ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THEMES IN

INDIAN HISTORY

Textbook in History

for Class XII

THEMES IN

INDIAN HISTORY

12094 - THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY (PART II)

First Edition

Reprinted

Revised Edition

Reprinted

PD 45T BS

© National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2007, 2022

₹ 105.00

Published at the Publication Division by the Secretary, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110 016 and printed at Reyanshi Enterprises, Khasra No. 24/20, Nangli Sakrawati, Najafgarh Industrial Area, New Delhi-110043

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OFFICES OF THE PUBLICATION

DIVISION, NCERT

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Cover and Layout

Cartography

FOREWORD

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, recommends that children's life at school must be linked to their life outside the school. This principle marks a departure from the legacy of bookish learning which continues to shape our system and causes a gap between the school, home and community. The syllabi and textbooks developed on the basis of NCF signify an attempt to implement this basic idea. They also attempt to discourage rote learning and the maintenance of sharp boundaries between different subject areas. We hope these measures will take us significantly further in the direction of a child-centred system of education outlined in the National Policy on Education (1986).

The success of this effort depends on the steps that school principals and teachers will take to encourage children to reflect on their own learning and to pursue imaginative activities and questions. We must recognise that, given space, time and freedom, children generate new knowledge by engaging with the information passed on to them by adults. Treating the prescribed textbook as the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other resources and sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is possible if we perceive and treat children as participants in learning, not as receivers of a fixed body of knowledge.

These aims imply considerable change in school routines and mode of functioning. Flexibility in the daily time-table is as necessary as rigour in implementing the annual calendar so that the required number of teaching days are actually devoted to teaching. The methods used for teaching and evaluation will also determine how effective this textbook proves for making children's life at school a happy experience, rather than a source of stress or boredom. Syllabus designers have tried to address the problem of curricular burden by restructuring and reorienting knowledge at different stages with greater consideration for child psychology and the time available for teaching. The textbook attempts to enhance this endeavour by giving higher priority and space to opportunities for contemplation and wondering, discussion in small groups, and activities requiring hands-on experience.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) appreciates the hard work done by the textbook development committee responsible for this book. We wish to thank the Chairperson of the advisory group in Social Sciences, Professor Hari Vasudevan, and the Chief Advisor for this book, Professor Neeladri Bhattacharya, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for guiding the work of this committee. Several teachers contributed to the development of this textbook; we are grateful to their principals for making this possible. We are indebted to the institutions and organisations which have generously permitted us to draw upon their resources, material and personnel. We are especially grateful to the members of the National Monitoring Committee, appointed by the Department of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development under the Chairpersonship of Professor Mrinal Miri and Professor G.P. Deshpande, for their valuable time and contribution. As an organisation committed to systemic reform and continuous improvement in the quality of its products, NCERT welcomes comments and suggestions which will enable us to undertake further revision and refinement.

RATIONALISATION OF CONTENT IN THE TEXTBOOKS

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative to reduce content load on students. The National Education Policy 2020, also emphasises reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with creative mindset. In this background, the NCERT has undertaken the exercise to rationalise the textbooks across all classes. Learning Outcomes already developed by the NCERT across classes have been taken into consideration in this exercise.

Contents of the textbooks have been rationalised in view of the following:

This present edition, is a reformatted version after carrying out the changes given above.

THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

PREAMBLE

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a $^{1}$ [SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC] and to secure to all its citizens :

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the $^{2}$ [unity and integrity of the Nation];

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949 do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

DEFINING THE FOCUS OF STUDY

What defines the focus of this book? What does it seek to do? How is it linked to what has been studied in earlier classes?

In Classes VI to VIII we looked at Indian history from early beginnings to modern times, with a focus on one chronological period in each year. Then in the books for Classes IX and X, the frame of reference changed. We looked at a shorter period of time, focusing specifically on a close study of the contemporary world. We moved beyond territorial boundaries, beyond the limits of nation states, to see how different people in different places have played their part in the making of the modern world. The history of India became connected to a wider inter-linked history. Subsequently in Class XI we studied Themes in World History, expanding our chronological focus, looking at the vast span of years from the beginning of human life to the present, but selecting only a set of themes for serious exploration. This year we will study Themes in Indian History.

The book begins with Harappa and ends with the framing of the Indian Constitution. What it offers is not a general survey of five millennia, but a close study of select themes. The history books in earlier years have already acquainted you with Indian history. It is time we explored some themes in greater detail.

In choosing the themes we have tried to ensure that we learn about developments in different spheres – economic, cultural, social, political, and religious – even as we attempt to break the boundaries between them. Some themes in the book will introduce you to the politics of the times and the nature of authority and power; others explore the way societies are organised, and the way they function and change; still others tell us about religious life and ritual practices, about the working of economies, and the changes within rural and urban societies.

Each of these themes will also allow you to have a closer look at the historians' craft. To retrieve the past, historians have to find sources that make the past accessible. But sources do not just reveal the past; historians have to grapple with sources, interpret them, and make them speak. This is what makes history exciting. The same sources can tell us new things if we ask new questions, and engage with them in new ways. So we need to see how historians read sources, and how they discover new things in old sources.

But historians do not only re-examine old records. They discover new ones. Sometimes these could be chance discoveries. Archaeologists may unexpectedly come across seals and mounds that provide clues to the existence of a site of an ancient civilisation. Rummaging through the dusty records of a district collectorate a historian may trip over a bundle of records that contain legal cases of local disputes, and these may open up a new world of village life several centuries back. Yet are such discoveries only accidents? You may bump into a bundle of old records in an archive, open it up and see it, without discovering the significance of the source. The source may mean nothing to you unless you have relevant questions in mind. You have to track the source, read the text, follow the clues, and make the inter-connections before you can reconstruct the past. The physical discovery of a record does not simply open up the past. When Alexander Cunningham first saw a Harappan seal, he could make no sense of it. Only much later was the significance of the seals discovered.

In fact when historians begin to ask new questions, explore new themes, they have to often search for new types of sources. If we wish to know about revolutionaries and rebels, official sources can reveal only a partial picture, one that will be shaped by official censure and prejudice. We need to look for other sources – diaries of rebels, their personal letters, their writings and pronouncements. And these are not always easy to come by. If we have to understand experiences of people, then oral sources might reveal more than written sources.

As the vision of history broadens, historians begin tracking new sources, searching for new clues to understand the past. And when that happens, the conception of what constitutes a source itself changes. There was a time when only written records were acknowledged as authentic. What was written could be verified, cited, and cross-checked. Oral evidence was never considered a valid source: who was to guarantee its authenticity and verifiability? This mistrust of oral sources has not yet disappeared, but oral evidence has been innovatively used to uncover experiences that no other record could reveal.

Through the book this year, you will enter the world of historians, accompany them in their search for new clues, and see how they carry on their dialogues with the past. You will witness the way they tease out meaning out of records, read inscriptions, excavate archaeological sites, make sense of beads and bones, interpret the epics, look at the stupas and buildings, examine paintings and photographs, interpret police reports and revenue records, and listen to the voices of the past. Each theme will explore the peculiarities and possibilities of one particular type of source. It will discuss what a source can tell and what it cannot.

This is Part II, of Themes in Indian History. Part III will follow.

TEXTBOOK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

CHAIRPERSON, ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Hari Vasudevan, Professor, Department of History, University of Calcutta, Kolkata

CHIEF ADVISOR

Neeladri Bhattacharya, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (Theme 9)

ADVISORS

Kumkum Roy, Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Monica Juneja, Guest Professor, Institut Furgeschichte, Viennna, Austria

TEAM MEMBERS

MEMBER-COORDINATORS

Anil Sethi, Professor, DESS, NCERT, New Delhi Seema Shukla Ojha, Lecturer, DESS, NCERT, New Delhi

Themes in Indian History, Part II has, like Part I, benefited from the enthusiastic participation and help of many people and institutions, whom it is a pleasure to thank.

For valuable and extensive comments on draft chapters we are immensely grateful to John Fritz, Sunil Kumar and Supriya Varma. We would also like to thank Meena Bhargava, Ranabir Chakravarti, Ranjeeta Datta, Bharati Jagannathan and Nandita Prasad Sahai for their prompt help in clarifying issues. The suggestions made by the members of the Monitoring Committee, Prof. J. S. Grewal and Shobha Bajpai have been very useful.

Visual material for the book was provided by different individuals and institutions. Above all we wish to thank George Michell and John Fritz for their generosity in allowing us to draw upon their rich pool of resources on Vijayanagara.

For careful copy-editing and reading of proofs we gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Shyama Warner. Thanks are equally due to Ritu Topa and Animesh Roy of Arrt Creations, New Delhi, who designed the book with patience and skill. K. Varghese of Jawaharlal Nehru University provided the maps. Albinus Tirkey and Manoj Haldar offered technical support. Samira Varma has been a help in many valuable ways, not least by remaining cheerful throughout.

Finally, we look forward to feedback from the users of the book, which will help us improve it in subsequent editions.

The review committee members for the rationalisation of the content of this textbook are Umesh Ashok Kadam, centre for Historical studies, JNU, New Delhi; Svaril Kumar Singh, PGT History, Kendriya Vidyalaya; Krishna Ranjan, PGT History, Kedriya Vidalaya; Archana Verma, Dept. of History Hindu College, University of Delhi; Shruti Mishra, PGT History, HoD, History, Delhi Public School; Gouri Srivastava, Head, DESS; Pratyusa Khandal, DESS, NCERt; Mily Roy Anand, Seema S. Ojha, Sharad K. Pandey, DESS, NCERT.

The review committee members for the rationalisation of the content of this textbook are Umesh Ashok Kadam, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, New Delhi; Sunil Kumar Singh, PGT History, Kendriya Vidyalaya; Krishna Ranjan, PGT History, Kendriya Vidyalaya; Archana Verma, Dept. of History, Hindu College, University of Delhi; Shruti Mishra, PGT History, HoD, History, Delhi Public School; Gouri Srivastava, Head, DESS; Pratyusa K. Mandal, DESS, NCERT; Mily Roy Anand, Seema S. Ojha, Sharad K. Pandey, DESS, NCERT.

CONTENTS

PART II

THEME FIVE

THEME SIX

THEME SEVEN

THEME EIGHT

PART III*

THEME NINE

THEME TEN

THEME ELEVEN

MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT Civil Disobedience and Beyond

THEME TWELVE

PART I

THEME ONE

THEME TWO

THEME THREE

KINSHIP, CASTE AND CLASS Early Societies (c. 600 BCE - 600 CE)

THEME FOUR

THINKERS, BELIEFS AND BUILDINGS Cultural Developments (c. 600 BCE - 600 CE)

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This is Part II of Themes in Indian History. Part III will follow.

These contain:

These are meant to assist and enrich the learning process, but are not intended for evaluation.

Sources

(c) Sources are enclosed within separate boxes: these contain excerpts from a wide variety of texts and inscriptions. Both visual and textual sources will help you acquire a feel for the clues that historians use. You will also see how historians analyse these clues. The final examination can include excerpts from and/or illustrations of identical/similar material, providing you with an opportunity to handle these.

(a) those within a yellow box, which may be used for practice for evaluation.

(b) those with the caption ➔ Discuss... which are not for evaluation

√ There are four types of assignments at the end of each chapter:

These are meant to provide practice for the final assessment and evaluation.