UPSC Mains 2019 History Optional Question Papers with Model Answers
All 52 questions of the 2019 Civil Services Main Examination, History Paper I and History Paper II, with marks and a suggested time per part. Solve each part on paper first, then open the model answer, or send it to answer-writing practice for evaluation.
UPSC Mains 2019 History Paper I
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1 · Historical Sites for the Map Question · 50 marks≈ 36 min
How to Prepare the Map Question
Identify the following places marked on the map supplied to you and write a short note of about 30 words on each of them in your Question-cum-Answer Booklet. Locational hints for each of the places marked on the map are given below seriatim. (i) Brick temple site; (ii) Early Harappan site; (iii) Ancient seaport and trade centre; (iv) Stone age site; (v) Neolithic site; (vi) Archaeological site; (vii) Ancient capital city; (viii) Ancient capital; (ix) Harappan site; (x) Ancient inscriptions site; (xi) A Rock-cut cave site; (xii) Ancient capital city; (xiii) Famous temple site; (xiv) Centre of School of art; (xv) Ancient inscriptional site; (xvi) Ancient education centre; (xvii) Pre-Harappan site; (xviii) Chalcolithic period site; (xix) Early inscriptional site; (xx) Ancient petroglyphs site.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आपको दिए गए मानचित्र पर अंकित निम्नलिखित स्थानों की पहचान कीजिए एवं अपनी प्रश्न-सह-उत्तर पुस्तिका में उनमें से प्रत्येक पर लगभग 30 शब्दों की संक्षिप्त टिप्पणी लिखिए। मानचित्र पर अंकित प्रत्येक स्थान के लिए स्थान-निर्धारण संकेत क्रमानुसार दिए गए हैं। (i) ईंट-निर्मित मन्दिर स्थल; (ii) आरम्भिक हड़प्पाकालीन स्थल; (iii) प्राचीन बन्दरगाह एवं व्यापार केन्द्र; (iv) पाषाण-कालीन स्थल; (v) नवपाषाण-कालीन स्थल; (vi) पुरातात्विक स्थल; (vii) प्राचीन राजधानी नगर; (viii) प्राचीन राजधानी; (ix) हड़प्पा-कालीन स्थल; (x) प्राचीन अभिलेख स्थल; (xi) एक शैल-खणित गुहा स्थल; (xii) प्राचीन राजधानी नगर; (xiii) प्रसिद्ध मन्दिर स्थल; (xiv) कला-शैली केन्द्र; (xv) प्राचीन अभिलेखीय स्थल; (xvi) प्राचीन शिक्षा केन्द्र; (xvii) प्राक्-हड़प्पाकालीन स्थल; (xviii) ताम्रपाषाणयुगीन स्थल; (xix) आद्यअभिलेखीय स्थल; (xx) प्राचीन शैलोत्कीर्ण स्थल.
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1 (20 places, 2.5 marks each)
Approach: Identify each marked place from its clue and its position on the map, then write about 30 words on it: where it is, its period, and what was found or what happened there.
(i) Brick temple site: Bhitargaon, Uttar Pradesh — Gupta-period brick temple (c. 5th century CE) in Kanpur district on a raised plinth, with a tall pyramidal shikhara and terracotta panels; the oldest surviving brick temple of its kind in India.
(ii) Early Harappan site: Banawali, Haryana — Fatehabad district on the dried Sarasvati (Ghaggar) course; R.S. Bisht (1974–77) found Pre-Harappan levels of Kalibangan type beneath a fortified Harappan town with radiating streets and a terracotta plough model.
(iii) Ancient seaport and trade centre: Muziris (Pattanam), Kerala — Chera port near Kodungallur at the mouth of the Periyar; the Periplus and the Muziris papyrus describe its pepper trade with Rome, and Pattanam has yielded amphorae, beads and Roman pottery.
(iv) Stone age site: Chopani Mando, Uttar Pradesh — Belan valley site (Prayagraj) excavated by G.R. Sharma; its Epipalaeolithic, Mesolithic and proto-Neolithic phases yielded microliths, beehive-shaped hut floors, hand-made pottery and wild rice, tracing the shift towards settled life.
(v) Neolithic site: Burzahom, Jammu and Kashmir — Neolithic site near Srinagar (c. 2700 BCE onwards) with pit dwellings, bone tools, polished stone harvesters, dogs buried with humans and a stone slab engraved with a hunting scene.
(vi) Archaeological site: Ropar (Rupnagar), Punjab — on the Sutlej at the Shivalik foothills; Y.D. Sharma (1953–55) found Harappan levels, then Painted Grey Ware and NBPW, and a man buried with a dog.
(vii) Ancient capital city: Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh — city on the Yamuna near Prayagraj, capital of the Vatsa mahajanapada under Udayana; G.R. Sharma excavated its massive rampart, a so-called palace and the Ghositarama monastery, visited by the Buddha according to tradition.
(viii) Ancient capital: Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh — capital of Avanti on the Shipra under Chanda Pradyota; Ashoka served here as viceroy, it later became a seat of the Western Kshatrapas, and it was a major halt on the trade route to Bharuch.
(ix) Harappan site: Lothal, Gujarat — Harappan town in Ahmedabad district near the Gulf of Khambhat; S.R. Rao's excavation (1955–60) revealed a brick basin read as a dockyard, a warehouse, a bead factory and a Persian Gulf seal.
(x) Ancient inscriptions site: Girnar (Junagadh), Gujarat — one rock bears Ashoka's fourteen Major Rock Edicts, Rudradaman's Sanskrit inscription (150 CE) on repairing the Sudarshana lake, and Skandagupta's record of its later repair.
(xi) A Rock-cut cave site: Nashik (Pandavleni), Maharashtra — about two dozen Buddhist rock-cut caves on Trirashmi hill (2nd century BCE–2nd century CE); inscriptions of queen Gautami Balashri praise Gautamiputra Satakarni, and others record gifts of Ushavadata, son-in-law of Nahapana.
(xii) Ancient capital city: Banavasi, Karnataka — on the Varada river in Uttara Kannada; capital of the Kadambas founded by Mayurasharma (4th century CE), with the Madhukeshwara temple; known earlier as Vanavasi, where Ashoka's missionaries were sent.
(xiii) Famous temple site: Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu — Chola capital; the Brihadishvara (Rajarajeshvara) temple, completed by Rajaraja I in 1010, has a vimana about 66 m high, Chola frescoes and long inscriptions; a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(xiv) Centre of School of art: Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh — on the Krishna near Dharanikota; its Mahachaitya stupa (2nd century BCE–3rd century CE), with limestone reliefs of the Buddha's life, defines the Amaravati school of art of the Satavahana age.
(xv) Ancient inscriptional site: Hathigumpha (Udayagiri hill), Odisha — cave inscription near Bhubaneswar (c. 1st century BCE) in which the Chedi king Kharavela of Kalinga records his reign year by year; Ashoka's edicts at Dhauli lie a few kilometres away.
(xvi) Ancient education centre: Nalanda, Bihar — Buddhist mahavihara founded under Kumaragupta I, patronised by Harsha and the Palas; Xuanzang and Yijing studied here, and it declined after about 1200 CE; now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(xvii) Pre-Harappan site: Mehrgarh, Balochistan (Pakistan) — on the Kachhi plain near the Bolan Pass; J.-F. Jarrige's excavations showed farming from about 7000 BCE, with wheat, barley, domesticated cattle and mud-brick houses, before the Harappan civilisation.
(xviii) Chalcolithic period site: Inamgaon, Maharashtra — Chalcolithic farming village on the Ghod river (Pune district), excavated by H.D. Sankalia and M.K. Dhavalikar, with Malwa and Jorwe phases, a flood-control embankment, granaries and urn burials beneath house floors.
(xix) Early inscriptional site: Mahasthangarh, Bangladesh — ancient Pundranagara in Bogura district; its Brahmi inscription (c. 3rd century BCE) orders relief from a famine store and is the earliest inscription of Bengal; a walled city from Mauryan to medieval times.
(xx) Ancient petroglyphs site: Kupgal (Sanganakallu), Karnataka — granite hills near Ballari with hundreds of petroglyphs of humped cattle, hunters and dancers, bruised from the Neolithic onwards, and natural ringing rock gongs; Sanganakallu nearby was an important Neolithic settlement.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Sources, Prehistory and the Indus Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Archaeological Sources: Excavation, Epigraphy, Numismatics and Monuments
Do you agree that archaeological evidence often helps in the better understanding of literary sources? Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस मत से सहमत हैं कि पुरातात्विक साक्ष्य प्रायः साहित्यिक स्रोतों को बेहतर समझने में सहायता करते हैं? टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: The question asks whether archaeology aids the reading of texts; agree with qualification, showing how it corroborates, locates, dates and corrects literary evidence, then note its limits.
Literary sources such as the Vedas, Puranas and foreign accounts are often undated, layered and written by elites. Archaeological evidence, datable by stratigraphy and radiocarbon, gives them a setting in space and time, so the statement largely holds.
Corroboration: Ashoka's Rummindei pillar records his visit to Lumbini because the Buddha was born there, confirming Buddhist tradition. The Maski edict (found 1915) named Devanampiya Piyadasi as Ashoka, linking the edicts to the Ashoka of the chronicles.
Locating texts on the ground: Alexander Cunningham used Xuanzang's itinerary to identify Buddhist sites such as Sravasti and Sankisa. Wheeler's excavation at Arikamedu (1945), with Roman amphorae and Arretine ware, gave material form to the Yavana trade of the Periplus and Sangam poems.
Dating and correcting: the Boghazkoi inscription (c. 1380 BCE), naming Indra, Mitra, Varuna and the Nasatyas, helps date Rigvedic deities. Painted Grey Ware sites show that later Vedic settlements in the doab were modest villages, not the grand cities of epic imagination.
Limits: material remains are silent on beliefs, names and events, and forced matching misleads; B.B. Lal's link between a flood layer at Hastinapur and the Puranic shift of capital to Kaushambi remains debated.
Archaeology therefore does not merely confirm texts; it tests, dates and sometimes contradicts them. As D.D. Kosambi urged, sound history combines the spade with the text.Q2(b) · The Mauryas and the Post-Mauryan World · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Decline of the Mauryas: Sungas and Kanvas
The development of art and architecture during the Sunga period belies the belief that they were anti-Buddhist. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शुंग काल दौरान कला एवं वास्तु का विकास इस धारणा को मिथ्या सिद्ध करता है कि वे बौद्ध-विरोधी थे। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Discuss the belief and its source (the Divyavadana), then show the Buddhist art and architecture of the Sunga period as evidence against it, and conclude on how far it is belied.
The belief that the Shungas (c. 185–73 BCE) were anti-Buddhist rests mainly on the Divyavadana, a later Buddhist text. It says that Pushyamitra destroyed monasteries and offered a reward for the head of every monk. His ashvamedhas, recorded in the Ayodhya inscription, are seen as a Brahmanical reaction.
Bharhut: the stupa at Bharhut in Madhya Pradesh received its stone railing and gateway in this period. An inscription on the eastern gateway records its gift 'in the reign of the Sungas' by Dhanabhuti. Its carvings of Jatakas, yakshas and yakshis, and the Buddha shown only through symbols, are among the finest early Buddhist art.
Sanchi: Ashoka's brick stupa was enlarged to about twice its size and cased in stone, with a railing and terraces, in the Sunga period.
Other sites: Buddhist work continued at Bodh Gaya, whose early railing is dated to the late Sunga period. Donor inscriptions show that Buddhism thrived in Sunga lands.
Interpretation: the Divyavadana was written centuries later, and its story may exaggerate local conflicts. Most of these works were funded by lay donors, not kings, so they show tolerance rather than royal patronage. Pushyamitra may have withdrawn the special favour Ashoka had given Buddhism.
Sunga-period art therefore largely belies the image of a persecuting dynasty, though Brahmanism clearly gained royal favour.Q2(c) · Sources, Prehistory and the Indus Civilization · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Harappan Civilization: Origin, Date, Extent and Characteristics
Did the mastery over agriculture act as a leverage for the rise of Harappan towns and cities? Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या कृषि-प्रवीणता ने हड़प्पा-कालीन क़स्बों एवं नगरों के उत्थान में उत्तोलन का कार्य किया? विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Discuss whether agricultural mastery was the lever of urbanisation: show the evidence of advanced farming and surplus, then argue that surplus alone did not create cities, bringing in crafts, trade, ideology and organisation, and conclude that agriculture was necessary but not sufficient.
Gordon Childe argued that an urban revolution rested on an agricultural surplus that could feed specialists, priests and rulers who did not produce food. The Harappan case largely supports this, but shows that surplus had to be organised and exchanged before towns could arise.
Mastery over agriculture: farming had a long history in the region, from Mehrgarh (c. 7000 BCE) onward. Harappans grew wheat and barley as rabi crops, along with pulses, sesame, cotton, and in places rice and millets.
The ploughed field at Kalibangan, with criss-cross furrows from the Early Harappan phase, and terracotta plough models from Banawali show the use of the plough. Flood-plain (inundation) farming on the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra used silt left by the summer floods, and Dholavira's reservoirs show water management.
Surplus and the city: large buildings at Harappa and Mohenjodaro, long read by Wheeler as granaries, point to the collection of grain, though Kenoyer and others now doubt this reading. Cities like Mohenjodaro, with perhaps tens of thousands of people, could not have survived without a productive countryside of village sites.
Not the only lever: Early Harappan villages practised agriculture for centuries without becoming cities, so farming alone does not explain the leap. Specialised crafts in beads, shell, copper and faience, trade with Mesopotamia (Meluhha), Oman (Magan) and Bahrain (Dilmun), and the control of raw materials from Shortugai to Gujarat were equally important.
Integration also required standardised weights, seals and script and an elite or civic authority able to organise labour, whatever its exact form.
Agricultural mastery was therefore the necessary base of Harappan urbanism, the lever that supplied surplus, but it became decisive only when combined with crafts, exchange and social organisation.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · The Mauryas and the Post-Mauryan World · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Post-Mauryan Religion, Mahayana, Art and Science
The flourishing international trade during the Kushana period gave tremendous impetus to the development of art. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कुषाण-कालीन समृद्ध अन्तर्राष्ट्रीय व्यापार ने कला के विकास को अत्यधिक प्रोत्साहन दिया। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Discuss the link between Kushana-period international trade and the growth of art: how trade wealth, routes, patrons and contact shaped Gandhara, Mathura and Buddhist monuments, and note other factors.
The Kushanas (c. 1st–3rd century CE) controlled the overland routes from China and Central Asia to India and the Roman world, and sea trade grew through the western ports. This prosperity coincided with a great flowering of art.
Wealth for patronage: merchants and guilds grown rich from trade funded stupas, monasteries and images. Donor inscriptions at Mathura and in Gandhara name merchants, monks and lay devotees.
Gandhara: on the trade crossroads of the north-west, sculptors absorbed Hellenistic and Roman forms through contact with Bactria and the Roman east. They produced the Buddha in realistic, draped form in grey schist and later stucco. Monasteries at Taxila, Takht-i-Bahi and Peshawar, with Kanishka's great stupa, lay on the routes.
Mathura: a commercial city on the Uttarapatha produced Buddhist, Jain and Brahmanical images in red sandstone. These were traded as far as Sarnath and Sanchi, and the Kushana royal portraits at Mat reflect Central Asian dress.
Spread outwards: traders and monks carried Gandharan forms along the Silk Road, and they influenced Buddhist art in Central Asia and China.
Other factors: the rise of Mahayana and devotion to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas created demand for images. Royal patronage and older Indian traditions mattered too, and Amaravati flourished under the Satavahanas outside Kushana rule.
Trade gave the means and the contacts, and religious change gave the purpose.Q3(b) · Megaliths, the Vedic Age and the Mahajanapadas · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Later Vedic Age: Monarchy, Varna and Economy
Examine how the transformation of the Varna system from the Rigvedic to the Later-Vedic period affected the position of women.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
परीक्षण कीजिए कि ऋग्वैदिक से उत्तर-वैदिक काल तक वर्ण व्यवस्था के रूपान्तरण ने स्त्रियों की स्थिति को किस प्रकार प्रभावित किया।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Show how the varna order hardened between the two periods and link each change to the position of women, contrasting the Rig Vedic and later Vedic evidence and noting exceptions.
In the Rig Vedic period, varna meant mainly the difference of colour and culture between arya and dasa. Only the late Purusha Sukta (Book X) names four varnas, and occupations were still fluid. The position of women was comparatively better.
Rig Vedic women: women such as Ghosha, Apala, Lopamudra and Vishvavara composed hymns. Women attended the sabha and vidatha and took part in sacrifices with their husbands. Marriage was usually adult, and niyoga and widow remarriage were known.
Hardening of varna: in the later Vedic age the four varnas became hereditary, Brahmanas and Kshatriyas claimed superiority, and gotra exogamy appeared. Purity of lineage now mattered, which required control over women's marriage and sexuality.
Effect on women: women were excluded from the assemblies, and the Maitrayani Samhita lists woman with dice and liquor among evils. The Aitareya Brahmana calls a daughter a source of sorrow. Upanayana and Vedic learning gradually narrowed to men, and women were often grouped with Shudras in ritual status.
Exceptions: Gargi Vachaknavi and Maitreyi debated philosophy in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, and queens took part in rituals such as the rajasuya.
Uma Chakravarti calls this emerging order brahmanical patriarchy: caste purity and the subordination of women developed together. The transformation of varna thus steadily lowered women's status.Q3(c) · Megaliths, the Vedic Age and the Mahajanapadas · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The Aryan Question and the Rig Vedic Age
There are no literary sources for the Harappan culture and no archaeological evidence for the Vedic period. Explain the phenomenon.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हड़प्पा संस्कृति के लिए कोई साहित्यिक स्रोत नहीं हैं एवं वैदिक काल के लिए कोई पुरातात्विक साक्ष्य नहीं हैं। इस तथ्य की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Explain both halves of the paradox: why the Harappans have archaeology but no readable texts, why the Vedic people have texts but little identifiable archaeology, and then qualify the statement.
The statement points to a paradox of early Indian history. The Harappan civilisation (c. 2600–1900 BCE in its mature phase) is known from over a thousand excavated sites but from no readable text. The Vedic period (c. 1500–600 BCE) is known from a huge body of texts but has few sites that can be firmly linked to it.
Why no literary sources for the Harappans: the Harappan script survives only on seals, tablets and potsherds. The inscriptions are very short, about five signs on average, and there is no bilingual inscription. Iravatham Mahadevan's concordance (1977) and Asko Parpola's work have not produced an accepted reading.
Why little archaeology for the Vedic people: the Rig Vedic people were largely pastoral and semi-nomadic and lived in houses of wood, reed and mud that leave few traces. They built no cities. Their texts were transmitted orally for centuries, so there are no Vedic inscriptions of the period.
A further difficulty is method. Pottery and tools carry no ethnic label, so archaeologists cannot prove that a given culture was 'Vedic'.
Qualification: the statement is too absolute. Painted Grey Ware sites such as Hastinapur, Ahichchhatra and Bhagwanpura in the Ganga–Yamuna doab broadly match the geography and material life of the later Vedic texts: iron, rice, horses and small villages. The Gandhara Grave culture of Swat, with horse remains and cremation, is often linked to the Rig Vedic phase.
The phenomenon therefore reflects the nature of the evidence rather than a real void. Only combining both kinds of evidence can bridge the gap.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · The Mauryas and the Post-Mauryan World · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ashoka: Dhamma and the Edicts
Explain how Ashoka used religion as a tool of political aggrandizement?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
व्याख्या कीजिए कि अशोक ने किस प्रकार धर्म का प्रयोग राजनीतिक अभ्युदय के उपकरण के रूप में किया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: The question assumes political use of religion; explain how Ashoka's religious policy served his power, then qualify it, since he renounced conquest and showed sincere faith, and judge the balance.
After the Kalinga war (c. 261 BCE), Ashoka turned to Buddhism and preached Dhamma. Historians debate whether this was faith or statecraft.
Religion as a political tool: the empire held many peoples and creeds, so a common moral ideology helped bind it. The Dhamma was spread by state officers, the dhamma-mahamattas (Rock Edict V), and inscribed at strategic points along routes and frontiers.
Ashoka presented himself as devanampiya, beloved of the gods, a father to his subjects (Separate Kalinga Edicts). His dhamma-vijaya, conquest by Dhamma, claimed influence over five Hellenistic kings named in Rock Edict XIII, as well as the Cholas, Pandyas and Sri Lanka.
Control over the sangha through the schism edicts and the reported third council at Pataliputra made the king the guardian of religion. Forest peoples were warned that his power to punish remained.
Qualifications: Ashoka renounced further conquest, which no aggrandiser would do, and his remorse in Rock Edict XIII is unusual in royal records. He honoured all sects, Brahmanas, shramanas and Ajivikas alike, rather than imposing Buddhism. Romila Thapar treats the Dhamma as a policy of social cohesion, not of expansion.
'Aggrandizement' overstates the case: Ashoka used religion to consolidate and legitimise authority, not to enlarge his realm, and political purpose and personal faith reinforced each other.Q4(b) · The Deccan, the Sangam Age and the Guptas · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Gupta Economy, Coinage, Land Grants and Decline of Towns
Do you agree that the system of land grants from the Gupta-Vakataka period was connected with the decentralisation of state in any way?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस से सहमत हैं कि गुप्त-वाकाटक काल से भूमि अनुदान प्रणाली किसी भी प्रकार राज्य विकेन्द्रीकरण से सम्बन्धित थी?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Take a position on whether land grants were linked to decentralisation. Present the evidence of the grants and their immunities, R.S. Sharma's feudal reading, then the integrative critiques, and give a qualified verdict.
From the fourth century CE Gupta and Vakataka rulers issued copper-plate charters granting villages to brahmanas and religious bodies as agraharas or brahmadeyas. Examples include the Vakataka grants of Prabhavatigupta (Poona plates) and Pravarasena II (Chammak plates), and the grants of the Gupta feudatories, the Parivrajaka and Uchchakalpa maharajas.
Evidence for decentralisation: donees received the land with fiscal and administrative immunities. They kept revenues such as udranga and uparikara, rights to treasure and mines, freedom from the entry of royal troops and police (achata-bhata-pravesya), and from the fifth century the right to fines. R.S. Sharma (Indian Feudalism, 1965) argued that such grants transferred state functions to donees and paved the way for Indian feudalism. Later the grants extended to officials and fed a hierarchy of intermediaries and political fragmentation. Feudatories such as the Parivrajakas issuing their own grants also show the dispersal of authority.
Evidence against: early grants were few and often of wasteland or small plots. The king retained sovereignty, and the Chammak plates warn that the grant would be lost if the donees committed treason or theft. D.C. Sircar doubted that the grants created a feudal order, and Harbans Mukhia ("Was there feudalism in Indian history?", 1981) questioned the parallel with Europe. B.D. Chattopadhyaya and Hermann Kulke see the grants as integrative: they extended agriculture, brahmanical culture and royal legitimacy into tribal and frontier areas, building local power structures linked to the king.
The system was connected with decentralisation, but more as a way of governing a large and varied territory through local elites than as a sign of state collapse. Its fragmenting effects became prominent only from the seventh century, when grants multiplied and were also made to officials.Q4(c) · The Deccan, the Sangam Age and the Guptas · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Kharavela and the Satavahanas
The discovery of monsoons by Hippalus gave a new direction to Indo-Roman trade during the Satavahana period. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हिप्पालस द्वारा मॉनसून की खोज ने भारतीय-रोमन व्यापार को सातवाहन काल में एक नई दिशा प्रदान की। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Explain what Hippalus' "discovery" was, show how it changed Indo-Roman trade in the Satavahana Deccan, and qualify the credit given to one navigator.
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (first century CE) and Pliny the Elder credit a Greek pilot, Hippalus, with showing how the south-west monsoon could carry ships straight across the Arabian Sea instead of along the coast.
The change was one of scale and speed. After Rome annexed Egypt (30 BCE), ships from the Red Sea ports reached India in weeks and returned with the north-east winds. Strabo reports about 120 ships a year sailing to India from Myos Hormos.
The Satavahana Deccan gained directly. The Periplus describes Barygaza, Sopara and Kalliena (Kalyan), fed by the inland marts of Paithan and Tagara, exporting cotton cloth, onyx and pepper and importing wine, coral and Roman coin. Roman coin finds, Yavana donors at Karle and Junnar and the ship-type coins of Yajna Shri Satakarni show its reach, and trade fed towns and guild donations to monasteries.
The claim needs qualification. Indian and Arab sailors almost certainly knew the monsoon earlier; Hippalus at most opened it to Greco-Roman shippers. The richest Roman hoards lie in the Tamil south, and Barygaza was often held by the Kshatrapas.
The monsoon route thus intensified rather than created Indo-Roman trade, but it gave Satavahana ports and towns a larger market.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · The Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Regional Cultures, Literature, Provincial Architecture and Vijayanagara Arts
Discuss how Vijayanagar empire became the cultural capital of the south?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समीक्षा कीजिए कि विजयनगर साम्राज्य दक्षिण का सांस्कृतिक केन्द्र किस प्रकार बना?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Show the empire's cultural leadership in architecture and art, literature in several languages, music and religion, with named examples, and conclude.
Between the 14th and 16th centuries Vijayanagara, ruling most of the peninsula, became the patron and centre of South Indian culture.
Architecture: At Hampi the Virupaksha, Hazara Rama and Vitthala temples, with their pillared halls, Ramayana reliefs, musical pillars and stone chariot, defined the Vijayanagara style; the kings also raised tall gopurams and kalyana mandapas at temples across the south.
Literature: Sayana's commentaries on the Vedas were written under the early kings; Krishnadeva Raya wrote the Telugu Amuktamalyada and patronised poets such as Allasani Peddana; Kannada flourished with Kumaravyasa and the Haridasas; Tamil and Sanskrit also received patronage.
Music and dance: Purandaradasa systematised Karnatic music teaching, and temple dancers performed at festivals.
Festivals: The Mahanavami, described by Paes and Nuniz, displayed royal culture.
Vijayanagara thus became the cultural capital of the south by joining royal patronage, temple institutions and many languages.Q5(b) · Mughal Economy, Society and Culture · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Persian Histories, Hindi and Religious Literature
Examine the status of Sanskrit in Mughal India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मुग़ल-कालीन भारत में संस्कृत की स्थिति का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: Show Sanskrit's place at the Mughal court and in wider society (court scholars, Jain monks, Sanskrit works for Mughal patrons, regional centres of learning) and comment on the debate over its 'decline'.
Persian was the language of Mughal government, but Sanskrit kept an important place as a language of learning, religion and court culture. Audrey Truschke's Culture of Encounters has shown its role at the Mughal court.
At court: Sanskrit pandits worked with Persian scholars in Akbar's translation bureau. Jain monks such as Hiravijaya Suri, Bhanuchandra and Siddhichandra attended Akbar and Jahangir and wrote Sanskrit accounts of them. Under Shah Jahan, Jagannatha Panditaraja, author of the Rasagangadhara, and Kavindracharya Sarasvati of Banaras received imperial patronage.
New works: Sanskrit-Persian lexicons and grammars, such as the Parasiprakasha of Krishnadasa, were written for courtiers, and astronomical works linked the two traditions.
In society: Banaras remained a great centre of Sanskrit learning, and navya-nyaya logic flourished at Navadvipa in Bengal.
Sheldon Pollock spoke of a decline of creative Sanskrit in this period, but Truschke and others show it remained vigorous, though it lost ground to Persian and regional languages in administration and popular literature.Q5(c) · The Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Provincial Dynasties: Bengal, Kashmir, Gujarat and Malwa
Assess the rule of Zainul Abedin in Kashmir.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कश्मीर में ज़ाइन-उल्-अबिदीन के शासन का आकलन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: An assessment: give the context and sources, then his religious policy, economic and public works, and cultural patronage, and end with a balanced verdict.
Zain-ul-Abidin (1420–70) of the Shahmiri dynasty is remembered in Kashmir as Budshah, the great king. His reign is known from Jonaraja's and Srivara's Sanskrit Rajataranginis and later Persian histories.
Religious policy: Reversing the persecution under his father Sikandar, he abolished the jizya, allowed Brahmanas who had fled to return, restored grants and permitted temples to be rebuilt; he is also said to have banned cow-slaughter. Brahmanas again served in his administration.
Economy and public works: He built canals, embankments and bridges, the island of Zaina Lank in the Wular lake and new towns, lowered taxes and controlled prices. He brought craftsmen from Central Asia, which tradition links to Kashmir's shawl-weaving, papier-mâché, carpet and bookbinding crafts.
Culture: He patronised Sanskrit and Persian learning and had works such as the Mahabharata and Kalhana's Rajatarangini translated into Persian, and encouraged music.
His rule is rightly seen as the high point of the Kashmir Sultanate, a model of tolerance and prosperity, though our sources are largely court eulogies and his successors could not sustain his achievement.Q5(d) · The Delhi Sultanate, 13th–14th Centuries · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Alauddin Khalji's Agrarian and Market Measures
The economic measures of Alauddin Khalji were aimed at greater political control. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अला-उद्-दीन खलजी के आर्थिक उपाय अधिकतम राजनीतिक नियन्त्रण के दृष्टिगत बनाए गए थे। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: Discuss the political purpose behind the economic measures (control of nobles, intermediaries and the army, defence against the Mongols), and note the economic motives and limits that qualify the statement.
Early in his reign Alauddin Khalji faced the revolts of Akat Khan, his nephews and Haji Maula. Barani reports that the Sultan traced rebellion to the nobles' wealth, their gatherings, wine parties and the lack of intelligence. His economic measures followed from this diagnosis.
Nobles: grants were confiscated so that, in Barani's words (paraphrased), men were busy earning a living and had no time for rebellion.
Intermediaries: revenue at half the produce, assessed by masahat, and the loss of the khuts' privileges broke the rural aristocracy, the base of local revolt.
Army: market control in Delhi allowed a large cash-paid army loyal to the Sultan, which defeated the Mongols who threatened Delhi itself in 1299 and 1303.
Qualification: the measures also had fiscal aims, and Irfan Habib reads them as a transfer of the agrarian surplus to the town. Still, their enforcement through spies and harsh penalties shows that political control was the main goal.Q5(e) · Mughal Economy, Society and Culture · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Mughal Architecture and Painting
Examine the European impact on Mughal paintings.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मुग़ल चित्रकला पर यूरोपीय प्रभाव का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: Explain the channels of European influence and then its stages and forms under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, with a brief judgement on its depth.
European art reached the Mughal court through the Jesuit missions from 1580, Portuguese and English traders, and envoys such as Sir Thomas Roe. Engravings, Bibles and portraits became models for imperial painters.
Under Akbar: artists copied Christian prints and learned to model figures with light and shade and to show depth. Basawan and Kesu Das were among the first to absorb these lessons.
Under Jahangir: influence was strongest. Painters used atmospheric perspective, naturalistic portraits and Christian motifs such as cherubs, and gave the emperor a halo. Allegorical paintings by Abul Hasan and Bichitr used European symbols such as the globe and the hourglass.
Under Shah Jahan: European devices were used more formally, in durbar scenes and portraits, and declined with reduced patronage under Aurangzeb.
The European impact was real but selective: it added realism and new symbols of imperial power within a style that remained Persian and Indian in its foundations.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Early Medieval India, 750–1200 · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Philosophy: Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva
Assess the statement that 'the philosophy of Shankaracharya revolutionised religious thoughts in India'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
इस कथन का आकलन कीजिए कि 'शंकराचार्य के दर्शन ने भारत के धार्मिक विचारों में क्रांति ला दी'।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Assess the claim by showing what was new in Shankara's thought and work (doctrine, revival of Vedic authority, institutions), then test the word "revolutionised" against continuities, rival movements and the limits of his influence.
Shankara (traditionally 788–820), born at Kaladi in Kerala, wrote commentaries on the Upanishads, the Gita and the Brahma Sutra and systematised Advaita Vedanta. Whether he "revolutionised" religious thought needs to be weighed.
Doctrinal innovation: he gave the Upanishadic identity of atman and Brahman a rigorous system: Brahman alone is real, the world is maya, and liberation comes through knowledge. His theory of two levels of truth reconciled ultimate non-dualism with everyday ritual and worship, so Advaita could include rather than reject popular religion.
Revival of Vedic authority: at a time when Buddhism and Jainism still had wide patronage and Mimamsa reduced religion to ritual, he restored the Upanishads as the core of brahmanical thought and won debates, as the legend of his debate with Mandana Mishra symbolises.
Institutional change: tradition credits him with four mathas (Sringeri, Dvaraka, Puri, Jyotirmath) and the Dashanami order of monks, an organised monasticism comparable to the Buddhist sangha; the details are debated, but Advaita mathas became lasting centres.
Limits of the claim: Advaita built on Gaudapada and earlier Vedanta; the decline of Buddhism had many causes, including the loss of patronage and the absorption of Buddhist ideas into Hinduism; opponents even called him a crypto-Buddhist (prachchhanna bauddha). His elite, Sanskrit philosophy of knowledge reached few, while the popular revolution in religion came from the bhakti of the Alvars and Nayanars. Ramanuja and Madhva rejected his maya doctrine.
Shankara thus revolutionised the intellectual and institutional framework of Hinduism, making Vedanta its dominant philosophy, but popular religious practice was transformed more by bhakti, so "revolution" fits his thought better than everyday religion.Q6(b) · Society, Culture and Economy under the Sultanate · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Agriculture, Urban Economy, Crafts and Trade
Delineate the state of agriculture during the Sultanate period.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सल्तनत काल में कृषि की अवस्था का चित्रण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Delineate the agrarian scene: crops and harvests, irrigation, the peasantry and revenue system, state measures under Alauddin, Muhammad bin Tughluq and Firuz, and the general condition of agriculture.
Agriculture was the base of the Sultanate economy and the source of the land tax (kharaj) that maintained the ruling class. Barani, Afif and Ibn Battuta are our main sources.
Crops: Ibn Battuta noted that the soil gave two harvests a year, the kharif and the rabi. Wheat, barley, rice, millets and pulses were the food crops, while sugarcane, cotton, oilseeds and indigo were grown for the market.
Irrigation: Wells, tanks and the water-wheel watered the fields. Firuz Shah Tughluq cut canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej, including one to his new town of Hisar, and charged a water tax (haqq-i-sharb); Afif also credits him with many orchards around Delhi.
Agrarian structure: Between the state and the peasant stood the khots, muqaddams and chaudhuris, the rural chiefs who collected revenue and kept a share. Alauddin Khalji fixed the land tax at half the produce, based on measurement, and made these chiefs pay the same rates as ordinary peasants.
State experiments: Muhammad bin Tughluq's higher taxation in the Doab, coinciding with famine, caused peasants to flee, after which he gave loans (sondhar) and created a department (Diwan-i-Amir-i-Kohi) to extend cultivation, with little success. Firuz reduced the burden.
Agriculture was productive and increasingly commercial, but the peasant bore a heavy tax and was vulnerable to famine and state demands.Q6(c) · Society, Culture and Economy under the Sultanate · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Bhakti and Sufi Movements under the Sultanate
Sufi and Bhakti thoughts ennobled Indian psyche amidst the vagaries of time. Elucidate.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सूफ़ी एवं भक्ति विचारों ने समय के उतार-चढ़ावों के मध्य भारतीय मानस को उदात्तता प्रदान की। स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Elucidate by showing, with examples, how Sufi and Bhakti ideas raised moral and humane values in a period of war and instability, and note the limits.
The 13th to 16th centuries were marked by conquest, the fall of old kingdoms, famines and rigid caste and religious boundaries. In this setting the Sufi and Bhakti saints offered a message of love, equality and inner devotion that gave ordinary people moral strength.
Love over ritual: Both taught that God is reached through love and a pure heart, not through ritual, priests or rank. Kabir mocked the pandit and the mulla alike, and Nizamuddin Auliya held that relieving the distress of the needy was the highest worship.
Dignity of the humble: Saints such as Namdev (a tailor), Kabir (a weaver) and Ravidas (a leather-worker) showed that devotion was open to all, while Sufi khanqahs and langars fed everyone without distinction.
Shared culture: Common shrines, Hindavi songs, sama and kirtan, and the poetry of Amir Khusrau, Baba Farid and Guru Nanak built bridges between communities, which Tara Chand saw as the root of a composite culture.
Vernacular voice: Preaching in Marathi, Hindavi, Punjabi and Bengali carried ethical ideas to people who knew no Sanskrit or Persian.
Limits: The saints did not abolish caste or end conflict, and their followers later formed separate sects.
Yet by placing humanity, compassion and tolerance at the centre of religion, Sufi and Bhakti thought gave Indian society an ethical anchor that outlasted the political turmoil of the age.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Mughal Economy, Society and Culture · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Merchants, Banking, Insurance and Credit
The emergence of early capitalism in the Mughal period was primarily due to urbanisation and commercialisation. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मुग़लकाल में आरम्भिक पूँजीवाद का उद्भव मुख्यतः नगरीकरण एवं वाणिज्यीकरण के कारण हुआ। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Define 'early capitalism' in the Mughal context, set out the evidence of urbanisation and commercialisation that historians cite, weigh other causes (revenue system, foreign trade, merchant capital), and explain why it did not become industrial capitalism.
Historians debate whether Mughal India showed the beginnings of capitalism. Irfan Habib, in his essay on the potentialities of capitalistic development in the Mughal economy (1969), found strong merchant capital but no breakthrough to industrial capitalism.
Urbanisation: the empire had great cities such as Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Ahmedabad, Surat and Dhaka, and many market towns. Some estimates, including Habib's, put the urban share of the population as high as about 15 per cent, which created a large market for food and manufactures.
Commercialisation: the land revenue was collected largely in cash, forcing peasants to sell their produce. American silver arriving through European trade expanded the money supply, and export demand for textiles grew rapidly after 1650.
Signs of capitalist practice: merchants advanced money to weavers (dadni), a form of putting-out; hundis moved credit across the empire; and insurance (bima) covered goods in transit. Great merchants such as Virji Vora of Surat, Shantidas Jhaveri of Ahmedabad and Mulla Abdul Ghafur, the Surat shipowner, commanded vast capital.
Other causes: the cash revenue system and foreign trade were at least as important as urbanisation, which was itself partly a product of the court and army's spending. Frank Perlin stresses commercialisation from below in the countryside.
Limits: there was no technical revolution, artisans were not turned into a wage-earning proletariat, and the state and nobility absorbed much of the surplus. Merchant capital stayed in trade and credit rather than production.
Urbanisation and commercialisation did create elements of early or merchant capitalism, but they could not by themselves produce a capitalist transformation.Q7(b) · The Delhi Sultanate, 13th–14th Centuries · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ghurian Invasions and the Factors Behind Their Success
Internal strife and conflict beset with personal ambitions was enough of an invitation for the Ghurids to invade India. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आन्तरिक कलह एवं संघर्ष में लिप्त व्यक्तिगत महत्वाकांक्षा वाले भारत पर आक्रमण करना ग़ौरी को पर्याप्त निमंत्रण था। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: The statement makes Indian disunity the main cause of the Ghurid invasions; discuss it by showing the rivalries among Rajput kingdoms, then add the Ghurids' own motives and military strengths, which the statement leaves out.
In the late twelfth century north India was divided among the Chahamanas of Ajmer and Delhi, the Gahadavalas of Kannauj, the Chaulukyas of Gujarat and the Chandellas. Their mutual wars gave Muizzuddin Muhammad of Ghur an open field.
Rivalries: Prithviraja III sacked the Chandella capital Mahoba (1182) and fought the Chaulukyas. The Gahadavala Jayachandra stood aside at Tarain; the story of his enmity over Samyogita comes from the late Prithvirajaraso and is legendary, but no common front was formed. After Tarain Jayachandra was defeated alone at Chandawar (1194).
Personal ambition: each ruler sought prestige through digvijaya over neighbours, and some Rajput chiefs accepted Ghurid overlordship, as Prithviraja's son did at Ajmer for a time.
The other side: blocked in the west by the Khwarazm Shahs, Muizzuddin sought wealth, revenue and land for his slave officers; he took Multan (1175) and Lahore (1186) before any Rajput quarrel mattered. His mounted archers, the supply of war-horses and the loyal slave corps gave him an edge that unity might not have cancelled: even so, the Chaulukyas alone defeated him in 1178. Peter Jackson places the invasions in the wider Ghurid-Khwarazmian contest.
The statement is partly valid: internal strife and personal ambition removed the chance of joint resistance, but Ghurid motives and military superiority drove the invasion.Q7(c) · Mughal Economy, Society and Culture · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Mughal Architecture and Painting
The Mughals built like Titans and embellished like jewellers. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मुग़लों ने दानवों की तरह निर्माण किया तथा जौहरियों की तरह अलंकृत किया। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Identify the remark (usually attributed to Bishop Heber), then illustrate the 'Titan' scale and the 'jeweller' finish with specific buildings, and qualify it by reign.
The remark that the Mughals built like giants and finished like jewellers is usually attributed to Bishop Reginald Heber, who toured north India in the 1820s. It captures two qualities of Mughal architecture: grand scale and fine decoration.
Building like Titans: Akbar's Agra fort, with walls of red sandstone about 2.5 km around, and the city of Fatehpur Sikri show the ambition of the builders. The Buland Darwaza (c. 1575), about 54 metres high, the Red Fort of Delhi (1639–48), the Jama Masjid of Delhi and the Badshahi mosque of Lahore were among the largest buildings of their age.
Finishing like jewellers: the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula (1622–28) is covered with inlay of semi-precious stones in white marble. The Taj Mahal combines pietra dura flowers, carved marble and fine calligraphy. The marble jalis of Shaikh Salim Chishti's tomb, the tile mosaics of the Lahore fort's picture wall and the inlaid panels of the Diwan-i-Am in Delhi show the same care.
Qualification: the two qualities did not appear equally in every reign. Akbar's buildings were massive but relied on carving in sandstone, the jeweller's finish developed under Jahangir and Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb built far less.
The remark therefore sums up Mughal architecture at its height, when scale and ornament were joined in one imperial vision.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Akbar and the Mughal State in the 17th Century · 15 marks≈ 11 min
The Mansab and Jagir Systems
Critically analyse whether the success of the Mughals is to be credited to their robust Jagirdari and Mansabdari system.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समालोचनात्मक विश्लेषण कीजिए कि क्या मुग़लों की सफलता का श्रेय उनकी सक्षम जागीरदारी तथा मनसबदारी प्रथा के कारण था?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Weigh the claim: show how the mansab-jagir system underpinned Mughal success, then bring in the other causes (revenue system, alliances, ideology, military power, economy) and the system's own later crisis.
The mansabdari and jagirdari systems, given shape by Akbar, joined rank, pay and military service and assigned revenue in lieu of salary. Historians of the Aligarh school, such as Irfan Habib and M. Athar Ali, see them as the core of a centralised empire.
Case for: the emperor alone gave ranks, so nobles depended on him, not on lineage. Frequent transfer of jagirs, every three or four years on average, prevented local roots, while dagh and chehra checked fraud in contingents. The system absorbed Turanis, Iranis, Afghans, Rajputs and Deccanis into one service and gave the empire a large cavalry paid from assessed revenue.
Other causes: the system rested on the zabt revenue system and on the zamindars' cooperation, without which jagirs yielded nothing. The Rajput alliance, sulh-i-kul and Abul Fazl's theory of divine light (farr-i-izadi) gave legitimacy; field artillery and siegecraft from Babur to Akbar won the wars; and a commercialised, silver-rich economy paid the bill.
Its own weakness: when mansabdars multiplied in Aurangzeb's Deccan wars, the shortage of jagirs created what Satish Chandra called the jagirdari crisis, and Habib links short tenure to exploitation of peasants.
Mughal success was therefore credited to the system only in part: it was the framework that converted conquest, revenue and alliances into lasting power, and its later strain shows that it worked only while those supports held.Q8(b) · The Eighteenth Century · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Decline of the Mughal Empire: Causes and Debates
It was as much the court intrigues as also the defiance of the provincial powers that hastened the decline of the Mughals in the 18th century. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जितने दरबारी षड्यंत्र उतनी ही प्रान्तीय शक्तियों की अवमानना ने 18वीं शताब्दी में मुग़लों के पतन को शीघ्रता प्रदान की। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Show with dated examples how court intrigues and provincial defiance weakened the centre and fed each other, then add the structural and external causes, and judge the statement.
Between 1707 and 1748 the Mughal empire turned from a centralised state into a set of autonomous provinces. The statement rightly links two processes, intrigue at the court and defiance in the provinces, which reinforced each other.
Court intrigues: succession wars followed the deaths of Aurangzeb (1707) and Bahadur Shah (1712). Under Jahandar Shah power lay with the wazir Zulfiqar Khan; the Sayyid brothers made Farrukhsiyar emperor (1713), then deposed and killed him (1719) and set up puppets until their fall in 1720. Irani, Turani, Afghan and Hindustani groups competed for the wazirship and the best jagirs, and Muhammad Shah ruled through shifting favourites.
Provincial defiance: nobles who lost at court built power in the provinces. Nizam-ul-Mulk, frustrated as wazir, defeated the Mughal governor at Shakar Kheda (1724) and founded Hyderabad; Saadat Khan made Awadh a family domain; Murshid Quli Khan's successors made the Bengal nizamat hereditary. The Marathas used the sanads of 1719 to push into Malwa and Gujarat, while Jats and Sikhs asserted themselves. Provincial chiefs in turn used court factions.
Deeper causes: Satish Chandra (Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court) explained the factions as a struggle over a shrinking pool of jagirs, the jagirdari crisis; Irfan Habib pointed to the agrarian crisis behind zamindar and peasant revolts; Muzaffar Alam showed that provincial autonomy rested on regional economic growth and local elites.
External blows: Nadir Shah's sack of Delhi (1739) and Abdali's invasions from 1748 exposed the centre and stripped away Punjab.
The statement describes well how the decline unfolded, but intrigue and defiance were symptoms of a structural crisis and of rising regional power, which foreign invasions then completed.Q8(c) · Akbar and the Mughal State in the 17th Century · 15 marks≈ 11 min
The Ahom Kingdom, Shivaji and the Early Marathas
Shivaji was not merely a military conqueror but also was an enlightened ruler. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शिवाजी मात्र सैनिक विजेता ही नहीं थे, अपितु एक प्रबुद्ध शासक भी थे। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Accept Shivaji's military achievement briefly, then show the 'enlightened ruler' through his administration, revenue, justice, religious policy, navy and cultural initiatives, with a word on the limits of the claim.
Shivaji (1630–1680) is best known for his campaigns against Bijapur and the Mughals, but the Sabhasad Bakhar and even hostile Persian writers show that he also built a well-ordered state.
Administration: after his coronation in 1674 he governed through a council of eight ministers, the Ashtapradhan, including the Peshwa, the Amatya for finance and the Nyayadhish for justice. Ministers were salaried and transferable, and Sabhasad says he preferred cash salaries to granting lands (saranjams) that could become hereditary.
Revenue: his officials, notably Annaji Datto, surveyed and assessed land, and the demand was collected directly from cultivators where possible, curbing the power of deshmukhs. Chauth and sardeshmukhi were levied from neighbouring territories.
Religious policy: he protected Hindu dharma but respected other faiths. Khafi Khan, otherwise hostile, records that Shivaji ordered that mosques, the Quran and women were not to be harmed. Muslims served in his army and navy.
Vision: he built a navy and sea forts such as Sindhudurg, and had Raghunath Pandit compile the Rajavyavahara Kosha, which replaced Persian administrative terms with Sanskrit ones.
His raids caused hardship, and his state lived partly on plunder. Still, his institutions and tolerance justify the view that he was a builder of a state, not merely a conqueror.
UPSC Mains 2019 History Paper II
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · European Penetration and British Expansion · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Mysore and the Anglo-Mysore Wars
"Tipu Sultan was trying to build in Mysore a strong centralised and militarised state, with ambitious territorial designs." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"टीपू सुल्तान मैसूर में, महत्वाकांक्षी भूभागीय इरादों वाला, एक शक्तिशाली केन्द्रीकृत एवं सैन्यीकृत राज्य के निर्माण का प्रयास कर रहा था।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)
Approach: Test the three claims (centralised, militarised, expansionist) with evidence, then qualify the third by noting the defensive context of Company pressure.
Tipu Sultan inherited from Haidar Ali (d. 1782) a state already geared to war, and he pushed its centralisation further.
Centralised: he reduced the power of poligars and hereditary officials, appointed salaried amils, collected revenue directly from cultivators, issued uniform regulations and made trade in key goods a state concern.
Militarised: the revenue system existed largely to pay a large standing army trained on European lines, with artillery, rockets used against the British, state arms factories and a plan for a navy (1796).
Territorial designs: he fought the Marathas and the Nizam (1785–87) and attacked Travancore (1789), which brought on the Third Anglo-Mysore War; his approaches to France and Afghanistan showed wider ambitions.
Qualification: much of this was defensive, since the Company, the Marathas and the Nizam combined against him, and he lost half his kingdom at Seringapatam (1792). The statement fits, but his militarism was also a response to the Company's expansion.Q1(b) · Early British Raj and Its Economic Impact · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Railways, Telegraph, Famines and European Enterprise
"Not until independence, when economic development became a conscious and pursued policy, did the Railways begin to realize their potential for assisting in the transformation of the Indian economy." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"स्वतंत्रता प्राप्त हो जाने पर ही, जब आर्थिक विकास एक सजग एवं निरंतर अपनाई गई नीति बनी, रेलवे ने भारतीय अर्थव्यवस्था के रूपान्तरण में सहायक हो सकने की अपनी क्षमता का बोध करना आरम्भ किया।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(b)
Approach: Show how colonial railway policy limited the railways' developmental role (guarantees, port orientation, freight rates, imported equipment), note what they did achieve, then contrast with planned development after 1947.
India had one of the world's largest railway networks by 1900, yet critics such as Daniel Thorner argued that it did little to industrialise the economy.
Colonial limits: lines were built by British companies under a guaranteed return of 5 per cent, so costs were high and the burden fell on Indian taxpayers; routes linked the interior to the ports for exports and military needs; freight rates favoured traffic to and from ports; and locomotives, rails and engineers came from Britain, so the railways created few backward linkages to Indian industry.
Achievements: they integrated markets and narrowed regional price differences, speeded famine relief, moved people, and helped build a national consciousness.
After independence: under planning, railways were tied to national goals: the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (1950) and Integral Coach Factory (1955) produced equipment at home, and freight policy served steel, coal and industrial growth.
The statement is broadly valid: railways transformed the economy only when policy made them part of development.Q1(c) · Social, Cultural and Reform Movements · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sati, Widow Remarriage, Child Marriage and the Indian Renaissance
"Two important intellectual criteria which informed the reform movements were rationalism and religious universalism." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"तर्कवाद एवं धार्मिक सार्वभौमवाद सुधार आन्दोलनों को ज्ञापित करने वाली दो महत्त्वपूर्ण बौद्धिक कसौटियाँ थीं।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)
Approach: Explain the two criteria with examples (the view is associated with Bipan Chandra), then show where reformers fell short of them, and end with a balanced judgement.
The statement, associated with Bipan Chandra's account of the reform movements, identifies rationalism and religious universalism as their two intellectual criteria.
Rationalism: Reformers judged beliefs and customs by reason and social utility. Ram Mohan Roy's Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin rejected what reason could not support, Akshay Kumar Datta pushed the Brahmo Samaj to give up the infallibility of the Vedas, and Sayyid Ahmad Khan held that the Quran could not contradict reason and nature.
Universalism: Ram Mohan saw one God in all religions, Keshab's Nava Vidhan drew on several faiths, and Ramakrishna and Vivekananda preached the unity of all religions.
Critique: Reason often worked within scriptural authority. Vidyasagar argued from the Parashara Smriti, and Dayanand made the Vedas infallible. Universalism was frequently Hindu-centred, and later movements stressed revival and community over reason.
Rationalism and universalism were indeed the key criteria of the early reform movements, but they were applied selectively and weakened as revivalism grew.Q1(d) · Peasant and Tribal Uprisings and the Revolt of 1857 · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Rangpur Dhing, the Kol Rebellion and the Santal Hul
"... the Kol Insurrection was mainly a war of the tribal inhabitants of Chotanagpur against the non-tribal settlers and service-holders." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"... कोल विद्रोह मुख्यतः छोटानागपुर के जनजातीय निवासियों का ग़ैर-जनजातीय अधिवासियों एवं सेवारत-व्यक्तियों के विरुद्ध युद्ध था।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)
Approach: Identify the view, show the evidence that outsiders (thikadars, moneylenders) were the main target, then show the agrarian and anti-colonial sides before concluding.
The view, associated with J.C. Jha's study of the Kol insurrection, sees the rising of 1831–32 in Chotanagpur as a war of the Mundas, Hos and Oraons against outsiders who had settled among them.
Much supports it. The Raja of Chotanagpur had leased villages to thikadars, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu traders and moneylenders, who raised rents, seized land and exacted forced labour. From late 1831 the Kols attacked these settlers and service-holders across Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamau and Manbhum, while tribal villagers were generally spared.
Yet it was not only an ethnic war. The outsiders' claims rested on Company courts, laws and revenue demands alien to tribal custom, so the revolt was also against the colonial order. The grievances were agrarian, about land, rent and labour.
The South-West Frontier Agency (1833–34) placed the region under special non-regulation rule.
Thus the Kol insurrection was mainly directed at non-tribal settlers, but because colonial power upheld them it was also an agrarian and anti-colonial revolt.Q1(e) · The Gandhian Era, 1915–1947 · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The 1937 Elections, Ministries, Cripps Mission and Quit India
"The Cripps Mission was plagued throughout, and ultimately torpedoed." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"क्रिप्स मिशन निरन्तर मुसीबतों से ग्रस्त रहा, तथा अन्ततः विफल हो गया।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(e)
Approach: Examine the claim that the Cripps Mission was troubled throughout and finally sabotaged: give its proposals, the objections of Indian parties, and the role of Churchill, Linlithgow and Amery in its failure.
Sir Stafford Cripps came to India in March 1942, under pressure from the United States, China and Labour members of the war cabinet, as Japan advanced in Southeast Asia.
His proposals offered dominion status after the war, a constituent assembly elected by the provincial legislatures with princes' nominees, and the right of any province to stay out of the new union. For the present, only minor changes in the Viceroy's Executive Council were offered, with defence under British control.
It was plagued throughout: the Congress objected to the provincial option, which opened the door to partition, and to the lack of real power now; the League wanted Pakistan clearly accepted; the depressed classes and Sikhs feared being left out. Gandhi is said to have called it a post-dated cheque.
It was also torpedoed: Cripps seemed to promise a cabinet-type government, but Churchill, Amery and Linlithgow would not allow it. R.J. Moore notes that Churchill never wanted it to succeed. The statement is largely valid.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Early British Raj and Its Economic Impact · 20 marks≈ 14 min
De-industrialisation, Decline of Crafts and the Drain of Wealth
How far was the drain theory a focal point of nationalist critique of colonialism?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अपवहन सिद्धान्त कहाँ तक उपनिवेशवाद की राष्ट्रवादी समालोचना का केन्द्र-बिन्दु था?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)
Approach: Explain the drain theory (Naoroji, Dutt, Ranade) and its components, show how it became central to economic nationalism, then weigh the other strands of the critique and the counter-arguments.
The drain theory held that a part of India's national product was transferred to Britain without an economic return. Dadabhai Naoroji developed it from the 1860s and set it out in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901); R.C. Dutt, M.G. Ranade, G.V. Joshi and G.K. Gokhale extended it.
Components: the Home Charges (interest on debt, pensions, India Office costs, military charges), salaries and savings remitted by British officials, profits and interest on foreign capital, and the export surplus that paid for them.
Why it was focal: (i) it explained Indian poverty, which Naoroji estimated from per capita income, by British rule rather than by Indian backwardness; (ii) it attacked the moral claim of the Raj, since rule that drained wealth could not be benevolent, hence "un-British"; (iii) it united other grievances, high land revenue, military spending and costly European services, under one argument; (iv) it shaped Congress resolutions and later Swadeshi and Gandhian economics. Bipan Chandra (The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India, 1966) treats it as the core of the nationalist critique.
Other strands: the critique also attacked de-industrialisation and one-way free trade, tariff policy and the cotton excise (1896), land revenue and famines, and the refusal to protect Indian industry; R.C. Dutt's famine letters stressed revenue more than the drain.
Counter-arguments: Theodore Morison and other defenders argued that Home Charges paid for real services, defence, administration and capital for railways; modern scholars debate its size relative to national income.
The drain theory was the focal point because it linked all the strands into a single indictment of colonialism, even if it was not the whole critique.Q2(b) · Social, Cultural and Reform Movements · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Christian Missionaries in India
Examine the forces at work for the introduction of western education in India. Analyse the thrust given to it by the Christian Missionaries.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में पश्चिमी शिक्षा को लागू करवाए जाने के लिए प्रयासरत शक्तियों का परीक्षण कीजिए। ईसाई धर्म-प्रचारकों द्वारा इसके लिए डाले गए दबाव का विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)
Approach: Two parts: first the forces behind Western education (administrative, ideological, economic and Indian demand), then the missionaries' specific contribution and its limits.
Western education in India grew out of several forces that converged in the early nineteenth century, and Christian missionaries gave it a particular push.
Administrative need: The expanding Company state needed cheap English-knowing clerks and intermediaries.
Evangelical pressure: Charles Grant and William Wilberforce argued that Indian society could be improved only by Christianity and Western learning. The Charter Act of 1813 opened India to missionaries and set aside one lakh rupees a year for education.
Utilitarian and liberal ideas: James Mill and Bentinck saw education as a tool of improvement, and Macaulay's Minute (1835) made English the state's choice. Indian demand: Ram Mohan Roy and the founders of Hindu College (1817) wanted Western science.
Missionary thrust: The Serampore trio of William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward (from 1800) printed books in many Indian languages and founded Serampore College (1818). Alexander Duff opened his English-medium institution in Calcutta (1830) and backed Macaulay; John Wilson in Bombay and the Madras Christian College followed.
Missions also pioneered girls' schools and zenana teaching, vernacular schoolbooks and education among tribal and lower-caste groups. Wood's Despatch (1854) gave them grants-in-aid.
Limits: The Company's policy of religious neutrality kept government schools secular, conversions were few, and missionary schools provoked Indian responses such as DAV schools.
Western education owed most to state policy and Indian demand, but missionaries gave it its early institutions and reach.Q2(c) · European Penetration and British Expansion · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Anglo-French Rivalry and the Carnatic Wars
Do you subscribe to the view that the Anglo-French tussle in Carnatic demonstrated the internal decay of the provincial chieftains of South India?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस मत से सहमत हैं कि कर्नाटक में आंग्ल-फ्रांसीसी संघर्ष ने दक्षिण भारत के प्रान्तीय क्षत्रपों की आन्तरिक अवनति को प्रदर्शित किया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(c)
Approach: Give evidence that succession disputes in the Nizam's and Nawab's houses invited intervention, then qualify it with Indian agency and the strength of other southern powers.
The ease with which small European forces made and unmade rulers in the Carnatic Wars (1746–63) is often read as proof of the decay of the South Indian provincial powers. I subscribe to the view only for the Mughal successor houses of Hyderabad and Arcot.
Evidence of decay: these houses lacked settled rules of succession. Maratha raids (1740–41) killed Nawab Dost Ali and took Chanda Sahib prisoner, and Nizam-ul-Mulk's death (1748) set Nasir Jang against Muzaffar Jang. The claimants turned to the companies; at Adyar (1746) a small French force routed the Nawab's army, and Muhammad Ali survived only as an English client.
Qualifications: the claimants were not passive but hired Europeans for their own ends, as C.A. Bayly stresses. Mysore under Haidar Ali soon defeated the Company (1767–69), and the Marathas remained strong. European drill, sea power and finance mattered as much as Indian weakness.
The tussle thus exposed the fragility of the Mughal successor states, not a general decay of the South.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · The Rise of Indian Nationalism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Moderates, Extremists, the Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi
How would you explain the major trends of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बंगाल में स्वदेशी आन्दोलन की प्रमुख प्रवृत्तियों की आप किस प्रकार व्याख्या करेंगे?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(a)
Approach: Explain the major trends of Swadeshi in Bengal, using Sumit Sarkar's fourfold classification, with leaders, methods and examples for each, and then assess the movement's achievements and limits.
The Swadeshi movement (1903–08) arose against Curzon's plan to partition Bengal, which nationalists saw as divide and rule. Sumit Sarkar, in The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908 (1973), identified four trends within it.
First, the moderate trend: leaders such as Surendranath Banerjea and Krishna Kumar Mitra first used petitions, meetings and press campaigns against the partition (1903–05). The boycott of British goods was announced at the Calcutta Town Hall meeting of 7 August 1905.
Second, constructive swadeshi: associated with Rabindranath Tagore's call for atmashakti (self-reliance), it stressed national education, swadeshi industries such as P.C. Ray's Bengal Chemicals and the Banga Lakshmi cotton mill, village reconstruction and samitis. It avoided direct conflict with the state.
Third, political extremism: Aurobindo Ghose, Bipin Chandra Pal and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay turned boycott into passive resistance, rejecting government schools, courts and services and demanding complete swaraj. Newspapers such as Bande Mataram and Sandhya spread this view.
Fourth, revolutionary terrorism: after 1907, frustrated youth of the Anushilan Samiti and the Jugantar group turned to bombs and assassinations, as in the Muzaffarpur attack of April 1908 and the Alipore bomb case.
Achievements and limits: the movement brought students, women and some workers into politics, and its songs, festivals and swadeshi enterprises created a new national culture. But Sarkar shows that it failed to win the Muslim peasantry of East Bengal, which the Muslim League (1906) and the colonial state exploited. Its Hindu idiom, social coercion and lack of an agrarian programme limited it, and repression and the Surat split (1907) ended it by 1908.
Bipan Chandra calls it a major leap that broadened the base of nationalism. Its trends foreshadowed both Gandhian mass politics and the revolutionary movement.Q3(b) · Constitutional Developments, Other Strands and Partition · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Constitutional Developments, 1858–1935
Is it justified to say that the Government of India Act of 1935 had all brakes, but no engine?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या यह कहना न्यायोचित है कि 1935 के गवर्नमेंट ऑफ इंडिया ऐक्ट में सभी ब्रेक्स थे, परन्तु कोई इंजन नहीं था?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(b)
Approach: Identify the remark (Nehru's 'strong brakes but no engine'), show the 'brakes' in the Act, then the 'engine' that did exist in provincial autonomy and later use, and give a balanced verdict.
Jawaharlal Nehru likened the Government of India Act of 1935 to a machine with strong brakes but no engine, and the Congress called it a new charter of slavery, though it contested the 1937 elections under it.
The brakes: The Governor-General and governors had 'special responsibilities' and discretionary powers over law and order, minorities, the services, the princes and British commerce; Section 93 let governors take over a province. Defence and foreign affairs were reserved at the centre, much of the central budget was non-votable, and the ICS stayed under the Secretary of State.
More brakes: The federation gave nominated princes a third of the lower house and two-fifths of the upper house, a conservative bloc against the Congress. Separate electorates were extended, and only Parliament could amend the Act.
The engine that existed: Provincial autonomy ended dyarchy and gave elected ministers all provincial subjects, and the electorate rose to about 35 million. Congress ministries in eight provinces (1937–39) released prisoners, passed tenancy and debt-relief laws and proved Indians could govern.
A long-term engine: The Federal Court, the three lists of subjects and the governor and emergency provisions passed into the 1950 Constitution.
R.J. Moore and Carl Bridge read the Act as a strategy to hold India within the empire by balancing the Congress with princes and minorities; Bipan Chandra sees it as a plan to divide nationalists.
The remark fits the centre, where federation never began, but it underrates the provincial engine of 1937–39 and the framework the Act left for independent India.Q3(c) · Social, Cultural and Reform Movements · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sati, Widow Remarriage, Child Marriage and the Indian Renaissance
How far was the widow remarriage movement effective in arousing social concern for Indian women?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विधवा पुनर्विवाह आन्दोलन भारतीय स्त्रियों के प्रति सामाजिक सरोकार उत्पन्न करने में कहाँ तक प्रभावशाली रहा?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)
Approach: Assess effectiveness on two levels: in creating concern and debate (largely successful) and in changing practice (limited). Use Vidyasagar and other regions, then judge.
The widow remarriage movement, led in Bengal by Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, made the plight of Hindu widows a public issue. His Bengali tracts of 1855 cited the Parashara Smriti, and his petitions helped secure the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856.
Arousing concern: The movement spread to other regions: Vishnushastri Pandit in Bombay, Kandukuri Veeresalingam in Andhra, who arranged widow marriages from 1881, and D.K. Karve, who married a widow and founded a widows' home in 1896. Pandita Ramabai's Sharada Sadan (1889) gave widows shelter and education. The debate drew attention to child marriage and female education.
Limits: Few remarriages took place, and those who remarried faced ostracism. The Act made a remarrying widow forfeit her late husband's property, and Lucy Carroll has argued that it could harm lower castes that already allowed remarriage. Opponents, led by Radhakanta Deb, gathered a much larger counter-petition.
The movement was effective in arousing social concern for women, but far less effective in changing social practice.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · The Gandhian Era, 1915–1947 · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The 1937 Elections, Ministries, Cripps Mission and Quit India
Why is the Quit India Movement characterised as a 'Spontaneous Revolution'? Did it accelerate the process of Indian independence?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत छोड़ो आन्दोलन को एक 'स्वत:स्फूर्त क्रान्ति' के रूप में क्यों चरित्रान्कित किया गया? क्या इसने भारतीय स्वतंत्रता की प्रक्रिया को तीव्रता प्रदान की?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)
Approach: Two parts: explain why Quit India has been called a 'spontaneous revolution' (leaderless mass action, Hutchins' interpretation) and then assess whether and how it accelerated independence.
The term spontaneous revolution is associated with Francis Hutchins, whose India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement (1973) argued that the movement was a popular revolution inspired by Gandhi but not organised by the Congress.
Why spontaneous: on 9 August 1942, the morning after the Quit India resolution, the government arrested Gandhi and the entire Congress leadership in Operation Zero Hour. No detailed programme had been issued. Yet within days people across Bihar, eastern UP, Bengal, Maharashtra, Orissa and Karnataka attacked railway lines, telegraph wires, police stations and post offices.
Students, peasants and workers acted on their own. Parallel governments arose in Ballia, Tamluk (Jatiya Sarkar) and Satara (Prati Sarkar), and underground leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali and Ram Manohar Lohia improvised. Linlithgow called it by far the most serious rebellion since 1857.
Qualifications: the movement was not unprepared: Gandhi's 'Do or Die' speech, the circulated AICC instructions and years of Congress organisation gave it direction. The government's 1943 report blamed the Congress for planned violence, though historians treat that as propaganda.
Did it accelerate independence? In the short run it was crushed by the end of 1942 and the League gained. But it showed that India could not be governed without massive force, made independence the only acceptable goal, and radicalised the army and the public. With the INA trials and the RIN mutiny (1946) it convinced post-war Britain, weakened by the war, to plan withdrawal.
It was spontaneous in its execution but rooted in Gandhian mobilisation, and it accelerated independence by making continued British rule untenable.Q4(b) · Constitutional Developments, Other Strands and Partition · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The Left: Nehru, Bose, the Congress Socialists and the CPI
Assess the role of Subhas Chandra Bose in India's struggle for independence.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत की स्वतंत्रता के लिए संघर्ष में सुभाष चन्द्र बोस की भूमिका का मूल्यांकन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)
Approach: An 'assess' question on a whole career: his role inside the Congress, the break of 1939, the INA phase, and an evaluation including criticism.
Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945?) resigned from the ICS in 1921 to join the Non-Cooperation Movement under C.R. Das. He rose to lead the radical youth of the Congress and later led an armed struggle from abroad.
Inside the Congress: With Nehru he founded the Independence League (1928) and pressed for complete independence, adopted at Lahore in 1929. He was jailed often, led youth and labour bodies and became mayor of Calcutta (1930). As Congress president at Haripura (1938) he set up the National Planning Committee under Nehru.
The break of 1939: He was re-elected at Tripuri in 1939, defeating Gandhi's candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya, but the Pant resolution and the Working Committee's refusal to cooperate forced him to resign. He formed the Forward Bloc and urged mass struggle while Britain was at war.
Abroad: He escaped from Calcutta in January 1941, worked from Germany, and in 1943 reached Southeast Asia to lead the Indian National Army and the Provisional Government of Azad Hind. In a broadcast from Rangoon in July 1944 he called Gandhi the Father of the Nation.
Impact: The INA's military campaign failed, but the Red Fort trials of 1945–46 united Indian opinion and shook the loyalty of the armed forces.
Criticism: His alliance with Nazi Germany and imperial Japan is criticised, and his authoritarian leanings worried colleagues. Leonard Gordon (Brothers Against the Raj) and Sugata Bose offer contrasting emphases on these choices.
Bose's role was that of a radical alternative to Gandhian strategy, and his INA helped hasten British withdrawal.Q4(c) · India after Independence · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Land Reforms, Planning and Rural Reconstruction
How did the introduction of Community Development Programme and Panchayati Raj promote welfare of rural India?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामुदायिक विकास कार्यक्रम एवं पंचायती राज के प्रारम्भ किए जाने से ग्रामीण भारत के कल्याण को प्रोत्साहन कैसे मिला है?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)
Approach: Briefly introduce the two programmes, then assess their welfare effects (agriculture, infrastructure, social services, participation), and give a balanced judgement.
Nehru saw rural reconstruction as the base of planned development. The Community Development Programme (1952) and Panchayati Raj (from 1959) were its two main instruments.
Agriculture and infrastructure: Through village-level workers and block staff the CDP spread better seeds, manure, fertiliser and minor irrigation, and built village roads, wells and drains, often with voluntary labour (shramdan).
Social services: Primary schools, primary health centres, drinking water, adult education and women's programmes reached many villages for the first time.
Participation: On the Balwantrai Mehta Committee's advice (1957), three-tier Panchayati Raj gave elected village, block and district bodies a say in planning and in running these services, starting in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh in 1959.
Assessment: Evaluations found that benefits went mostly to the better-off, participation was weak and bureaucracy dominated; panchayats were starved of funds and often suspended. Still, the programmes created a rural extension network and a tradition of local self-government that the 73rd Amendment (1992) revived.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Enlightenment, Revolutions and Modern Politics · 10 marks≈ 7 min
British Democratic Politics, 1815–1850: Reformers, Free Traders and Chartists
"The arguments of the free traders were a curious mixture of economic hard-headedness, social benevolence, cosmopolitan idealism and class prejudice." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"मुक्त व्यापारियों के तर्क आर्थिक दृढ़-निश्चितता, सामाजिक हितकारिता, सर्वदेशीय आदर्शवाद एवं वर्ग पूर्वाग्रह का विलक्षण मिश्रण थे।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)
Approach: Take each element of the statement in turn with evidence from the Anti-Corn Law League and the Manchester School, and judge.
The free traders of the Anti-Corn Law League (1838), led by Richard Cobden and John Bright, campaigned for the repeal of the Corn Laws, achieved by Peel in 1846.
Economic hard-headedness: following Smith and Ricardo, they argued that cheap imported grain would lower costs, open foreign markets to British manufactures and promote specialisation.
Social benevolence: they claimed that cheap bread would relieve the poor; the Irish famine (1845–46) gave this argument urgency.
Cosmopolitan idealism: Cobden believed that free trade would bind nations together and promote peace, a faith later expressed in the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty with France (1860).
Class prejudice: the League attacked the landed aristocracy as monopolists. Many manufacturers expected cheap bread to allow lower wages, and Bright opposed factory legislation; Chartists distrusted the League as a middle-class diversion.
The description is apt: free trade combined economic interest with moral idealism and middle-class self-interest.Q5(b) · Revolutions, World Wars and the Post-War World · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The World Wars as Total Wars; Causes and Consequences of World War I
"There are many ways in which the war of 1914 – 18 was unprecedented, and in human history, entirely novel." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"1914 – 18 का युद्ध कई दृष्टियों से अभूतपूर्व था एवं मानव इतिहास में, पूर्णतया नवीन।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)
Approach: The question asks you to examine the novelty of the war: list the ways it was unprecedented in scale, technology, mobilisation and consequences, then note its precedents.
Contemporaries called it the Great War because nothing on its scale had been seen before.
Unprecedented features: some 65 million men were mobilised and about nine to ten million soldiers died. Industrial weapons dominated: machine guns and heavy artillery, poison gas (Ypres, 1915), tanks (the Somme, 1916), aircraft and submarines. Whole economies and societies were mobilised through conscription, rationing, propaganda and women's labour, making it a total war. It was fought in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and on the oceans, with soldiers from the colonies, including over a million from India. It brought the Armenian genocide (1915) and the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires.
Precedents: the French levée en masse of 1793 mobilised a nation; the American Civil War used railways, trenches and mass armies; and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) showed the power of trenches and machine guns.
The war was novel less in any single feature than in their combination and scale, which made it a break in human history.Q5(c) · Revolutions, World Wars and the Post-War World · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Causes and Consequences of World War II
"The ineffectiveness of the League of Nations to prevent or to check Japanese aggression against China was the first serious blow to its prestige as an agency for providing security." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"लीग ऑफ़ नेशन्स की चीन पर जापानी आक्रमण को बचाने या रोक पाने में निष्प्रभाविता, सुरक्षा प्रदान करने वाली एक एजेंसी के रूप में उसकी प्रतिष्ठा को प्रथम गम्भीर आघात था।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)
Approach: The question asks you to examine whether Manchuria was the first serious blow to the League: narrate the crisis and the League's response, then compare it with earlier failures and the later blow over Abyssinia.
After the Mukden Incident of September 1931, the Japanese army occupied Manchuria and in 1932 set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. China appealed to the League.
League's response: the League sent the Lytton Commission, whose report (October 1932) condemned Japan's action and proposed an autonomous Manchuria under Chinese sovereignty. The Assembly adopted it in February 1933; Japan walked out and announced its withdrawal from the League. No sanctions were imposed: Britain and France would not risk war in the Far East, and the USA, not a member, offered only the Stimson Doctrine of non-recognition.
Why a serious blow: for the first time a great power committed open aggression and kept its gains, showing that collective security did not bind the strong.
Qualifications: the League had earlier failed to act when Poland seized Vilna (1920) and when Mussolini occupied Corfu (1923). The decisive blow came with the half-hearted sanctions over Abyssinia (1935–36).
Manchuria was the first serious blow because it set a precedent that Italy and Germany followed.Q5(d) · Revolutions, World Wars and the Post-War World · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Two Power Blocs, the Third World and Non-Alignment
"Non-alignment came to symbolize the struggle of India and other newly independent nations to retain and strengthen their independence from colonialism and imperialism." Critically examine.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"गुटनिरपेक्षता, भारत तथा अन्य नव स्वतन्त्र राष्ट्रों के उपनिवेशवाद और साम्राज्यवाद से अपनी स्वतन्त्रता बनाए रखने व सशक्त करने के संघर्ष के प्रतीक के रूप में मानी गई।" समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)
Approach: The question asks you to examine non-alignment as a struggle to protect independence: show its anti-colonial and sovereignty aims with Indian and other examples, then its pragmatic side and inconsistencies.
For Nehru, non-alignment was the foreign-policy expression of freedom: a country that took orders from a bloc would not be truly independent.
Against colonialism: non-aligned states pressed the UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960), backed the liberation of Algeria, Africa's colonies and Namibia, and led the campaign against apartheid.
Protecting independence: they rejected foreign bases and alliances, accepted aid from both sides on their own terms, and sought economic independence through the Group of 77 and the call for a New International Economic Order. India's role in Korea and Indochina (1954) showed independent diplomacy.
Critique: non-alignment was also pragmatic: it maximised aid and bargaining power. It was applied unevenly: India was muted over Soviet action in Hungary (1956), sought Western arms in 1962 and drew close to Moscow in 1971; and members' own conflicts weakened the movement.
The statement is largely valid: non-alignment symbolised the defence of hard-won sovereignty, even if national interest shaped its practice.Q5(e) · Enlightenment, Revolutions and Modern Politics · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Socialist Ideas up to Marx and the Spread of Marxian Socialism
How would you explain the nature of pre-Marxian Socialism?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पूर्व-मार्क्सवादी समाजवाद की प्रकृति की आप कैसे व्याख्या करेंगे?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)
Approach: Define pre-Marxian socialism, set out its common features with thinkers, then show its diversity, and end with why Engels called it utopian.
Pre-Marxian socialism arose in Britain and France between the 1790s and 1848 in reaction to the Industrial and French Revolutions.
Common features: it criticised competition, private profit and the misery of the new working class. It was moral and humanitarian, appealing to reason and justice rather than to class conflict. It favoured association and cooperation: Fourier's phalanstères, Owen's model communities at New Lanark and New Harmony, and Saint-Simon's society organised by producers.
Diversity: Saint-Simon was a technocrat who looked to industrialists; Proudhon (What is Property?, 1840) was an anarchist who distrusted the state; Louis Blanc (Organisation of Labour, 1839) wanted state-aided workshops; Babeuf (1796) and Blanqui planned insurrection. So it was not uniformly peaceful.
Limits: it usually lacked an analysis of historical change and relied on the goodwill of the rich, which is why Engels called it utopian in 1880.
It was ethical, experimental and varied, and it supplied Marx with many of his criticisms of capitalism.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Industrialisation, Nationalism and Imperialism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Industrialisation in the USA, Germany, Russia and Japan; Industrialisation and Globalisation
How did the policies of governments facilitate the process of industrialisation in Europe?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
यूरोप में सरकारों की नीतियों ने औद्योगीकरण की प्रक्रिया को किस प्रकार सुसाध्य किया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)
Approach: Show, country by country, how governments helped industrialisation (laws, tariffs, transport, banks, education), compare Britain with late industrialisers using Gerschenkron, and conclude on the limits of state action.
Industrialisation in Europe was led by private enterprise, but governments shaped it everywhere. Alexander Gerschenkron argued that the later and more backward a country, the greater the role of banks and the state.
Britain: Navigation Acts and the navy protected trade and colonies, Parliament passed enclosure, canal and railway acts, patents protected inventors and India was opened to British goods. Once Britain led, it adopted free trade with the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846).
Germany: The Prussian-led Zollverein (1834) created a large internal market. Friedrich List, in The National System of Political Economy (1841), urged tariffs for infant industry, and Bismarck's tariff of 1879 provided them. Prussia nationalised most railways and supported technical education.
France and Belgium: Belgium built a state railway network from 1834. Napoleon III encouraged investment banks such as the Crédit Mobilier (1852), railways and the rebuilding of Paris, and signed the Cobden–Chevalier treaty (1860).
Russia: After emancipation (1861), Sergei Witte used railways, tariffs, the gold standard and foreign loans to force rapid growth in the 1890s.
Common tools: Governments unified currencies, abolished internal customs and guilds, built transport, protected markets with tariffs, promoted education and placed military orders.
Policy could not create industry without resources, capital and entrepreneurs, and Spain and Italy progressed slowly despite intervention. Yet from British free trade to Russian state capitalism, government policy was essential to European industrialisation.Q6(b) · Industrialisation, Nationalism and Imperialism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Rise of Nationalism and the Unification of Germany and Italy
How was Italy transformed from 'a geographical expression' to a nation-state?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
इटली को 'एक भौगोलिक अभिव्यक्ति' से एक राष्ट्र-राज्य के रूप में कैसे परिवर्तित किया गया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)
Approach: Explain Metternich's phrase and the obstacles, then the forces that made the nation-state (ideas, Piedmont, diplomacy, war, popular action), and end with the limits of unification.
In 1847 Metternich dismissed Italy as a mere geographical expression. After 1815 it was divided among Piedmont-Sardinia, Austrian Lombardy-Venetia, the Papal States, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the central duchies, with Austrian troops guarding the settlement.
Obstacles: Austrian dominance, the Pope's temporal power, regional dialects and economies, and a gulf between the developed north and the agrarian south.
Ideas: The Napoleonic period had given a taste of unified rule. Mazzini's Young Italy (1831) preached a democratic republic; Gioberti hoped for a federation under the Pope; others looked to Piedmont. Secret societies such as the Carbonari led revolts in 1820–21 and 1831.
1848: The failure of the revolutions showed that a strong state and foreign help were needed.
Cavour and Piedmont: Cavour built railways, modernised the army and won French support at Plombières (1858). War in 1859 gave Lombardy, and plebiscites joined the central duchies in 1860.
Garibaldi: His Thousand conquered the Two Sicilies in 1860, and the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861. Venetia came in 1866 and Rome in 1870 through Prussia's wars.
Unification was political rather than social; the saying attributed to d'Azeglio, that having made Italy the task was to make Italians, captures the problem. The southern question and the Pope's hostility persisted. Italy became a nation-state through diplomacy and war more than popular will.Q6(c) · Enlightenment, Revolutions and Modern Politics · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The French Revolution and Its Aftermath, 1789–1815
How far did the Napoleonic preferential stance to help out the French economy result in embroiling France in continental conflicts?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
फ्रांस की अर्थव्यवस्था को सहायता पहुँचाने का नेपोलियन का तरज़ीही दृष्टिकोण फ्रांस को कहाँ तक महाद्वीपीय संघर्षों में उलझाने में परिणत हुआ?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)
Approach: Explain Napoleon's 'France first' economic policy within the Continental System and show how it drew France into wars and occupations, then qualify.
Napoleon's Continental System (Berlin Decree 1806, Milan Decree 1807) aimed to exclude British trade from Europe and also to give French industry a privileged market. He wrote in 1810 that his principle was France before all.
Preferential stance: allied and satellite states had to buy French goods while French tariffs shut out their products; Italy was forced to send raw silk to France; the Trianon tariff (1810) taxed colonial goods; and France alone sold licences to trade with Britain.
Embroilment: enforcement required control of every coast. Portugal's refusal led to invasion (1807) and the Spanish war (1808–14). Holland was annexed (1810) after Louis Bonaparte failed to enforce the blockade, as were the north German coast and Oldenburg, offending Russia. Tsar Alexander's ukase of December 1810 opened Russia to neutral ships and taxed French goods, leading to the invasion of 1812.
Qualification: the wars had other causes, such as Napoleon's dynastic ambitions and the rivalry with Britain and Austria.
The preferential economic policy alienated allies and drew France into its most ruinous conflicts.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Industrialisation, Nationalism and Imperialism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Imperialism in South and South-East Asia
Which factors would you attribute to the British colonial intervention in Malaya in the 19th century? How did Malays react to British colonial rule?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
19वीं शताब्दी में मलाया में ब्रिटिश औपनिवेशिक हस्तक्षेप के लिए आप किन कारकों को उत्तरदायी ठहराएँगे? ब्रिटिश औपनिवेशिक शासन के प्रति मलयों ने कैसी प्रतिक्रिया की?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)
Approach: Two parts: the factors behind British intervention (trade, tin, strategy, local disorder, rival powers), then the Malay responses from resistance to accommodation and early nationalism.
Britain's presence in Malaya began with the Straits Settlements of Penang (1786), Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), but until 1874 it avoided involvement in the Malay states.
Factors of intervention: First, economic: the tin mines of Perak and Selangor attracted Chinese miners and Straits capital, and the growth of the British tinplate industry raised demand. Second, disorder: civil wars among Chinese secret societies in Larut and disputed Malay successions threatened trade, and Straits merchants lobbied for intervention. Third, strategy: the Suez Canal (1869) made the Malacca Strait a major route, and Britain feared Germany or another power might step in. Fourth, the new Colonial Office policy under Kimberley and Governor Andrew Clarke.
Expansion: The Pangkor Engagement (1874) made the Sultan of Perak accept a British Resident, whose advice he had to follow except on religion and Malay custom. The system spread to Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, which formed the Federated Malay States (1896). Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu and Perlis came from Siam in 1909, and Johor accepted an adviser in 1914.
Malay reaction: Armed resistance: Resident J.W.W. Birch was killed in 1875, leading to the Perak War; Pahang chiefs rebelled in 1891–95; and Terengganu peasants rose in 1928. Accommodation: most sultans and aristocrats accepted British rule, which preserved their status and Islam, and Malay elites entered the civil service.
Early nationalism: Reformist journals such as Al-Imam (1906) and the Kesatuan Melayu Muda (1938) criticised British rule and Chinese and Indian economic dominance.
British intervention combined economic interest and strategic fear, and Malay reactions moved from local resistance to elite collaboration and later nationalism.Q7(b) · Industrialisation, Nationalism and Imperialism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Imperialism in Latin America, South Africa and Australia
Explain why Latin America was beset with chronic political instability and endemic military conflicts throughout most of the 19th century.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
व्याख्या कीजिए कि लैटिन अमरीका क्यों पूरी 19वीं शताब्दी के अधिकांश काल में चिरकालिक राजनीतिक अस्थिरता एवं क्षेत्रीय सैनिक संघर्षों में घिरा रहा।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(b)
Approach: Explain the causes of instability (colonial legacy, caudillos, regionalism, Church-state conflict, economic dependence, foreign intervention) and the main wars, then conclude.
After the wars of independence (1810–25) Spanish America broke into many republics, and Brazil became an empire. For most of the century the region suffered coups, civil wars and wars between states.
Colonial legacy: Spain left no tradition of self-government; power lay with a creole elite while Indians, mestizos and slaves were excluded. Independence destroyed central authority without creating new institutions.
Caudillos: The wars produced armed strongmen, such as Rosas in Argentina and Santa Anna in Mexico, who ruled through personal followings. John Lynch's study of the caudillo shows how they filled the vacuum of authority.
Regionalism and ideology: Federalists fought centralists, and liberals fought conservatives over the Church's land and privileges, as in Mexico's War of Reform (1857–61). Gran Colombia and the Central American federation broke apart.
Economic dependence: Economies relied on exporting silver, guano, nitrates, coffee and beef to Britain. Dependency theorists such as Andre Gunder Frank and Cardoso and Faletto argue that this informal empire strengthened landed oligarchies and weak states.
Wars: Border disputes caused the Paraguayan War (1864–70), which devastated Paraguay, and the War of the Pacific (1879–84), in which Chile took Bolivia's coast. Foreign intervention included the Mexican-American War (1846–48) and the French intervention in Mexico (1861–67).
Late in the century export booms brought order under dictators such as Porfirio Díaz, but stability rested on oligarchy, not consensus. Instability was rooted in the colonial legacy, militarised politics and dependent economies.Q7(c) · Decolonisation, European Unity and the End of the Cold War · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Unification of Europe: NATO, the European Community and the European Union
Do you agree with the view that the formation of NATO marked a revolution in American attitude to the world problems?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस मत से सहमत हैं कि नाटो (NATO) के गठन ने वैश्विक समस्याओं के प्रति अमरीकी दृष्टिकोण में एक क्रान्ति को अंकित किया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)
Approach: Give a reasoned agreement or disagreement: show why NATO broke with the American tradition of avoiding alliances, then why it was the culmination of a change already under way, and conclude.
Since Washington's Farewell Address (1796) and Jefferson's warning against entangling alliances, the USA had avoided permanent commitments in Europe, and after 1919 it rejected the League of Nations.
Case for a revolution: the North Atlantic Treaty (April 1949) was the first American peacetime military alliance outside the Western Hemisphere since the French alliance of 1778, and Article 5 bound it in advance to defend Europe.
Permanent presence: after the Korean War began, US divisions and an American supreme commander, Eisenhower, were stationed in Europe, a lasting commitment.
Case against: the change had begun earlier, with Lend-Lease and wartime alliance, the UN (1945), the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan (1947), the Rio Treaty (1947) and the Vandenberg Resolution (1948) authorising such pacts.
European initiative: Geir Lundestad calls US power in Western Europe an empire by invitation, since Britain and France pressed for the alliance.
NATO marked a revolution in the form of American commitment, but it completed a shift from isolationism to containment that began in the Second World War.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Enlightenment, Revolutions and Modern Politics · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The European States System
Do you subscribe to the view that the Greek War of Independence was mired in contrasts of the best and the worst episodes? How did it affect the Concert of Europe?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस मत से सहमत हैं कि यूनानी स्वतंत्रता युद्ध श्रेष्ठ एवं निकृष्ट घटनाओं के वैषम्यों में फँसा रहा? इसने यूरोपीय व्यवस्था (कान्सर्ट ऑफ यूरोप) को किस प्रकार प्रभावित किया?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)
Approach: Two parts: show the 'best' (idealism, philhellenism, liberation) and 'worst' (massacres, factionalism, great-power self-interest) of the Greek war, then its effect on the Concert of Europe.
The Greek War of Independence (1821–32) began with Alexander Ypsilantis's raid into the Danubian principalities and the rising in the Morea in 1821, inspired by the Philiki Etaireia.
The best: it was the first successful national liberation movement in post-Napoleonic Europe. It aroused European philhellenism: volunteers and funds came from Britain, France and Germany, and Lord Byron died at Missolonghi (1824). The Greek constitutions of 1822 and 1827 showed liberal aspirations.
The worst: it was savage on both sides. Greek forces massacred Muslim inhabitants at Tripolitsa (1821); Ottoman forces massacred and enslaved the people of Chios (1822), an event Delacroix painted. Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt devastated the Morea from 1825. The Greeks fought civil wars among themselves, and their first governor, Kapodistrias, was assassinated in 1831.
Great-power intervention: the Treaty of London (1827) bound Britain, France and Russia to impose an armistice; their fleets destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at Navarino (October 1827). Russia's war of 1828–29 ended in the Treaty of Adrianople, and the London Protocol (1830) recognised Greek independence, with Otto of Bavaria as king (1832).
Effect on the Concert of Europe: Metternich's principle of intervention against revolution (Troppau, 1820) was reversed: great powers now intervened for rebels against a legitimate sovereign.
The war divided the powers. Austria was isolated, Britain under Canning broke with the congress system, and Russia gained influence, opening the Eastern Question.
Yet the Concert survived in a looser form: the powers jointly managed Greek and later Belgian independence, showing it could regulate change as well as resist it.
The war thus combined the noblest and the cruellest episodes, and it turned the Concert from a defender of the status quo into a looser forum of great-power management.Q8(b) · Revolutions, World Wars and the Post-War World · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Causes and Consequences of World War II
Was Czechoslovakia served on a dish to Hitler at Munich? What were its implications?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या म्यूनिख़ में हिटलर को चेकोस्लोवाकिया एक तस्तरी में पेश किया गया? इसके क्या निहितार्थ थे?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)
Approach: The question has two parts: judge whether Czechoslovakia was "served on a dish" at Munich by narrating the crisis and weighing the case for and against appeasement, then set out the implications for Czechoslovakia, Europe and the coming war.
Czechoslovakia, the only democracy left in Central Europe, had about three million Germans in the Sudetenland. In 1938 Hitler used Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party to demand the region.
The crisis: Chamberlain flew to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden (15 September) and Bad Godesberg (22 September); at Munich on 29–30 September Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini agreed that Germany would occupy the Sudetenland. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the USSR was invited; the Czechs were told to accept or fight alone.
Served on a dish: France abandoned its 1925 alliance with Czechoslovakia; the Czechs lost their border fortifications and industry; Poland seized Teschen and Hungary took southern Slovakia; and the "guarantee" of what remained proved worthless. Guilty Men (1940) by "Cato" condemned the appeasers.
The defence: Britain's rearmament was incomplete, the chiefs of staff warned against war, the dominions and public opinion opposed it, and many thought Sudeten Germans had a case under self-determination. A.J.P. Taylor saw Munich as a triumph for British ideals; R.A.C. Parker argued that Chamberlain had alternatives, such as an alliance with France and the USSR.
Implications: Hitler occupied Prague in March 1939, ending appeasement and prompting the British guarantee to Poland. Stalin concluded that the West could not be trusted and signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939). Germany gained the Skoda works and Czech arms, and "Munich" became a byword for surrender to aggression.
Czechoslovakia was indeed sacrificed without being consulted; whatever time Munich bought for Britain, it made Hitler stronger and war more likely.Q8(c) · Decolonisation, European Unity and the End of the Cold War · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The Arab World: Egypt and Nasser
Analyse the role of Egypt after the Second World War in bringing about Arab unity.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के पश्चात् अरब एकता लाने में मिस्र की भूमिका का विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)
Approach: Analyse Egypt's role in Arab unity after 1945 by phases (the Arab League, Nasser's pan-Arabism, the UAR, decline after 1967 and Sadat), weighing achievements against limits.
As the most populous Arab state and the centre of Arabic media, Egypt was the natural leader of Arab unity after 1945.
Arab League (March 1945): founded in Cairo, it reflected Egypt's ambition but stayed a loose body of rival monarchies, exposed by the defeat of 1948.
Nasser's pan-Arabism: in The Philosophy of the Revolution he placed Egypt at the head of an Arab circle; Suez (1956) made him its hero.
United Arab Republic (1958-61): the union with Syria was the high point of practical unity, but Egyptian domination provoked a Syrian coup in 1961.
Support for others: Egypt backed the Algerian FLN, the Palestinian cause and the Yemeni republicans.
Limits: rivalry with Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the Yemen war and the 1967 defeat weakened its lead; Sadat's peace with Israel (1979) led to Egypt's suspension from the Arab League until 1989.
Egypt gave Arab unity its leadership, symbols and institutions, but its own dominance and national interests also kept that unity fragile.