<P> Nil Darpan (Bengali: নীল দর্পন, The Indigo mirror) is a Bengali play written by Dinabandhu Mitra in 1858--1859 . The play was published from Dhaka in 1860, under a pseudonym of the author . The play was essential to Nil vidroha, better known as the Indigo revolt of February--March 1859 in Bengal, when farmers refused to sow indigo in their fields to protest against exploitative farming under the British Raj It was also essential to the development of theatre in Bengal and influenced Girish Chandra Ghosh, who, in 1872, would establish The National Theatre in Calcutta (Kolkata) where the first ever play commercially staged was Nildarpan . </P> <P> The play was received with mixed results upon its release . The play was translated by Reverend J. Long for which he was sentenced to prison and charged with sedition . </P> <P> "I PRESENT" The Indigo Planting Mirror "to the Indigo Planters' hands; now, let every one of them, having observed his face, erase the freckle of the stain of selfishness from his forehead, and, in its stead, place on it the sandal powder of beneficence, then shall I think my labour success". </P> <P> It was evident from this wish that it is a piece meant to raise a voice among the elite intellectuals of Kolkata so that the farmers revolt will be integrated with the urban thinkers . Unlike the Sepoy Revolt, the Indigo revolt is effectively a revolt integrating the whole population of Bengalis with no distance kept between the several classes of society, which can be attributed to the effort by Mitra and Rev. James Long and Michael Madhusudan Dutt . </P>

What was the main theme of the neel darpan