INDIGO CULTIVATION IN INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE

Hello friends.
In this topic we are going to learn about how indigo was being cultivated under British rule in India.

An Indigo plant.

Lets start with very basic questions i.e what is indigo and what are its uses?

Indigo is basically a plant of tropic region* which produces rich  blue color and this blue color is used in dying clothes.For example- blue jeans.
Earlier in the 19th century it was being used in MORRIS prints* in Britain.

INDIAN INDIGO AND WORLD:

Tropical region of earth was the ultimate king of Indigo cultivation in earlier centuries and India was at the top of it. By the 13th century Indian Indigo was being used by the cloth manufacturers of Italy,France and Britain but due to the huge distance only small amount of indigo reached European countries which also increased its transportation cost resulting into high cost of Indian Indigo.

European countries discovered an alternative plant to Indian Indigo and that was WOAD*.
The cloth manufacturers of European countries used woad to make violet and blue dyes and since it is a plant of temperate zone* it was easily available to European countries.Its cultivation started in northern Italy,southern France and in some parts of Germany and Britain.

A WOAD plant in it's second year of cultivation.

• WOAD VS  INDIGO :- 

1. Woad producers started worrying by the increasing demand of  indigo in Europe and hence they pressurized their governments to ban the imports of  indigo.
2. But this ban did not lasted long as the dye manufactured from woad plant was pale and dull in comparison to indigo which was rich in color.
3. As a result indigo ousted woad and French started cultivating it in St. Domingue ,Portuguese started its cultivation in Brazil,English in Jamaica and the Spanish in Venezuela.      

*Significance of Indian Indigo for Britain:

• Reason-  Industrialization in Britain resulted into the creation of huge demand for cloth dyes.  Earlier exporters of indigo for Britain namely North America and West Indies
                    however could not met with the demand and supplies collapsed.
                   This made India the karta dharta for Britain.
    
• British started the cultivation from Bengal and Bengal gave a boost in indigo production around the whole world.
• From 1788 to 1810 the percentage of indigo imports from India boosted from 30 to 95 per cent.
• High profits of indigo cultivation appealed numerous Scotsmen* and Englishmen to become planters.
  
  
  

System of indigo cultivation:

                                
                                  

                                   

        

    

• Under this system the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled.He either bought that land or rented it from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers.

  

 

•   Under this system the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract,an agreement(satta). At times they pressurize village headmen to sign the agreement on behalf of the ryots.
• Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low interest to produce indigo.But the loan committed the ryot to cultivating indigo on at least 25 per cent of the area under his holding.
• When the crop was delivered to the planter after the harvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cycle started all over again.

RYOTI CULTIVATION SYSTEM CYCLE

However there were many problems associated with these systems:-

Problems with Nij Cultivation:

• Indigo could only be cultivated on fertile lands. But these areas were densely populated and hence, only small plots could be acquired. This made it difficult to expand the area under nij cultivation. 
• A large plantation required a large number of workers. Work at indigo plantation coincided with the time when peasants were busy with rice cultivation. Hence, mobilizing the labour for indigo cultivation was a difficult task.

• Large scale nij cultivation also required many ploughs and bullocks. It was a big problem to bur and maintain the ploughs. Since the ploughs and bullocks of the peasants were busy in rice cultivation hence it was not possible to hire from them.

• Till the late nineteenth century, planters were not willing to expand the area under nij cultivation; because of above mentioned problems. Less than 25% of the indigo cultivation was done under nij system.

 Problems with RYOTI system:-

• The price that ryots got was very low.
• The cycle of loan never got over.
• The planters forced the ryots to cultivate indigo on best soil, which ryots preferred for producing rice.
• Indigo exhausted soil fertility and made soil infertile for cultivation of anything.

Some Important Terms:

1.Tropic region-A region which surrounds equator.
2.Morris Prints-Cotton print designed by William Morris,a famous poet and artist of 19th century Britain.This type of prints use indigo.