Class 10 History Chapter 2 Question Answers - India and the Contemporary World - II

Q1: What is proto-industrialisation
Ans: The early phase of industrialisation in which large-scale production was carried out for international market not at factories but in decentralised units.

Q2: How was proto-industrialisation different from factory production
Ans: Proto-industrialisation was a decentralised method of production which was controlled by merchants and the goods were produced by a vast number of producers located in different places whereas under factories production became centralised. Most of the processes were brought together under one roof and management.

Q3: Why was it difficult for the new European merchants to set up business in town in the 17th and 18th centuries
Ans: This was because urban Crafts and trade guilds were very powerful in the town.

Q4: What were guilds?
Ans: These were associations of producers that trained craftspeople maintained control over production, regulated competition and prices. and restricted the entry of new people within the trade. Rulers granted different guilds the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products.

Q5: Which industry was symbol of the new era
Ans: Cotton.

Q6: Who created the cotton mill [CBSE 2014]
Ans: Richard Arkwright.

Q7: Who invented the steam engine [CBSE Sept. 2010]
Ans: James Watt.

Q8: Who discovered the Spinning Jenny [CBSE Sept. 2010]
Ans: James Hargreaves.

Q9: The introduction of which new technology in England angered women [CBSE Sept. 2010]
Ans: The Spinning Jenny.

Q10: Which pre-colonial port connected India to the Gulf countries and the Red Sea ports [CBSE Sept. 2010, 2011]
Ans: Surat

Q11: What was Spinning Jenny
Ans: It was a machine devised by James Hargreaves io speed up the spinning process. The machine could set in motion a number of spindles and spin several threads at the same time

Q12: Name any two regions of colonial India which were famous for large-scale industries.
Ans: (i) Bombay (ii) Bengal

Q13: Which were the two most dynamic industries of Britain in the early 19th century
Ans: Cotton and metal.

Q14: “In Victorian Britain, the upper classes – the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie – preferred things produced by hand”. Give reason.
Ans: Handmade products came to symbolise refinement and class.

Q15: Why women workers attacked the spinning Jenny a machine which was introduced in Britain
Ans: The fear of unemployment made workers hostile to the introduction of new technology.

Q16: Name the goods from India Which dominated the international market before the age of machine industries.
Ans: Silk and Cotton.

Q17: Name any three pre-colonial ports of India.
Ans: Surat. Masulipatnam and Hoogly

Q18: Why the pre-colonial ports i.e. Surat and Masulipatnam declined by the 1750’s
Ans: Because the European companies gradually gained power-first securing a variety of concessions from local courts, then the monopoly rights to trade.

Q19: Name the ports which grew during the colonial period.
Ans: Bombay and Calcutta

Q20: Why was the East India Company keen on expanding textile exports from India during 1760’s?
Ans: The consolidation of East India Company power after the 1760s did not initially lead to a decline in textile exports from India. British cotton industries had not yet expanded and Indian fine textiles were in great demand in Europe. So the company was keen on expanding textile exports from India.