Indigo cultivation had been greatly increased from the 18th century. The cultivators were forced to undertake indigo cultivation for which they hardly got anything in return. The oppression gradually increased and when the cultivators could no longer bear it they revolted and refused to undertake indigo cultivation. It was then that the intelligentsia in Kolkata took up the matter. Harish Mukherjee played a vital pioneering role in that movement with his brilliant writing in the "Hindu Patriot". His writing roused public opinion and finally Dinabandhu Mitra came out with his play "Nil Darpan" in 1860.