Short Answer TypeWhen Gandhiji returned to India in 1915 he observed a few changes in India. Mention any two such changes.
”The annexation of Awadh displaced not just the Nawab but also dispossessed the taluqdars of the region, causing break down of an entire social order.” Critically examine the statement.
”Some scholars see partition as a culmination of communal politics.” Examine the statement.
On the given political outline map of India five important places of the Revolt of 1857 have been marked as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Identify them and write their names on the lines drawn near them.
Long Answer TypeRead the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that follows:
The Malabar Coast (Present-day Kerala)
Here is an excerpt from Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, composed by an anonymous Greek sailor (c. first century CE):
They (i.e. traders from abroad) send large ships to these market-towns on account of the great quantity and bulk of pepper and malabathrum (possibly cinnamon, produced in these regions). There are imported here, in the first place, a great quantity of coin; topaz … antimony (a mineral used as a colouring substance), coral, crude glass, copper, tin, lead … There is exported pepper, which is produced in quantity in only one region near these markets
… Besides this there are exported great quantities of fine pearls, ivory, silk cloth, … transparent stones of all kinds, diamonds and sapphires, and tortoise shell.
Archaeological evidence of a bead-making industry, using precious and semi-precious stones, has been found in Kodumanal (Tamil Nadu). It is likely that local traders brought the stones mentioned in the Periplus from sites such as these to the coastal ports.
(1) Explain the importance of Malabar Coast.
(2) How did the exchange of goods take? Explain with example.
(3) Explain the working of the bead making industry.
(4) Who used these land and river routes?
OR
The importance of boundaries
The Manusmrti is one of the best-known legal texts of early India, written in Sanskrit and compiled between c. second century BCE and c. second century CE. This is what the text advises the king to do: Seeing that in the world controversies constantly arise due to the ignorance of boundaries, he should … have … concealed boundary markers buried – stones, bones, cow’s hair, chaff, ashes, potsherds, dried cow dung, bricks, coal, pebbles and sand. He should also have other similar substances that would not decay in the soil buried as hidden markers at the intersection of boundaries.
(1) Why did the controversies of boundaries arise? Explain.
(2) Suggest the ways to solve the boundary problems.
(3) Explain with example any such problem being faced by India today.
How were the Panchayats formed during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Explain their functions and authorities.
OR
Explain the origin, consolidation and the role of Zamindar in the villages. Were they an exploitative class?
Mughal village Panchayats and headmen regulated the rural society:
(i) The village panchayat was an assembly of elders, usually important people of the village with hereditary rights over their property.
(ii) In mixed-caste villages, the panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body. The decisions made by these panchayats were binding on the members.
(iii) The panchayat derived its funds from contributions made by individuals to a common financial pool.
(iv) Often these funds were also deployed in construction of a bund or digging a canal which peasants usually could not afford to do on their own.
(v) One important function of the panchayat was to ensure that caste boundaries among the various communities inhabiting the village were upheld.
(vi) Panchayats also had the authority to levy fines and inflict more serious forms of punishment like expulsions from the community.
(vii) The jati panchayats wielded considerable power in rural society and arbitrated civil disputes between members of different castes.
(viii) Village panchayat was regarded as the court of appeal that would ensure that the state carried out its moral obligations and guaranteed justice. The decision of the panchayat in
conflicts between “lower-caste” peasants and state officials or the local Zamindar could vary from case to case.
OR
Zamindars were landed proprietors who also enjoyed certain social and economic privileges by virtue of their superior status in rural society.
(i) Caste was one factor that accounted for the elevated status of Zamindars; another factor was that they performed certain services (khidmat) for the state.
(ii) The Zamindars held extensive personal lands termed milkiyat, meaning property. Milkiyat lands were cultivated for the private use of Zamindars, often with the help of hired or servile labour. The Zamindars could sell, bequeath or mortgage these lands at will.
(iii) Zamindars also derived their power from the fact that they could often collect revenue on behalf of the state, a service for which they were compensated financially. Control over military resources was another source of power. Most Zamindars had fortresses (qilachas) as well as an armed contingent comprising units of cavalry, artillery and infantry.
(iv) More important were the slow processes of zamindari consolidation, which are also documented in sources. These involved colonisation of new lands, by transfer of rights, by order of the state and by purchase.
(vi) These were the processes which perhaps permitted people belonging to the relatively “lower” castes to enter the rank of zamindars as zamindaris were bought and sold quite briskly in this period.
(vi) A combination of factors also allowed the consolidation of clan- or lineage-based zamindaris.
(vii) Although there can be little doubt that zamindars were an exploitative class, their relationship with the peasantry had an element of reciprocity, paternalism and patronage.
(viii)In a large number of agrarian uprisings which erupted in north India in the seventeenth century, zamindars often received the support of the peasantry in their struggle against the state.
Switch
