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why did british need indigo ? what caused them to encourage its cultivation in India?

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Please find below the solution to the asked query.

The following points may help you-
  • Indigo was one of the plants that had high demand in Europe but little supply, since Indigo plant grows primarily in the tropics.
  • By the thirteenth century Indian Indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth, though only small amounts of Indian indigo reached the European market and its price was very high.
  • European cloth manufacturers therefore had to depend on another plant called woad to make violet and blue dyes. Cloth dyers, however, preferred indigo as a dye
  • By the end of the eighteenth century, the demand for Indian indigo grew further.
  • Britain began to industrialise, and its cotton production expanded dramatically, creating an enormous new demand for cloth dyes.
  • While the demand for indigo increased, its existing supplies from the West Indies and America collapsed for a variety of reasons.
  • Cloth dyers in Britain desperately looked for new sources of indigo supply and that is the reason
  • Britain encouraged indigo cultivation in India.
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The british needed indigo because it had large demand in Europe .The dye produced from the indigo plant had a dark blue colour and the dye produced in Europe was made from opium which gave a light blue colour.The artisans wanted the blue dye from the indigo plant than from opium plant because it had a bold colour and the opium had a pale colour which was not preferred by the artisans. The british cultivated indigo in Indian because the british climate was non suitable for the cultivation of indigo.So they started cultivating indigo in India and the other countries in the southern hemisphere.
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To dye cloth
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It was a blue dye neen by british as it was a commercial crop and its amount on per cubic gram was high
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