Nil Darpan: A New Look at the Genesis of Bengali Nationalism

Abstract

Nil Darpan (The Indigo Planting Mirror) was the first literary work in Bengali Literature, banned in 1861 with the fined and imprisonment of Reverend James Long. He was accused to responsible for translating the work as well as for publishing it. However, this was one of the most popular dramas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This was the pioneering work by Dinabandhu Mitra to reveal the cruelty and unkindness of indigo Planters towards the Bengal peasantries in the nineteenth century. The peasantries were the top socio-economic class of this delta. The despair of rayot led to the rebellion (Indigo Rebellion, 1859-61), which had occurred earlier before publishing this drama. It was the stunning utter of a Bengali intellectual’s feelings about the miseries and injustices towards rayots. This unfastens a new era in the history of Bengali literature, where intellectuals find ways to put their arguments against the policy and rule of colonial Government. In this way, Bengali literature started to remonstrate against the capitalistimperialist oppression and policy of the British Government. Therefore, Bengali nationalism found a way to express desires and aspirations through literature, where Dinabandhu Mitra and his Nil Darpan were pioneers. This paper attempts to find the nationalist views of society and Bengali intellectuals in the nineteenth century.