CBSE Class 12 History — NCERT Solutions

The people of Harappan cities ate a wide range of plant and animal products. The plant foods mentioned in the chapter are wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea, sesame, and in Gujarat millets; rice was rare. They also ate fish. Among animal foods, the chapter mentions cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo and pig; bones of wild boar, deer and gharial are also found, as well as fish and fowl.

These foods would have been provided by farmers growing crops, herders/pastoralists raising animals, and fisherfolk supplying fish. Wild animals may have been obtained by hunters or through exchange with other communities.

Archaeologists trace socio-economic differences mainly by studying burials and artefacts. In burials, they look for differences in the shape of the burial pit, whether it was lined with bricks, and whether pottery, ornaments or mirrors were placed with the dead. They also study objects found in settlements and classify them as utilitarian or luxuries. Rare objects made of costly, non-local materials or difficult technologies are taken as indicators of higher status.

The differences they notice are limited, however. Some graves contain pottery, ornaments, copper mirrors and even jewellery, but on the whole Harappans do not seem to have buried precious things lavishly with the dead. Luxury items such as faience miniature pots and gold jewellery are concentrated in large cities like Mohenjodaro and Harappa, while smaller settlements have fewer such objects.

Al-Biruni knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. So in the twenty-first century, he could be easily understood in regions where these languages are still used or widely understood: West Asia/Middle East and South Asia (especially places using Arabic, Persian, or Sanskrit-derived scholarly traditions), as well as among scholars familiar with Hebrew and Syriac. The chapter does not list modern countries, so the safest answer is that he would be understood in the broad regions where these languages are current or studied.

The illustration is from an Arabic manuscript, so the clothes shown are intended to look Arabian rather than Greek. The chapter even asks us to notice that the scene is being represented in an Arabic style.

The jotedars became powerful because they were rich peasants who had acquired vast areas of land, sometimes several thousand acres. They also controlled local trade and moneylending, so they had economic power over poorer cultivators. Much of their land was worked by sharecroppers who gave them half the produce. Since jotedars lived in the villages, unlike many zamindars who lived in towns, they had direct control over poor villagers. They could mobilise dependent ryots, resist zamindari attempts to raise revenue demand, and even buy estates when zamindaris were auctioned. All this made their power in rural Bengal stronger than that of the zamindars in many places.

Zamindars managed to retain control by using fictitious sales and other manipulations. For example, the Raja of Burdwan first transferred some property to his mother, because women’s property was not to be taken over. Then his agents manipulated auctions: they bought the estate, did not pay the purchase money, forced resale, and repeated this until the estate was bought back cheaply by the zamindar’s men. Zamindars also used lathyals to attack outsiders’ agents, and many ryots resisted outsiders because they felt loyal to their own zamindar as their proja or subject. Thus, even when estates were auctioned, zamindars often remained in effective control.

Evidence of craft production in early historic cities comes from votive inscriptions, artefacts and references to guilds. Inscriptions from the second century BCE mention people such as weavers, potters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, scribes, washing folk and merchants. Excavations have also yielded a wide range of objects made of gold, silver, copper, bronze, ivory, glass, shell and terracotta, showing specialised craft activity. Guilds or shrenis may have procured raw materials, regulated production and marketed finished goods.

This differs from Harappan evidence. In Harappan cities, craft production is known largely from archaeological remains such as workshops, tools, seals, beads and pottery, whereas for early historic cities we also have written evidence like inscriptions naming occupations and donors. Another difference is that Harappan urban craft production belongs to an earlier period, while early historic cities show craft production linked more closely with trade, urban elites and guild organisation.

Historians use the phrase integration of cults to mean the process by which local religious beliefs and practices were absorbed into larger Brahmanical/Puranic traditions and reinterpreted within them. This happened through a continuous dialogue between “great” Sanskritic traditions and “little” local traditions.

For example:

• At Puri, the local deity Jagannatha was recognised by the twelfth century as a form of Vishnu.
• Local goddess worship, often of a stone smeared with ochre, was incorporated by identifying the goddess as the wife of a major deity, such as Lakshmi or Parvati.
• Tantric beliefs and practices, which were widespread and open to women and men, also influenced Shaivism and Buddhism.

So, integration of cults means that different religious practices did not remain separate; instead, they mixed, changed, and were brought within a wider Hindu framework over time.

The mutinous sepoys turned to erstwhile rulers because they needed legitimacy, leadership and organisation for the revolt. The rebels often looked back to those who had ruled before the British conquest. In Delhi, the sepoys appealed to Bahadur Shah, the old Mughal emperor, and once he accepted even a nominal leadership, the rebellion gained legitimacy. In Kanpur, Nana Sahib was compelled to lead, and in Jhansi the rani was pushed by popular pressure to take charge. In Awadh, people hailed Birjis Qadr, the Nawab’s son, as leader. These rulers were seen as symbols of the pre-British order, so their names could unite different sections against firangi raj.

Patriliny was especially important among elite families because property, power and status had to pass on in an orderly way from one generation to the next. Under patrilineal succession, sons inherited the resources of their fathers, including the throne in the case of kings. This helped ruling families keep control over land, wealth and political authority within the same lineage. It also reduced disputes over succession, because the rule preferred descent through males. The Mahabharata reinforced this ideal through the conflict of the Kauravas and Pandavas and the victory of the Pandavas, after which patrilineal succession was proclaimed. For elites, then, patriliny was a way to preserve dynasty, patrimony and legitimacy.

The ruins of Hampi were studied through multiple methods over the last two centuries: Colin Mackenzie’s survey map of 1800, oral memories of priests of the Virupaksha temple and the shrine of Pampadevi, photographs from 1856 onwards, epigraphic study of inscriptions from 1836 onwards, and later travellers’ accounts and literature in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit. Archaeologists also used extensive surveys, mapping, plans, elevations, and excavation to document structures, roads, bazaars and waterworks. These methods would have complemented the priests’ information by adding physical evidence, dated inscriptions, and outside descriptions, making it possible to reconstruct the city’s history more fully and check memories against material remains.

Gandhiji sought to identify with common people by living like them and dressing like them. He wore a simple dhoti or loincloth instead of formal clothes, shaved his head, and worked daily on the charkha. He also spoke in the mother tongue, travelled widely to know the land and its people, and stressed issues of peasants, workers, untouchables, and women. In this way he broke the distance between the leader and the ordinary people.

Yes, the Upanishadic thinkers were different from the fatalists and materialists.

The Upanishadic thinkers were curious about life, death, rebirth, and the nature of the ultimate reality. They asked whether rebirth depended on past actions and reflected on the nature of the self. In the verses from the Chhandogya Upanishad, the self is described as both very small and very great, showing a deep philosophical search for truth.

By contrast, the fatalists such as Makkhali Gosala believed that everything was predetermined and that human effort could not change the course of samsara. The materialists such as Ajita Kesakambalin denied the existence of alms, sacrifice, this world or the next, and said that a human being is only made of the four elements and does not survive after death.

So, the Upanishadic thinkers believed in philosophical inquiry and the possibility of understanding reality, whereas the fatalists denied freedom of action and the materialists denied afterlife and spiritual reality.

The Ain-i Akbari is a very important source, but it has several limitations for reconstructing agrarian history:

• It is a court-sponsored text, so it presents a view from the top, not from peasants themselves.
• Its central purpose was to show Akbar’s empire as orderly and harmonious, so it may downplay conflict and resistance.
• The quantitative data are not uniform for all regions; for example, some subas have detailed caste information for zamindars, but Bengal and Orissa do not.
• Some figures contain minor arithmetic or transcription errors.
• Important data like prices and wages are not equally available for all regions, and some of what is given is mainly from areas around Agra.

Historians deal with these problems by cross-checking the Ain with other sources such as revenue records from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and East India Company records from eastern India. They also compare it with regional sources to find instances of conflict and to understand peasants’ ideas of fairness. In this way, the Ain is used carefully, along with other evidence, rather than by itself.

The Objectives Resolution expressed the basic ideals of the Constitution of independent India. It declared India to be an Independent Sovereign Republic. It guaranteed the people justice, equality and freedom. It also promised that adequate safeguards would be provided for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward Classes. In short, it set out the vision of a democratic state built on liberty, equality, justice and protection for weaker sections.