Class 12 History NCERT Based- 2 - Free MCQ Practice Test with solutions,

• Ain-e-Akbari has been translated for use by several scholars. Henry Blochmann edited it and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), published it in its Bibliotheca Indica series.

• The book has also been translated into English in three volumes. The standard translation of Volume 1 is that of Henry Blochmann (Calcutta 1873). The other two volumes were translated by H.S. Jarrett (Calcutta 1891 and 1894).

• Both are correct as Emperor Akbar in his profound sagacity classified the lands and fixed a different revenue to be paid by each.

• Polaj is land which is annually cultivated for each crop in succession and is never allowed to lie fallow. Parauti is land left out of cultivation for a time that it may recover its strength.

• Chachar is land that has lain fallow for three or four years. Banjar is land uncultivated for five years and more. Of the first two kinds of land, there are three classes, good, middling, and bad.

• They add together the produce of each sort, and the third of this represents the medium produce, one-third part of which is exacted as the Royal dues.

• In addition to the village panchayat, each caste or jati in the village had its jati panchayat. These panchayats wielded considerable power in rural society. In Rajasthan jati panchayats arbitrated civil disputes between members of different castes.

• They mediated in contested claims on land, decided whether marriages were performed according to the norms laid down by a particular caste group, and determined who had ritual precedence in village functions, and so on. In most cases, except in matters of criminal justice, the state respected the decisions of jati panchayats.

• A high revenue demand was imposed in the 1790s, a time when the prices of agricultural produce were depressed, making it difficult for the ryots to pay their dues to the zamindar.

• According to the Sunset Law, if payment did not come in by sunset of the specified date, the zamindari was liable to be auctioned.

• By the 1850s, the Santhals felt that the time had come to rebel against zamindars, moneylenders and the colonial state, in order to create an ideal world for themselves where they would rule.

• It was after the Santhal Revolt (1855-56) that the Santhal Pargana was created, carving out 5,500 square miles from the districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum. The colonial state hoped that by creating a new territory for the Santhals and imposing some special laws within it, the Santhals could be reconciled.

• Francis Buchanan was a physician who came to India and served in the Bengal Medical Service (from 1794 to 1815). For a few years he was surgeon to the Governor-General of India, Lord Wellesley.

• During his stay in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), he organised a zoo that became the Calcutta Alipore Zoo; he was also in charge of the Botanical Gardens for a short period. On the request of the Government of Bengal, he undertook detailed surveys of the areas under the jurisdiction of the British East India Company.

• In 1815 he fell ill and returned to England. Upon his mother’s death, he inherited her property and assumed her family name Hamilton. So he is often called Buchanan-Hamilton.

• The movement began at Supa, a large village in Poona (present-day Pune) district. It was a market centre where many shopkeepers and moneylenders lived. On 12 May1875, ryots from surrounding rural areas gathered and attacked the shopkeepers, demanding their bahi khatas (account books) and debt bonds.

• They burnt the khatas, looted grain shops, and in some cases set fire to the houses of sahukars.

• As British rule expanded from Bengal to other parts of India, new systems of revenue were imposed. The Permanent Settlement was rarely extended to any region beyond Bengal. Reason was that after 1810, agricultural prices rose, increasing the value of harvest produce, and enlarging the income of the Bengal zamindars.

• Since the revenue demand was fixed under the Permanent Settlement, the colonial state could not claim any share of this enhanced income. Keen on expanding its financial resources, the colonial government had to think of ways to maximise its land revenue. So in territories annexed in the nineteenth century, temporary revenue settlements were made.

• When the revolt spread in the Deccan, the Government of Bombay was initially unwilling to see it as anything serious.

• But the Government of India, worried by the memory of 1857, pressured the Government of Bombay to set up a commission of enquiry to investigate into the causes of the riots.

• The commission produced a report that was presented to the British Parliament in 1878. This report, referred to as the Deccan Riots Report, provides historians with a range of sources for the study of the riot.

• Statement 1 is correct as the colonial rule was indeed first established in Bengal by the English East India Company. This was a significant development in the history of British colonialism in India.
• Statement 2 is correct. During the early years of the Company's rule, they made attempts to reorder rural society, establish new land rights, and implement a new revenue system. This was part of their broader strategy to consolidate their control over the Indian countryside.
• Statement 3 is also correct. The Permanent Settlement was introduced in 1793, fixing the revenue that each zamindar had to pay to the Company. This system was intended to create a stable revenue base for the British administration and had profound impacts on the agrarian society in India, often leading to exploitation and hardship for the peasants.

Therefore Correct Answer-: Option D -All of the above

• The ryots came to see the moneylender as devious and deceitful. They complained of moneylenders manipulating laws and forging accounts.

• In 1859 the British passed a Limitation Law that stated that the loan bonds signed between moneylenders and ryots would have validity for only three years. This law was meant to check the accumulation of interest over time.

• It was after the Santhal Revolt (1855-56) that the Santhal Pargana was created, carving out 5,500 square miles from the districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum.

• The colonial state hoped that by creating a new territory for the Santhals and imposing some special laws within it, the Santhals could be reconciled.

• After the revolt was suppressed, the British government passed the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act (SPT), which prohibits the transfer of land.

• At the time of rent collection, an officer of the zamindar, usually the amlah, came around to the village.

• The Government succeeded in repressing the Deccan movement. As a conciliatory measure, the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act was passed in 1879, This time also, the modern nationalist intelligentsia of Maharashtra supported the peasants' cause. Changed Nature of Peasant Movements after 1857. Peasants emerged as the main force in agrarian movements, fighting directly for their own demands.

• A variety of customary norms regulated the relationship between the moneylender and the ryot. One general norm was that the interest charged could not be more than the principal.

• This was meant to limit the moneylender’s exactions and defined what could be counted as “fair interest”. Under colonial rule this norm broke down. In one of the many cases investigated by the Deccan Riots Commission, the moneylender had charged over Rs 2,000 as interest on a loan of Rs 100.

• In petition after petition, ryots complained of the injustice of such exactions and the violation of custom. By the 1770s, the rural economy in Bengal was in crisis, with

• During the cotton boom, cotton merchants in India had visions of capturing the world market in raw cotton, permanently displacing America.

• The editor of the Bombay Gazette had asked in 1861, “What can prevent India from supplanting the Slave States (of U.S.A.) as the feeder of Lancashire?” By 1865 these dreams were over.

• As the Civil War ended, cotton production in America revived and Indian cotton exports to Britain steadily declined. Usually Ryots in Bengal leased the land to under-ryots.