Indigo Revolt - Causes of The Revolt

Causes of The Revolt

Indigo planting in Bengal dated back to 1777. Louis Bonard was probably the first indigo planter. With expansion of British power in the Nawabate of Bengal, indigo planting became more and more commercially profitable due to the demand for Blue Dye in Europe. It was introduced in large parts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Murshidabad, etc. The indigo planters left no stones unturned to make money. They mercilessly pursued the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. They provided loans, called dadon at a very high interest. Once a farmer took such loans he remained in debt for whole of his life before passing it to his successors. The price paid by the planters was meagre,only 2.5% of the market price. So the farmers could make no profit by growing indigo. The farmers were totally unprotected from the brutal indigo planters, who resorted to mortgage or destruction of their property if they were unwilling to obey them. Government rules favoured the planters. By an act in 1833, the planters were granted a free hand in oppression. Even the zamindars, money lenders and other influential persons sided with the planters. Out of the severe oppression unleashed on them the farmers resorted to revolt.

The Bengali middle class supported the peasants whole-heartedly. Harish Chandra Mukhopadhyay thoroughly described the plight of the poor peasants in his newspaper The Hindu Patriot. However every such contribution was overshadowed by Dinabandhu Mitra, who gave a perfect account of the situation by writing a play named "Nildorpon", which rowed a huge controversy.