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The Calcutta High Court on Monday, September 8, dismissed a petition filed by Shantanu Mukherjee, challenging the alleged despicable portrayal of his late grandfather, ‘Gopal Chandra Mukherjee alias ‘Gopal Patha’ in Vivek Agnihotri’s new film, ‘The Bengal Files.’

The petition filed on September 6 claimed that the state has mistreated the petitioner by ignoring his complaints to the police, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), one of its members, and filmmaker Agnihotri. 

Agnihotri’s ‘The Bengal Files’ paints Gopal Patha in saffron colour, portraying him as a man spotting a tilak and carrying bloodthirsty eyes for Muslim killings. 

“Writ petition on said cause of action will not be maintainable. In view of the above writ petition fails and is hereby dismissed. It will be open for the petitioner to approach the competent forum for remedy in accordance with law if so advised,” Justice Amrita Sinha said.

Meanwhile, the petitioner’s lawyer stated that he had reached out to all possible legal authorities and forums, but no one offered any help.

The film is currently not being shown in any theatres across West Bengal. Agnihotri has alleged that this amounts to an “unofficial ban” caused by political pressure and intimidation from the ruling Trinamool Congress.

The Bengal Files, released on September 5, features Bengali actor Saurav Das in the role of Gopal Patha and has collected only Rs 6.65 crore net at the Indian box office in its first three days.

Who was Gopal Patha

On August 16, 1946, Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s All-India Muslim League called for ‘Direct Action Day’ to press its demand for Pakistan. Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) quickly spiralled into large-scale communal riots, leaving thousands dead and several displaced. Historians believe the violence deepened Hindu-Muslim divisions and is widely seen as a turning point that hastened the Partition of India in 1947.

Gopal Chandra ‘Patha’ Mukherjee emerged as a key Hindu leader who believed that Bengalis would face torture and repression if Bengal became a part of Pakistan.

Nicknamed ‘Gopal the Goat’ after his family’s meat shop on College Street, he was known as one of Calcutta’s most feared musclemen, with 800 boys at his disposal.

In a 1997 interview with the BBC’s Andrew Whitehead, Gopal Patha was asked, “If your boys found a Muslim woman alone, would they misbehave?”

“I had given strict orders not to misbehave with women because a person’s character is very important. In fact, we have seen in our history that after misbehaving with women, even Ravan was destroyed. So, I had given strict orders to my boys. One was do not loot, and another was do not misbehave with women,” he replied.

Gopal Patha passed away in 2005.