Ahlcon Public School, Mayur Vihar-1, Delhi
Class: XII Subject: HISTORY Assignment No. 8
Academic Session: 2015-16
Theme 8: Peasants, Zamindars and the State (Questions marked with an ** are to be done for H.W.)
1. What are the main sources of information for the agrarian history of the 16th and the 17th centuries? OR What do sources of the Mughal period tell us about the peasants and their lands?
2. Describe the level of agricultural knowledge and irrigation technology of the peasants in the Mughal period. OR Who were the khud-kashta and pahi-kashta peasants?
3. ** Give evidence of the deep inequalities that existed among the cultivators making them a heterogeneous group. OR How was the village community organized? Analyze the extent to which caste and caste-like distinctions affected rural society during the 16th and 17th centuries.
4. Discuss the role played by the village panchayats and headmen during the 16th and 17th centuries. OR How was the village panchayat organized? Where did their funds come from? What were their functions and the extent of their authority?
5. Assess the role played by jati panchayats in villages during the 16th and 17th centuries.
OR Explain how village society was regulated by the village panchayat.
6. Examine the relationship between the village artisans and peasants during the Mughal period. OR What was the “jajmani system”?
7. Why did the British refer to the Indian villages of the 19th century as representing a ‘little republic’? Was this observation accurate?
8. Discuss the status and role played by women in the agrarian society of the 16th and 17th centuries, in Mughal India.
9. Assess the manner and extent to which the contemporary world affected the life of the forest dwellers? OR Describe life in the forests across India during the 16th and 17th centuries. What attitude did the State adopt towards forests and the forest dwellers?
10. Why was ‘peshkash’ levied on the forest people?
11. ** Explain the origin, consolidation of position and the role played by the zamindars in the villages. Were they an exploitative class? OR Analyze the information given by contemporary documents about the role played by zamindars during the Mughal period between the 16th and the 17th centuries.
12. ** Examine the information we have about the land revenue system of the Mughals. OR What do you understand by the terms ‘jama’ and “hasil”?
13. Examine the status of the Mughal economy and overseas trade between the 16th & the 18th centuries.
14. ** Describe the Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl. Why is it regarded as a valuable source of information and to what extent is it accurate?
15. ** Mapwork- page 214: On a political map of India, mark & label the following: (WRITE THE TITLE OF THE MAP) - extent of the Mughal Empire under Babur, Akbar, Aurangzeb (make an appropriate Key); Delhi, Agra, Panipat, Amber, Ajmer, Lahore, Goa.
16. Passage / Source based questions can come from the following pages:-
Pg 198- Peasants on the move Pg.199- Irrigating trees and fields (you can get a comparison with chapter on Vijayanagara) Pg.209- Clearance of forests for agricultural settlements Pg. 210- Trade between the hill tribes and the plains, c.1595
Pg.214- Classification of lands under Akbar Pg.215- Cash or kind? Pg.215- The jama Pg.217- How silver came to India Pg.219- ‘Moistening the rose garden of fortune’