Agony of Indigo Cultivators
dc contributor director
Mukherjee, Subhra
dc contributor editor
Gupta, Vikas
Chaudhary, Brijesh
Jaiswal, Sambhu
dc contributor graphicarti
Chaudhary, Brijesh
Jaiswal, Sambhu
dc contributor producer
National Council of Science Museum
dc contributor scriptwrite
Guha, Jagannath
Gupta, Vikas
dc date accessioned
2017-04-21T07:26:07Z
dc date available
2017-04-21T07:26:07Z
dc description
The video is a presentation on the dark history of indigo plantation in British India. In the 18th century the demand for the brilliant blue dye indigo obtained from the plant Indigofera tinctotria increased in Europe. The British introduced widespread indigo cultivation in large parts of Bengal like the districts of Nadia and Jessore. The British indigo planters or nilkor sahebs leased lands from the landowners or zamindars with sharecroppers and tenants and coaxed the land tillers to plant indigo in place of food crops. Indigo cultivation proved to be a disaster for the peasants as only two crops of indigo was possible in a year and the impossible demands put on them by the dye factory owners put immense strain on the peasants. The impoverished peasants pushed back with the Indigo Revolt of 1859 which became the subject of the play Nil Darpan by Dinabandhu Mitra.
dc source
National Council of Science Museums
dc subject
Indigo
History of Indigo
Farming-Indigo
dc publisher
National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata
parent collection in dspac
Videos
parent library name
National Council of Science Museums
video streaming url 1