AHSEC| CLASS 12| HISTORY| QUESTION PAPER

AHSEC| CLASS 12| HISTORY| QUESTION PAPER - 2012| H.S. 2ND YEAR

2012
HISTORY
Full Marks: 100
Time: Three hours
The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions.

[GROUP – A: New Course]

1. Answer the following questions: 1x10=10

a) Who is called the ‘Father of the Indian Archaeology’?

b) Who wrote the ‘Arthasastra’?

c) What is the literary meaning of the word ‘Tripitaka’?

d) In which year the Treaty of Yandaboo was signed?

e) What was Kabir’s follower known as?

f) Who was Buchanan?

g) Where did the Revolt of 1857 first break out?

h) In which city of India ‘Fort William’ is situated?

i) Who had coined the name ‘Pakistan’?

j) Who was the first President of Independent India?

2. Answer the following questions (any nine): 2x9=18

a) Mention two areas of Harappan Civilization/Culture.

b) Mention two ways indicated by ‘Manusmriti’ for a woman to acquire wealth.

c) Who was Ajan Pir? Where is his Dargah situated?

d) Give any two messages of Baba Guru Nanak.

e) Who had discovered Hampi for the first time and when?

f) Write any two distinctive features of the Mughal nobility.

g) Describe two processes of manuscript production in Mughal Court.

h) Mention two reasons of the Santhal Rebellion against the British rule.

i) Mention two points of the ‘Subsidiary Alliance’.

j) Give two reasons that made the ‘Dandi Yatra’s notable event.

k) State two remarkable features of the Constitution of India.

3. Answer any three of the following questions: 5x3=15

a) How did the Harappan people procure raw materials for craft production?

b) Mention some of the limitations of epigraphic evidence.

c) How did the historians classify the contents of the ‘Mahabharata’?

d) How was Sanchi discovered?

e) Why is the teaching of Sankardev known as the ‘Bhagawati Dharma’? Why did he establish the satras and the Namghars?

f) How did the British Government try to stop students’ participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement in Assam? What were its effects?

4. Answer the following questions (any two): 5x2=10

a) Where there any conflicts between the Sultans and the Sufis?

b) What does the architecture of buildings like the Lotus Mahal and Elephant Stables indicate about the rulers who commissioned them?

c) Describe the role played by women in agricultural production of medieval period.

d) Discuss the major features of Mughal provincial administration.

5. Answer any three of the following questions: 5x3=15

a) How did the Paharis respond to the coming of outsiders?

b) To what extent did the religions belief shape the Revolt of 1857?

c) How did the colonial port cities rapidly emerge as new economic capitals?

d) Why was the ‘Charkha’ chosen as a symbol of nationalism?

e) Did the Muslim League visualize a new country through its resolution of 1940?

f) Why was the Gandhiji in favour of Hindustani as the national language?

6. (a) Answer the following: 8

i. To what extent social relations were transformed in the new colonial cities?

ii. “Non-Cooperation was a form of protest.” Elaborate.

(b) Draw an outline map of Assam, and mark Sadiya, Hajo, Kokrajhar, Diphu, and Silchar.

7. Read the given passages carefully (any three) and answer the questions accordingly: 8x3=24

(a) What the king’s officials did?

Here is an excerpt from the account of Megasthenes:

Of the great officers of the State, some ……. Superintend of rivers, measure the land, as it is done in Egypt and inspect the sluices by which water is let out from the main channels into their branches, so that everyone may have an equal supply of it. The same persons have charge also of the huntsmen, and are entrusted with the power of rewarding or punishing from according to their deserts. They collect the taxes, and superintend the occupation connected with land, as those of the woodcutters, the carpenters, the blacksmiths and the miners.

1) Who was Megasthenes and when did he write this account? 2

2) Why were officials appointed to supervise these occupational groups? 2

3) Did their service benefitted the common people? 2

4) How far the account of Megasthenes reliable? 2

(b) Proper social roles

Here is a story from the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata:

Once Drona, a Brahmana who taught archery to the Kuru princes, was approached by Ekalavya, a forest-dwelling Nishada (a hunting community); When Drona, who knew the dharma, refused to have him as his pupil, Ekalavya returned to the forest, prepared an image of Drona out of clay and treating it as his teacher began to practice on his own. In due course, he acquired great skill in archery. One day the Kuru princes went to hunting and their dog, wandering in the woods, came upon Ekalavya. When the dog smelt the dark Nishada wrapped in black deer skin, his body caked with dirt, it began to bark. Annoyed, Ekalavya shot seven arrows into its mouth. When the dog returned to the Pandavas, they were amazed at this superb display of archery. They tracked down Ekalavya, who introduced himself as a pupil of Drona.

Drona had once told his favourite student Arjuna, that he would be unrivalled amongst his pupils. Arjuna now reminded Drona about this. Drona approached Ekalavya, who immediately acknowledged and honoured him as his teacher. When Drona demanded his right thumb as his fee, Ekalavya unhesitatingly cut it off and offered it. But thereafter, when he shot with his remaining fingers, he was no longer as fast as he had been before. Thus, Drona kept his word: no one was better than Arjuna.

1) What is the massage of the story to the Nishada? 2

2) What message did it convey to the Kshatriyas? 2

3) Did Drona follow the Dharma sutras when imparting technique of archery to his students? 2

4) Do you appreciate such an example of social difference? Give your comment. 2

This is an excerpt from the Rihlah of Ibn Batuta:

My departure from Tangier, my birthplace, took place on Thursday ….. I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler …….. nor caravan whose party I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quite all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests …….. My age at that time was twenty-two years.

Ibn Batuta returned home in 1354, about 30 years after he had set out.

1) Who was Ibn Batuta and in which language he wrote Rihlah? 2

2) Where is Tangier situated? 1

3) Travelling in the fourteenth century was much more arduous and hazardous than today. Even then, why was Ibn Batuta so keen to be a globe-trotter? 3

4) Why did he prefer to travel alone than in a group? 2

(d) Love for the Lord

This is part of a song attributed to Mirabai:

I will build a funeral pyre of

Sandalwood and aloe:

Light it by your own hand

When I am burned away to cinders;

Smear this ash upon your limbs.

….. Let flame be lost in flame.

In another verse, she sings:

What can Mewar’s ruler doing to me?

If God is angry, all is lost,

But what can the Rana do?

1) To whom did Mirabai pray to lit her funeral pyre and why? 2

2) Why did she prefer to renounce the world? 3

3) What was her relationship with the Rana of Mewar? 1

4) Comment on her attitude to the Rana. 2

(e) On that day in Supa

On 16^th May, 1875, the District Magistrate of Poona wrote to the Police Commissioner:

On arrival at Supa on Saturday 15^th May, I learnt of the disturbance. One house of a moneylender was burnt down; about a dozen were forcibly broken into and completely gutted of their content. Account papers, bonds, grains, country cloth were burnt in the street where heaps of ashes are still to be seen. The chief constable apprehended 50 persons. Stolen property worth Rs. 2,000 was recovered. The estimated loss in over Rs. 25,000. Moneylenders claim it is over 1 lakh.

(Deccan Riots Commission)

1) Can you guess the cause of this arson? 2

2) Why did the attackers target the bonds and account papers? 2

3) Why did they destroy grains? 2

4) Why didn’t the reports on estimated loss submitted by the police and moneylenders tally? 2

(f) A small basket of grapes

This is what Khushdeva Singh writes about his experience during one of his visits to Karachi in 1949:

My friends took me to a room at the airport where we all sat down and talked ……. (and) had lunch together. I had to travel from Karachi to London ……. At 2.30 a.m. ….. At 5.00 p.m. …… I told my friends that they had given me so generously of their time, I thought it would be too much for them to wait the whole night and suggested they must spare themselves the trouble. But nobody left until it was dinner time. …… Then they said they were leaving and that I must have a little rest before emplaning. ….. I got up at about 1.45 a.m. and, when I opened the door, I saw that all of them were still there. ……They all accompanied me to the plane, and before parting, presented me with a small basket of grapes. I had no words to express my gratitude for the overwhelming affection with which I was treated and the happiness this stopover had given me.

1) Why was Khushdeva Singh so moved by the affection of his old friends in Karachi? 2

2) Was such a genuine friendship rare in the post-partition days? 2

3) How was Khushdeva Singh seen as a symbol of humanity and harmony? 2

4) This narrative was an example of oral history. Does it help the historians to reconstruct the events of the recent past? 2

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