The Real Story Of Gopal Patha: Hero, Vigilante, Or Misunderstood Symbol?

Last Updated:August 20, 2025, 07:46 IST

As Vivek Agnihotri’s new film ‘The Bengal Files’ revisits the 1946 Calcutta riots, it has reignited debate over Gopal Patha, a controversial but largely forgotten figure

Gopal Patha’s name is tied to one of the bloodiest chapters in India’s pre-independence history.

When the trailer of The Bengal Files was released on August 16 in Kolkata, it featured a character with a red tilak, seated before an idol of Kali, speaking to a crowd about Hindu decline and blaming Gandhi’s principle of non-violence. The character, though unnamed, was recognisable, especially in Bengal, as being based on Gopal Chandra Mukherjee, known locally as Gopal Patha.

For most of the country, the name meant little. For his family, it meant trouble. In the days since the trailer’s release, Patha’s grandson has filed a police complaint, sent a legal notice to the filmmaker, and accused the production of distorting his grandfather’s legacy.

The Historical Context: Calcutta, August 1946

Gopal Patha’s name is tied to one of the bloodiest chapters in India’s pre-independence history — the communal violence that erupted in Calcutta during the week of August 16, 1946, now remembered as the Great Calcutta Killings.

The violence began after the All-India Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, called for “Direct Action Day" to press its demand for a separate Muslim homeland. The League had grown increasingly frustrated with the Congress-led negotiations with the British, and August 16 was meant to be a nationwide show of strength. But in Bengal, where the League was in power, it spiralled into something far more deadly.

Riots broke out in Calcutta on the morning of August 16 and continued for nearly four days. Streets turned into battlegrounds. Shops were looted, homes set ablaze, and thousands were hacked or burned to death.

While the violence eventually engulfed all communities, contemporary reports suggest some of the earliest attacks occurred in Hindu localities.

As law and order crumbled and the British colonial administration remained largely disengaged, some men took it upon themselves to organise armed resistance. One of them was Gopal Patha, a 33-year-old from College Street who ran a goat meat shop.

The Man And His Methods

The nickname “Patha", Bengali for goat, came from his family business. But Gopal Patha was more than a butcher. He was a wrestler and associated with the Anushilan Samiti, a revolutionary nationalist group. Faced with reports of attacks and with no visible state protection, Patha mobilised local youth into an armed unit, which he later named Bharater Jatiya Bahini (Indian National Force).

Patha’s actions were controversial even at the time. He was feared, followed, and criticised in equal measure. Some saw him as a neighbourhood protector who stepped in when the state failed. Others saw him as a dangerous strongman who escalated the violence.

His Own Words: The 1997 Interview

In 1997, former BBC journalist Andrew Whitehead interviewed Gopal Patha.

Patha openly admitted to forming an armed group, raising funds from local sawmills and factories, and issuing cash payments for killings: “For one murder, you get Rs 10. For a half-murder, Rs 5. That’s how we got started."

It was a chillingly transactional account. But alongside this, Patha repeatedly emphasised that his men were given moral limits: “I had given strict orders not to misbehave with women, not kill any women… Do not loot."

In his telling, this wasn’t indiscriminate revenge; it was retributive justice, targeted only at those he claimed had attacked Hindus. He positioned himself as someone responding to state failure, not as someone leading a communal war. The rhetoric was brutal, but layered with a sense of self-ascribed discipline: “If you come to know that one murder has taken place, you commit 10 murders. That was the order for my boys… It was my duty."

This idea of ‘duty’, to protect, to retaliate, to uphold community honour, ran through his words. So did a rejection of Gandhian non-violence. When Gandhi came to Calcutta in 1947 and asked for weapons to be surrendered as a gesture of peace, Patha refused outright: “With these arms I saved the women of my area… Where was Gandhiji during the Great Calcutta Killing?"

He made it clear that idealism, in his view, had no place when people were being butchered in the streets.

These remarks are not just historical quotes; they frame the core of the current debate. Gopal Patha saw himself as a necessary force of resistance, one who stepped in when the state and moral appeals had failed. But whether that self-image should be accepted, and whether it justifies the extent of the violence, is exactly what makes his portrayal in The Bengal Files so contentious.

To his family, his code of restraint and his post-riot anonymity make him a protector. To others, the violence he unleashed and the language he used suggest a vigilante who normalised revenge.

And that split, between the way he remembered himself, and the way others choose to represent him now, is what lies at the heart of the storm around the film.

The Film At The Centre Of The Storm

The Bengal Files, earlier titled The Delhi Files, is the third film in Vivek Agnihotri’s “Files" trilogy, after The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files. It explores the communal violence that broke out in Bengal during the 1940s, particularly the Great Calcutta Killings triggered by Direct Action Day in 1946 and the subsequent Noakhali riots.

Written and directed by Agnihotri, the film stars Mithun Chakraborty, Sourav Das, Saswata Chatterjee, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Darshan Kumar. It is slated to release in theatres on September 5, 2025.

Early Warnings: The Family Raised Concerns In 2023

Long before The Bengal Files entered the public domain, Gopal Patha’s family had already expressed concern that his legacy was being misrepresented.

In 2023, on the 77th anniversary of the Calcutta riots, his grandson Santanu Mukherjee spoke to ThePrint from the family’s Central Kolkata office. He said his grandfather took up arms to protect Hindus, not to stoke hatred. He pointed out that Patha continued buying goats from Muslim sellers even during the violence.

Santanu also said that his grandfather’s ethics came from the Anushilan Samiti, and that he laid down rules: no attacks on innocents, no targeting of women. He said the family had been approached for a possible biopic, but backed out when they felt the story was being politicised.

“History is nuanced," he said. “One should not twist it for narrow ends."

This was 2023, two years before the film’s trailer dropped, but the anxiety over how Patha’s story would be retold was already surfacing.

The Legal Complaint

That fear, according to Santanu Mukherjee, was realised when the trailer of The Bengal Files was released. In a statement to India Today, he said he was particularly angered by a reel posted by director Vivek Agnihotri that referred to his grandfather as “Ek tha kasai Gopal Patha."

He called the label “derogatory and misleading" and emphasised that his grandfather was a freedom fighter and a wrestler, not a butcher. He also alleged that the family was never contacted during the making of the film.

The family has since filed an FIR and served a legal notice to Agnihotri.

What The Filmmakers Say

Director Vivek Agnihotri has denied any distortion, saying the character is only “inspired" by Gopal Patha and is shown as a hero. “He was a hero. I have shown him as a hero in the film," Agnihotri said.

“I’ve taken a small bit from his BBC interview and used his words verbatim. I know people in Bengal regard him as a hero, and that’s how he is portrayed."

A Legacy That Still Divides

Gopal Patha remains a deeply polarising figure. Police officers from the time called him “ferocious but helpful." Eyewitnesses described him as a criminal who also saved lives. Historians are divided; some highlight his retaliatory violence, others focus on the power vacuum he stepped into.

He never claimed to be peaceful, but he claimed to be principled. He lived and died with that version of himself.

Now, as a new generation encounters him on screen, his family says that version is under threat.

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August 20, 2025, 07:46 IST

News explainers The Real Story Of Gopal Patha: Hero, Vigilante, Or Misunderstood Symbol?

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