Indigo Revolt

The Indigo Revolt was a major peasant protest in Bengal between 1859 and 1862 against European planters who compelled farmers to cultivate indigo.

• Indigo was valuable because it produced a deep blue dye used for colouring cloth in Europe. Planters wanted large supplies, but the risks and losses were pushed onto Indian peasants.
• Farmers were often made to sign unfair agreements and take advances, or loans, from planters. These arrangements trapped many families in debt and left them with too little land for growing rice and other food crops.
• In many villages, peasants acted together by refusing to sow indigo. This collective action was important: an individual farmer could be threatened easily, but whole communities were harder to control.
• The protest gained unusual support from educated Indians in Calcutta and newspapers such as the Hindu Patriot. Their reports helped bring the suffering of Bengal’s peasants to public attention.
• In 1860, the colonial government set up the Indigo Commission to investigate. It concluded that peasants should not be forced to grow indigo, and indigo cultivation by European planters in Bengal declined afterwards.
• The revolt showed that colonial economic policies affected everyday life deeply: a crop grown for overseas profit could take away a farmer’s food, income, and freedom.