INDIGO PLANTATION :
Company agents settled in Madras in 1639 and in Calcutta in 1690. Bombay was given to the Company in 1661 by the Portuguese. The Company established trading and administrative offices in each of these settlements.After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and the trade of the English East India Company expanded, colonial port cities such as Madras, Calcutta and Bombay rapidly emerged as the new economic capitals..
By the 13th century, Indian indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth. However, only small amounts of Indian indigo reached the European market and its price was very high.
By the end of the 18th century, Britain began to industrialise, and its cotton production expanded dramatically, creating an enormous new demand for cloth dyes.
While the demand for indigo increased, its existing supplies from the West Indies and America collapsed for a variety of reasons.
Britain took it as an opportunity to persuade or force Indian cultivators to grow Indigo.
HOW WAS INDIGO CULTIVATED ?
There were two main systems of indigo cultivation – nij and ryoti .
NIJ : the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled. He either bought the land or rented it from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers.
RYOTI SYSTEM : the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement (satta). Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low rates of interest to produce indigo. 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. The price they got for the indigo they produced was very low and the cycle of loans never ended.
The planters usually insisted that indigo be cultivated on the best soils in which peasants preferred to cultivate rice. Indigo, moreover, had deep roots and it exhausted the soil rapidly. After an indigo harvest, the land could not be sown with rice.
THE “BLUE REBELLION” AND AFTER :
In 1859 thousands of ryots in Bengal refused to grow indigo. As the rebellion spread, ryots refused to pay rents to the planters and attacked indigo factories. Even zamindars were unhappy with the increasing power of the planters so they supported ryots.
Worried by the rebellion, the government brought in the military to protect the planters from assault, and set up the Indigo Commission to inquire into the system of indigo production. It declared that indigo production was not profitable for ryots. The Commission asked the ryots to fulfil their existing contracts but also told them that they could refuse to produce indigo in future.
After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal.
HOW DID BRITISH RULE AFFECT THE CITIES ?
RULING THE COLONIAL CITIES & URBANISATION :
The European Commercial Companies had set up base in different places early during the Mughal era: the Portuguese in Panaji in 1510, the Dutch in Masulipatnam in 1605, the British in Madras in 1639 and the French in Pondicherry (present-day Puducherry) in 1673.From the mid-eighteenth century, there was a new phase of change. Commercial centres such as Surat, Masulipatnam and Dhaka, which had grown in the 17th century, declined when trade shifted to other places.
Company agents settled in Madras in 1639 and in Calcutta in 1690. Bombay was given to the Company in 1661 by the Portuguese. The Company established trading and administrative offices in each of these settlements.After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and the trade of the English East India Company expanded, colonial port cities such as Madras, Calcutta and Bombay rapidly emerged as the new economic capitals..
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