RAS question
The Indigo Revolt (Nil Bidroha) of 1859-60 took place in:
Correct answer: (A) Bengal.
The Indigo Revolt, or Nil Bidroha, of 1859-60 was a peasant movement in Bengal against European indigo planters.
Explanation
The Indigo Revolt belongs to Bengal because it arose there in 1859-60 as a peasant protest against European indigo planters. The core grievance was coercion: cultivators were forced into indigo cultivation on terms that served the planters rather than the ryots. The Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India page on the Indigo Commission describes the Neel Bidroha as beginning in Nadia in present West Bengal in 1859 and links it to planter coercion under an exploitative contract system. Dinabandhu Mitra's Nil Darpan gave literary visibility to the suffering of indigo cultivators, and the agitation led to the appointment of the Indigo Commission. For an exam question asking the place of Nil Bidroha, the clean answer is therefore Bengal.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Bihar is a distractor because the prompt links Bihar with Champaran later, whereas the 1859-60 Nil Bidroha asked here was the Bengal indigo movement.
- (C) UP is wrong because the given revolt was not located there; Bengal was the site of the peasant movement.
- (D) Madras is wrong because the Indigo Revolt was the Bengal indigo movement, not a revolt in the Madras region.
Concept
This tests peasant resistance under colonial economic exploitation in Modern Indian History. RAS repeatedly asks such movements because they connect region, grievance, leadership or literature, and official response in one compact fact pattern.