Class 8 History Chapter 1 Question Answers - Our Pasts III (Part - I)

Q1: How did the invention of the printing press help in spreading news and information?
Ans: In the early years of the nineteenth century documents were carefully copied out and beautifully written by calligraphists. By the middle of the nineteenth century, with the spread of printing, multiple copies of these records were printed as proceedings of each government department. As printing spread, newspapers were published and issues were debated in public. Leaders and reformers wrote to spread their ideas, poets and novelists wrote to express their feelings.

Q2: James Rennel was supporter of British Rule in India. Discuss.
Ans: Rennel was asked by Robert Clive to produce maps of Hindustan. An enthusiastic supporter of British conquest of India, Rennel saw preparation of maps as essential to the process of domination. He had produced the first map in 1782. The frontispiece to the first map tries to suggest that Indians willingly gave over their ancient texts to Britannia – the symbol of British power – as if asking her to become the protector of Indian culture.

Q3: How did James Mill view India?
Ans: James Mill’s view about India

• Mill thought that all Asian societies were at a lower level of civilisation than Europe.
• According to his telling of history, before the British came to India, Hindu and Muslim despots ruled the country. Religious intolerance, caste taboos and superstitious practices dominated social life.
• British rule, Mill felt, could civilise India. Mill, in fact, suggested that the British should conquer all the territories in India to ensure the enlightenment and happiness of the Indian people. For India was not capable of progress without British help.

Q4: Historians divide Indian history into ancient, medieval and modem. But this division too has its problems. What are these problems?
Ans: Moving away from British classification, historians have usually divided Indian history into ‘ancient’, ‘medieval’ and ‘modern’. This division too has its problems.

• It is a periodisation that is borrowed from the West where the modern period was associated with the growth of all the forces of modernity – science, reason, democracy, liberty and equality. Medieval was a term used to describe a society where these features of modern society did not exist.
• It is difficult to accept this characterisation of the modern period because under British rule people did not have equality, freedom or liberty. Nor it was the period one of economic growth and progress. Many historians therefore refer to this period as ‘colonial’.

Q5: How did surveys become important under the colonial administration?
Ans: The practice of surveying also became common under the colonial administration. The British believed that a country had to be properly known before it could be effectively administered. By the early nineteenth century detailed surveys were being carried out to map the entire country. In the villages, revenue surveys were conducted. The effort was to know the topography, the soil quality, the flora, the fauna, the local histories, and the cropping pattern – all the facts seen as necessary to know about to administer the region. From the end of the nineteenth century, Census operations were held every ten years. These prepared detailed records of the number of people in all the provinces of India, noting information on castes, religions and occupation. There were many other surveys – botanical surveys, zoological surveys, archaeological surveys, anthropological surveys, forest surveys.

Q6: What did the British do to preserve important official documents and letters?
Ans: The British also felt that all important documents and letters needed to be carefully preserved. So they set up record rooms attached to all administrative institutions. The village tahsildar’s office, the collectorate, the commissioner’s office, the provincial secretariats, the lawcourts – all had their record rooms. Specialised institutions like archives and museums were also established to preserve important records.

Q7: Why we continue to associate history with a string of dates?
Ans: This association has a reason. There was a time when history was an account of battles and big events. It was about rulers and their policies. Historians wrote about the year a king was crowned, the year he married, the year he had a child, the year he fought a particular war, the year he died, and the year the next ruler succeeded to the throne. For events such as these, specific dates can be determined, and in histories such as these, debates about dates continue to be important.

Q8: What is the problem with the periodisation of Indian history that James Mill offers?
Ans: James Mill divided Indian history into three periods—Hindu, Muslim and British. This periodisation has its own problem.

• It is not correct to refer to any period of history as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’ because a variety of faiths existed simultaneously in these periods.
• It is also not justified to characterise an age through the religion of the rulers of the time. To do so is to suggest that the lives and practices of the others do not really matter.
• It is worth-mentioning that even rulers in ancient India did not all share the same faith.

Q9: How important are dates?
Ans: History is certainly about changes that occur over time. It is about finding out how things were in the past and how things have changed. As soon as we compare the past with the present we refer to time, we talk of “before” and “after”. But time does not have to be always precisely dated in terms of a particular year or a month. Sometimes it is actually incorrect to fix precise dates to processes that happen over a period of time. Similarly, we cannot fix one single date on which British rule was established, or the national movement started, or changes took place within the economy and society. All these things happened over a stretch of time. We can only refer to a span of time, an approximate period over which particular changes became visible.