History: 2012: CBSE: [All India]: Set – II

According to the Manusmriti –
a) The paternal estate was to be divided equally amongst sons after the death of the parents.
b) Eldest son got a special share in property. 
c) Women could not claim a share of these resources.

a) Pilgrimage to the tomb of Sufi saints is called ziyarat.
b) It is prevalent all over the Muslim world.
c) This practice is observed for seeking the spiritual grace (barakat) of the Sufi saints.

Hill stations were important for the colonial economy, because their uses as summer vacation spots for Europeans and the colonialists were converted into the cultivation spots for tea and coffee and other plantations.

When the hill stations were connected by the railways with the rest of plain regions, they became more profitable to the colonial economy especially when the immigrant labour from the adjoining areas was given easy access by the new transport.

a) Harappan civilization people used to place various articles with the dead body. Copper mirror, necklace of beads, semi precious stones were buried in the burials for both males and females of rich class. 
b) Ornaments and pottery are found buried in some of the graves.
c) Poor people used to place pottery with dead body.
d) At Lothal, a dead body was buried with the goats and pottery.

a) The Kharosthi script was deciphered by James Prinsep, using the bilingual coins of the Indo-Greeks.
b) Prinsep followed the clues provided by other historians regarding the decipherment of Kharosthi.
c) After some mistaken readings, he was finally able to find the values of nineteen single letters and one compound of Kharosthi as well.
This led to the reading of the Edicts of Ashoka, some of which, from the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, were written in the Kharosthi script.

(i) The natural basin formed by the river Tungabhadra is probably the most striking feature about the location of Vijayanagara.

(ii) Granite hills surround the city, forming a girdle around it. These form the basis of many streams flowing towards the city from the rocky outcrops.

(iii) The landscape around the city is very arid, which made it essential to make arrangements regarding rain water conservation. Water tanks, such as the fifteenth century Kamalapuram tank, were made to counter the dry seasons of the area.

(iv) Agricultural hinterland and forests were included in the city limits. The massive fort wall surrounded the agricultural tracts providing safety, not only to the rulers, but also to the farmers.

(i) Ranks known as mansabs were held by those who were able and fortunate enough to be a member of the Mughal nobility.

(ii) This rank denoted the position of the noble in the imperial hierarchy and the amount of salary that was to be received by him.

(iii) The mansabdars were also supposed to maintain an army in order to aid the Mughal Emperor in times of need.

(iv) The Emperor took personal interest in reviewing the titles, ranks and official postings of the nobility. This made the nobility especially close to central figure of power.

(i)Many historians still remain sceptical of oral history. 
They hesitate to use oral evidence for the reconstruction of historical events, because in their opinion, oral data lacks concreteness and precision of the chronology they may provide. 
(ii)Oral history which consists of mostly personal experience of individuals makes generalisation difficult.
(iii)Historians argue that large picture cannot be built from such micro-evidence, and one witness is no witness. 
(iv)They also think oral accounts are concerned with tangential issues, and that the small individual experiences which remain in memory are irrelevant to the unfolding of larger processes of history.
(v)But as far as historical events such as the Partition of India and the German Holocaust by Hitler are concerned, oral evidence provide valuable insights through oral history.

(i) Communist member, Somnath Lahiri had predicted the real threat that could snatch away the hard-earned freedom of the new-born Indian nation due to the presence of the British.
Explanation - He had the fear that choosing the Westminster-style of democratic system, as forced on India by the Colonialists, would drag India into the groups of the ex-colonised nations that had accepted to remain as subjects to the British Viceroy and Queen in the name of a commonwealth nation of British.
He requested the members of the Constituent Assembly to frame their own independent foreign policies based on true democratic principles free from the imperialistic traps set by the British government; he also suggested that India could adopt a Communist State of the workers that had been established in the USSR after the 1917 Revolution.
(ii) Yes, I agree with the views expressed by the Communist leader.
Explanation - Fear of the intervention of the British imperialism in the affairs of free India (especially on the matter of selecting a form of government) that the Communist leader had was absolutely correct, because the Freedom struggle was waged to have an independent country- free from any clutches of the colonial economic exploitative rule, so that Indians could choose the path of their nation’s destiny. But when the time for such a historical moment approached, the British intervention in that very matter of the form of rule and the nature of the Constitution was an imperialistic trap to keep India under the colonial economic exploitation.