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Kunjaban Sebak Sangha preparing Durga Puja pandal themed on 'Indigo revolt'
TIWN Oct 1, 2018
Kunjaban Sebak Sangha preparing Durga Puja pandal themed on 'Indigo revolt'
PHOTO : Kunjaban Sebak Sangha preparing Durga Puja decoration of pandal themed 'Indigo revolt'. TIWN Pic Oct 1

AGARTALA, Oct 1 (TIWN): Unique theme has been chosen by Agartala Kunjaban Sebak Sangha for the upcoming Durga Puja on October 15.'Indigo revolt' of 1890's era is the theme of this year's Durga Puja by the club.

According to the club members children will be eager to know about the Indigo-revolt once they visit in their club and they will surely google it to know Indians' sacrifice in the British era. 

The Indigo revolt was a peasant movement and subsequent uprising of indigo farmers against the indigo planters that arose in Bengal in 1859. Cause lead to revolt - Indigo planting in Bengal dated back to 1777.

The British established commercial cultivation and production of Indigo in India as early as 1777. By 1788, most of the production of Indigo originated in Bengal. The system became highly exploitative when the planters were accorded permission to own the land.

At that time, there were two systems of cultivation of Indigo viz. Nij system and Ryoti System. Under the Nij system, the European planters produced indigo directly on land which they directly controlled. They either owned the land or took it on hire to cultivate indigo with hired peasants. Under Ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots or peasants to sign an agreement, so that they could get loans / advances {called Dadon} from planters to grow Indigo. However, one term of this agreement was that the Ryot would cultivate Indigo on at least 25% of the land. The loan made the people indebted and resulted in a rebellion in 1859-60 in Eastern Parts of Bengal.

The exploitation of the farmers made them understand that the planters had slowly got them into debt traps.  They started losing land holdings due to poor output.

The revolt began as the peasants stopped paying rents. In March 1859, the revolt became more organized when thousands of Ryots in Bengal refused to grow indigo. They attacked the Indigo factories with whatever weapons they had. Women joined the revolt and fought with pots, pans etc. The resistance was met with pressure from planters but farmers took pledge that they would not take advance and would not be bullied by the lathiyals of planters.

The key leaders of this revolt were Biswas Brothers of Nadia {Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas}, Kader Molla of Pabna, Rafique Mondal of Maida etc.

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