it could fully be forged, primarily because Mukherjee's family has expressed strong objection to how he has been shown in the trailer of director Vivek Agnihotri’s upcoming film The Bengal Files.

The film by the director, who has earlier made communally charged films, has been mired in controversy since it was announced. BJP workers and sympathisers quickly rallied behind the project, hoping it would serve as a cultural weapon in Bengal’s electoral battlefield. Bengal is set to go to polls next year.

In the trailer, Gopal Mukherjee is introduced with the words "there was a butcher" in Hindi, against a saffron backdrop. Mukherjee's family has now had a first information report filed against Agnihotri's film, accusing it of malicious distortion.

“This is a twisted portrayal that paints my grandfather as a leader of communal riots. It’s true that during the 1946 riots, my grandfather, Gopal Mukherjee, took up arms to resist the attackers. But he protected people of all faiths, Hindus and Muslims alike,” said Shantanu Mukherjee, Gopal Mukherjee's grandson.

Shantanu provides a counter-narrative that is far more complex and nuanced than the one-dimensional hero the Hindutva ecosystem seeks. He points to living memory, citing Muslim families in central Kolkata who still remember his grandfather fondly for protecting their families and properties. Mukherjee’s political lineage further complicates the BJP’s narrative. 

“My grandfather was a companion of Mahatma Gandhi, and the revolutionary Anukul Mukherjee was his uncle. Inspired by their ideals, he initially joined the Congress party. Although he later had differences with their non-violent policies, he never became a leader of a communal party,” Mukherjee said.

Books like Suranjan Das and Jayanta K. Ray's The Goondas: Towards a Reconstruction of the Calcutta Underworld offer a glimpse into who Mukherjee was.

A goat-meat trader by trade – something which is conjectured to have given him his nickname 'patha', which means goat – he was led into politics by Congress leader Bijay Singh Nahar during the 1946 riots in Kolkata. Mukherjee formed a private militia, the ‘Bharat Jatiya Bahani,’ to defend Hindu areas. This group, skilled in combat, was funded by wealthy Hindus during the crisis but is understood to have been abandoned afterward.

Facing a lack of support and social stigma, Patha and his followers reportedly turned to organised crime, including robberies and smuggling. The Lalbazar Detective Department's record from 1950 lists Gopal Chandra Mukherjee with the number CRO-HS-K23865 identifying him as the mastermind behind a number of organised crimes, including a kidnapping in 1950 and several bank and mill robberies.

Mukherjee's story highlights the many layers of the 1946 riots. While his militia resisted violence, Mukherjee's mentor, Bijay Singh Nahar, also conducted peace marches with a local Imam. This duality of resistance against sectarian violence and simultaneous efforts towards communal harmony was the reality of 1946 that is often overlooked in modern political narratives.

Kolkata-based journalist Sourav Guha, whose book on the underworld of Kolkata – Kolkatar Tolpet: Mastanir Ekal Sekal – featured a chapter on Gopal Mukherjee, contextualises his actions within the state’s role. 

“The government wanted riots to happen at that time. Many people, like Gopal Mukherjee, took to the streets to prevent those riots. Therefore, calling him a ‘butcher’ would be suppressing the real truth and distorting his role in maintaining communal harmony during that time,” Guha explained.

The physical space of Gopal Mukherjee's central Kolkata home, a near 200-year-old landmark, stands as a testament to this complexity. Adorned with photos of freedom fighters, the walls feature Ram Mohan Roy, the Muslim poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, Mother Teresa, and Congress stalwart Bidhan Chandra Roy. The presence of Bidhan Roy’s photo is significant as Mukherjee was known to be a strongman for the Congress leader. He was also allegedly tasked with disrupting leftist processions and was accused of electoral rigging by the left parties.

The BJP’s narrative fails to grasp this multifaceted identity, or perhaps, it wilfully ignores it. By trying to fit a complex Bengali figure in the narrow mould of a Hindutva icon, the party has once again misread the history and character of Bengal.

Perhaps the party can learn a lesson from West Bengal’s electoral history. The parties that worked to prevent the 1946 riots fared much better in the state’s first assembly election. The Indian National Congress formed the government with 150 seats, while the Left emerged as the main opposition. In contrast, the Jana Sangh of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, won only nine seats, and the Hindu Mahasabha secured just four.

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