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The original Bengali of this Drama—the NIL DARPAN, OR INDIGO PLANTING
MIRROR—having excited considerable interest, a wish was expressed by
various Europeans to see a translation of it. This has been made by a
Native; both the original and translation are _bonâ fide_ Native
productions and depict the Indigo Planting System as viewed by Natives
at large.
The Drama is the favourite mode with the Hindus for describing certain
states of society, manners, customs. Since the days of Sir W. Jones, by
scholars at Paris, St. Petersburgh, and London, the Sanskrit Drama has,
in this point of view, been highly appreciated. The Bengali Drama
imitates in this respect its Sanskrit parent. The evils of Kulin
Brahminism, widow marriage prohibition, quackery, fanaticism, have been
depicted by it with great effect.
Nor has the system of Indigo planting escaped notice: hence the origin
of this work, the NIL DARPAN, which, though exhibiting no marvellous or
very tragic scenes, yet, in simple homely language, gives the “annals of
the poor;” pleads the cause of those who are the feeble; it describes a
respectable ryot, a peasant proprietor, happy with his family in the
enjoyment of his land till the Indigo System compelled him to take
advances, to neglect his own land, to cultivate crops which beggared
him, reducing him to the condition of a serf and a vagabond; the effect
of this on his home, children, and relatives are pointed out in
language, plain but true; it shows how arbitrary power debases the lord
as well as the peasant; reference is also made to the partiality of
various Magistrates in favor of Planters and to the Act of last year
penally enforcing Indigo contracts.
Attention has of late years been directed by Christian Philanthropists
to the condition of the ryots of Bengal, their teachers, and the
oppression which they suffer, and the conclusion arrived at is, that
there is little prospect or possibility of ameliorating the mental,
moral, or spiritual condition of the ryot without giving him security of
landed-tenure. If the Bengal ryot is to be treated as a serf, or a mere
squatter or day-labourer, the missionary, the school-master, even the
Developer of the resources of India, will find their work like that of
Sisyphus—vain and useless.
Statistics have proved that in France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium,
Sweden, Denmark, Saxony, the education of the peasant, along with the
security of tenure he enjoys on his small farms, has encouraged
industrious, temperate, virtuous, and cleanly habits, fostered a respect
for property, increased social comforts, cherished a spirit of healthy
and active independence, improved the cultivation of the land, lessened
pauperism, and has rendered the people averse to revolution, and friends
of order. Even Russia is carrying out a grand scheme of
serf-emancipation in this spirit.
It is the earnest wish of the writer of these lines that harmony may be
speedily established between the Planter and the Ryot, that mutual
interests may bind the two classes together, and that the European may
be in the Mofussil the protecting Ægis of the peasants, who may be able
“to sit each man under his mango and tamarind tree, none daring to make
him afraid.”