INDIGO REVOLT

• Started In Bengal  ( From 1859-1860 ) .
• The indigo planters of bengal , nearly all Europeans, exploited the local peasants by forcing them to grow indigo on their lands instead of the more paying crops like rice.
• The planters forced the peasants to take a meagre amount as advance and enter into fraudulent contracts which were then used against the peasants. 
• Kidnappings, illegal confinements, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle, burning and demolition of houses and destruction of crops were some of the methods used by the planters to force the peasants.
• The anger of the peasants exploded in 1859 when, led by Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas of Govindpur village in Nadia district, they decided not to grow indigo under duress and resisted the physical pressure of the planters and their lathiyals (retainers) backed by police and the courts. 
• They also organised a counter force against the planters attacks. 
• The planters also tried methods like evictions and enhanced rents. 
• The ryots replied by going on a rent strike by refusing to pay the enhanced rents and by physically resisting the attempts to evict them. 
• Gradually, peasants learned to use the legal machinery and initiated legal action supported by fund collection.
• The Bengali intelligentsia played a significant role by supporting the peasants cause through newspaper campaigns, organisation of mass meetings, preparing memoranda on peasants grievances and supporting them in legal battles. Their role was to have an abiding impact on the emerging nationalist intellectuals. In their very political childhood they had given support to a popular peasant movement against the foreign planters. This was to establish a tradition with long term implications for the national movement.
• The Harish Chandra Mukherji (editor of the Hindoo Patriot) played an important role by publishing regular reports from his correspondents in the rural areas on planters oppression, officials partisanship and peasant resistance.
• Dinbandhu Mitra’s play, Neel Darpan, gained great fame for vividly portraying the oppression by the planters.
• Missionaries were another group which extended active support to the indigo ryots in their struggle.
• The Government’s response to the Revolt was rather restrained and not as harsh as in the case of civil rebellions and tribal uprisings. The Government appointed an indigo commission to inquire into the problem of indigo cultivation. 
• Based on its recommendations, the Government issued a notification in November 1860 that the ryots could not be compelled to grow indigo and that it would ensure that all disputes were settled by legal means. 
• But, the planters were already closing down factories and indigo cultivation was virtually wiped out from Bengal by the end of 1860.
• A major reason for the success of the Indigo Revolt was the tremendous initiative, cooperation, organization and discipline of the ryots.
• Another reason of success was the complete unity among Hindu and Muslim peasants. Leadership for the movement was provided by the more well-off ryots and in some cases by petty zamindars, moneylenders and ex-employees of the planters.