The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey

1857 A.D. The entire Indian subcontinent was ruled by a ‘Company' - the ‘British East India Company', the most successful business enterprise in history. The company had its own laws, its own administration, its own army. It controlled the destiny of one fifth of humanity.

However, a small incident changed the course of history. The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey is the story of that incident, the spark that ignited the most violent rebellion against the East India Company.

In 1857, the company introduced a new rifle cartridge, the ‘Kartoos', in its army comprising of native Indian Sepoys, both Hindus and Muslims. The cartridge was coated with grease made out of cow tallow and pig lard. The cow was sacred to the Hindus and the pig was forbidden to the Muslims. Two highly charged religious images merged into one and the cartridge became a symbol of oppression. The Sepoys, as the native soldiers were called, refused to use it. When economic considerations compelled the company to force them, the sepoys broke out into an open rebellion.

The British called it a ‘Sepoy Mutiny', the Indians called it the ‘The first war of independence'.

Director's Note

This is a subject which captured my imagination over fifteen years ago and refused to let go. At that time, a project on this scale, created for a world market, was impossible to conceive in India.

However, the script kept developing and the project kept growing. Finally the timing was right, the cast was perfect and the project materialized.

The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey is certainly the most ambitious project to emerge out of India . It is a historical epic with contemporary significance for the entire world.

Set in the middle of the 19th century, it is the story of ‘Mangal Pandey', an ordinary soldier in the army of the British East India Company which ruled over the entire Indian subcontinent. This ordinary soldier was the man who triggered a rebellion that destroyed the Company, turning into a symbol of the spirit of freedom.

The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey is the story of a turning point in Indian history, the beginning of Indian nationalism and the spirit of freedom. The cinematic form of the film merges the oriental tradition of oral history - made up of folk love legends and myths, with the occidental form of written history - made up of documented facts and written records.

The Dynamics of these two forms creates the design for the film, depicting the collision of cultures and ebb and flow of civilizational forces.