Nil Darpan

Nil Darpan (Bengali: নীল দর্পণ, The Indigo Mirror) is a Bengali-language play written by Dinabandhu Mitra in 1858–1859.

It was allegedly translated by Michael Madhusudan Dutta and published by Reverend James Long, for which he was sentenced to prison and charged with sedition.

It is evident from this wish that it was a piece meant to raise a voice among the elite intellectuals of Kolkata so that the farmers' revolt would be integrated with the urban thinkers.

The legacy of black humor in the play is well shared by contemporary dramatists like Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Girish Chandra Ghosh and Ardhendu Sekhar Mustafi.

James Long criticized the colonial authorities and the European mercantile community for provoking the revolt by their treatment of the indigo cultivators.

Unknown to the Lieutenant Governor, Long began sending out the copies in official government envelopes that had the heading: "On her Majesty's Service".

One of the leading newspapers named The Englishman and some indigo planters instituted a libel suit against Long and the printer C. H. Manuel.

The planters filed for only nominal damages, even as they had decided to prosecute Long for libel in a criminal suit.

These two papers were alluded to in the preface of the play Nil Durpan: The Editors of two daily newspapers are filling their columns with your praises; and whatever other people may think, you never enjoy pleasure from it, since you know fully the reason of their so doing.

The detestable Judas gave the great preacher of the Christian religion, Jesus and others, into the hands of Odious Pilate for the sake of thirty rupees; what wonder then, if the proprietors of two newspapers, becoming enslaved by the hope of gaining one thousand rupees, throw the poor helpless of this land into the terrible grasp of your mouths.

[6] Being aggrieved, Mr. Brett, the managing proprietor and formerly joint editor of the Englishman, brought a criminal prosecution against James Long.

The second count, which concerned the interests of the society at large, was the alleged libel against that portion of the community called the indigo planters of Lower Bengal.

Sir Mordunt Wells accused Long of slandering European women in Nil Durpan: the question of shame was brought up through the episode of a woman riding on horseback with the magistrate of the zillah through the village, as well as injuring the reputation of every European in the country by calling them Planter or Civilian or Soldier.