SESSION 5 - BRITISH EXPLOITATION OF INDIAN RESOURCES

1.What is Colonization?

Answer: Colonization is an economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its population as labour
and its natural resources as raw material.

2.What facilitated the colonization of European powers in colonizing Asia and Africa?

Answer: With the advancement in sailing ships, navigational aids, and cartography including
international trade and naval warfare as referred to by historians as the ‘Age of Sail’ (15th to 18th
century) facilitated European colonization of Africa and Asia.

3.What is the Merchant capital phase of British exploitation of India?

Answer: It is the period marked by direct plunder by which EIC invested surplus revenues for purchasing
Indian finished goods for export to England and Europe.

4.What is the free trade phase of Exploitation?

Answer: Under this phase, India provided all the raw materials and also became a market for finished
British goods.

5.How the British systematically destroyed the economic safety net of the peasants?

Answer: It was done by various methods like increasing the tax rate, permanent settlement, adopting
agricultural commercialization, by deindustrializing India.

6.What is the barter system of trade?

Answer: This is a system of doing trade without money by exchanging goods convenient for each other’s
needs.

7.What is the commercialization of agriculture?

Answer: Commercialization of agriculture is a phenomenon where agriculture is governed by

commercial considerations, for example, certain specialized crops began to be grown for the
consumption of international markets like tea, coffee, jute, indigo, and others.
6.What is free trade?

Answer: It's a system of trading wherein goods and products can come in and go out if the market
demand without interference from the government.

7.What are the reasons for the 1770 famine?

Answer: There was a terrible drought that hampered agriculture. The tax was increased to compensate
for the loss of many lives who wouldn’t pay taxes. Introduction of cash crops that decreased agricultural
land.

SESSION 6 - COLONIAL DRUG TRAFFICKING IN SOUTH-ASIA

1. Why did the Chinese thought of exporting Opium from the Bengal region to Chania?

Answer: By purchasing jute, Britain lost all its silver coins and thought of an alternative to replace silver
coins with Opium so that they could buy tea without using silver coins.

2.How Opium is made?

Answer: The opium that the British sold in China was made from the sap of poppy plants, and had been
used for medicinal and sometimes recreational purposes in China and other parts of Eurasia for
centuries.

3.Why the British produced opium in the state of Bengal?

Answer: As the British purchased tea from China in exchange for silver, they depleted all and needed to
reverse the situation and thought of making it up by exporting opium and prior to that creating an
opium dependency by the Chinese people.

4.The outcome of the 1st & 2nd Opium Wars?

Answer: The Opium Wars were fought between China and Great Britain and France. China lost both
wars. China had to cede the territory of Hong Kong to British control, open treaty ports to trade with
foreigners, and grant special rights to foreigners operating within the treaty ports.

In addition, China had to allow the British to increase their opium sales to the people of China.
SESSION 7 - DIMENSION OF GREAT INDIAN MUTINY

1.Did the Enfield cartridge cause the mutiny of 1857?

Answer: It only worked as a trigger but there were many other causes of which the administrative,
political, economic, social, and religious factors are important.

2.Why did the soldiers of the Muslim and Hindu faith got provoked by the introduction of the Enfield
rifle?

Answer: The Hindu and the Muslim soldiers got provoked as the wrapping paper used to cover the
Enfield Cartridge is reported to have been greased by the sow and cow fat.

3.How the British tried to destroy cultural nationalism?

Answer: The British divided Indian society after 1857, by creating caste divisions in the army & other
institutions, dividing troops into martial & non martial races without any scientific evidence, destroying
the community-run education system based on the Gurukul model, promoting minority institutions,
relegating Hindi & other Indian languages to the background, while promoting Urdu & Persian in
administrative work.

4.Why the British historians termed the 1857 rebellion a mutiny?

Answer: The British in order to hide the real reasons behind the rebellion and also to undermine the
event, tried to brand it as a mutiny by a few disgruntled soldiers.

5.What was at the core of the first war of Indian independence?

Answer: The core of the first war of independence was an assertion of the sociocultural identity which
Indian society had preserved for more than 5000 years. Thus, one can say cultural nationalism was at
the core of the first war of independence in 1857.

6. What are the factors responsible for the rebellion of 1857?

Answer: Various factors responsible for the rebellion of 1857 are appended below:
(1) Political and administrative

(2) Economic

(3) Social and religious

(4) Military

SESSION 9 – PARTITION OF BENGAL

1.What is the justification made by the British for partitioning the Bengal province?

Answer: Justifications are summarized as under:

#Vastness of Province: The Province was too vast to be managed by one Lieutenant Governor.

#Poor Communication: Rivers and forests made communication difficult & badly influenced law & order.

#Difference of Language & Culture: There was also a difference in Language and culture between the
natives of both the Bengals.

#Need of the time: The division of Bengal was necessary to develop trade in East Bengal promoting
Chittagong Port.

2.Why the British annulled the partition of Bengal?

Answer: Apart from resisting the decision of the British government, two other important movements
came up namely the boycott movement and the Swadeshi movement. And even gracious was the fact
that Indian National Congress was trying to replicate these ideas across India. Fearing an all-out anti-
British movement, the British annulled the partition of Bengal.
3.Why the Bengalis of West Bengal reacted so violently against the partition plan of 1905?

Answer: By the beginning of the 20th century availing the opportunities offered by the English Calcutta
grew into a strong middle-class society dominated by caste and class-based demography. They never
liked to see the emancipation of the Muslims to the point of being their counterpart enjoying equal
status and privileges. This would curtail their development, funds, rights, and privileges in several ways.

4.What are the demands of Shimla Delegation?

Answer: A 35-member delegation met Viceroy Lord Minto, led by Sir Aga Khan, in Shimla on 1st October
1906 and placed the following demands:

#Right of separate electorates,

#More no of seats in the central legislature;

#Reserve quota in the civil services;

#Representation in universities senates and syndicates;

#Aid for setting up a Muslim university.

#Enumerate the significance of Shimla Delegation.

Answer:

#The first time, the Hindu-Muslim conflict was raised to the constitutional plane.

#The acceptance of the Deputation’s demands was a turning point.

#It was made clear that Muslims had no confidence in the Hindu majority and that they were not
prepared to put their future in the hands of an assembly elected on the basis of an assumed
homogenous Indian nation.

#It is in this sense that the idea of a separate electorate may be seen as the beginning of the realization
of the Two-Nation theory.

5.What were the immediate aftereffects of the Partition of Bengal?

Answer:

*Spread of Nationalism

#The anti-partition movement showed its potential.

#The psychological strength of the people made it work which India followed subsequently.
#Swadeshi & Boycott Movements combined launched to wage the Indian national struggle.

*The Militant Nationalism

#As the government used force, a counterforce grew from amongst the people.

#Org like Anusilan Samiti & Dhaka Anusilan Samiti were set up to practice the collection & use of arms.

#Khudiram tried to kill judge Kingsford in 1908 but instead killed two English women & Surya Sen led the
Ctg armory raid in 1930.

#The intensity of military opposition from Bengal, Punjab & UP almost un-nerved the British.

*The Congress Split

#Congress split into moderates & extremists in the question of political goals & ways to achieve those.

#The moderates led by Gopal Krishna wanted colonial self-govt by petitioning to the Govt.

#The extremists demanded nothing but the total self-govt or “Swaraj”, free from the British.

*Passive Resistance

#Passive resistance earned freedom which was the brainchild of Sri Aurobindo.

#It evolved partly as the necessary complement of self-help, and partly as a means of putting pressure
on Govt to deny cooperation as long as a share in legislation, finance, and administration is not
achieved.

#Mahatma Gandhi adopted the same path that achieved freedom in 1947.

#It also brought with it the partition of 1947, for which the ground was prepared in 1905.

SESSION 10 – EVENTS LEADING TO LAHORE RESOLUTION

1.Write the Lahore Resolution.

Answer: The resolution is: “the areas in which the Muslims were numerically in the majority, as in the
north-western and eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which
constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.”

2.What is Communal Award?

Answer: Communal Award is an official policy statement of the British Government offered by labour
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in respect of the composition of provincial legislatures as a further
step towards the transfer of power to the Indian people allowing the minority people to elect their own
leaders.

3.Why Jinnah is called the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity?

Answer: As the President of the Muslim League, in 1916, Jinnah shaped the outcome of the Lucknow
Pact in agreement with the Indian National Congress and the Muslim league where the issue of a
separate electorate was agreed upon by Congress. For this, Jinnah has conferred the title of
"ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity.

SESSION 13 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1.What is research?

Answer: Research is the careful consideration of study regarding a particular problem using scientific
methods.

2.What is a Hypothesis?

Answer: It is a statement we aim to prove or disprove while carrying out scientific research.

3.How to carry out research on social science subjects?

Answer: To carry out research on social science subjects we need to select one primary question and 2
to 3 secondary questions to bring out the answers.

4.Difference between Ibid and Op. Cit?

Answer: While referring to something that comes immediately after the main reference is shown as ibid
and anything that comes after the main and another reference is shown as op. cit.