Nil Darpan - Critical Summary

Critical Summary

The play was taken by the people all over the world with a mixed bit of reaction. Mitra himself wrote in the preface of the English translation

"I PRESENT" The Indigo Planting Mirror "to the Indigo Planters' hands; now, let every one of them, having observed his face, erase the freckle of the stain of selfishness from his forehead, and, in its stead, place on it the sandal powder of beneficence, then shall I think my labour success".

It was evident from this wish that its a piece meant to raise a voice among the elite intellectuals of Kolkata so that the farmers revolt will be integrated with the urban thinkers. Unlike the Sepoy Revolt, Nilbidraha is effectively a revolt integrating the whole population of Bengalis with no distance kept between the several classes of society, which can be attributed to the effort by Mitra and Rev. James Long and Michael Madhusudan Dutt.

Indian Literature has a long standing tradition of drama writing. Almost for a millennium the only form of literature other than odes was drama. The distinction of the genre of Sanskrit Drama by the luminaries like Kalidasa were strong enough to keep the millions absorbed for centuries. But it was coming at a dwan by the mid 1800 in Bengal where the Bengal Renaissance say the rise in western education and ideas, and therefore the styles of new forms of literature were seeping in. For example Ram Narayan Tarkaratna (1823–1885) had already left the Sanskrit tradition and started writing about social realism. The drama is markedly different from the earlier dramas of that period, notably the first modern drama written in Bengali by Ram Narayan still had the old sadhu bhasa the artificial sanskritised dialect of modern Bengali as the writing medium.

The characters in the drama are the villagers and the indigo planters who got the money and the law in their hand.