You are on page 1of 26

KING OF AWLIYA

“The purpose of education is not to


make a machine, but to make the
human being”

-Sheikh Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani r.a.

10TH CBSE
SOCIAL SCIENCE
NOTES
HISTORY
SA-I

2016
SIKANDAR BAIG SIR
mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com
Chapter 4

The Making of a Global World

Globalisation
started as early as 3000 BCE with the exchange of money, values, skills, ideas, inventions and
even germs and diseases.

Silk Routes
 Many silk routes connected Asia with Europe and northern Africa.
 Chinese silk, pottery, Indian textiles and spices were traded for precious metals from Europe.
 Christian missionaries and Muslim preachers travelled through these routes for preaching
and teaching religion. Buddhism too spread by using these routes.
 Indian foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chillies and sweet
potatoes travelled from Europe and Asia.

Conquest and Trade


 The pre-modern world shrank greatly in the sixteenth century when the European sailors
found a sea route to Asia.
 The Portuguese and Spanish conquest and colonisation of America was decisively underway
by the mid-sixteenth century.
 Diseases such as smallpox (from Spain) were brought by the conquerors, which spread
quickly into the continent of America and Europe. This killed and decimated whole
communities, paving the way for their conquest.
 In America, by the eighteenth century, plantations worked by slaves captured in Africa were
growing cotton and sugar for European markets.
 China retreated to isolation by restricting her overseas contacts from the fifteenth century.
Hence, Europe now emerged as the centre of world trade.

The Nineteenth Century (1815-


1914)
 The world changed a lot due to the flow of trade, flow of labour and the movement of
capital.
 The growth in population from the late eighteenth century increased the demands for food
grains in Britain. As urban centres expanded and industry grew, the demand for agricultural
products went up, pushing up food grain prices.
 The Corn Law restricted the import of corns. Unhappy with the high food prices,industrialists
and urban dwellers forced the abolition of Corn Law.

1|Page
 After the Corn Law, imports were cheaper than the produce. The British demand rose with a
fall in the food prices as their incomes and consumption both increased.
 In Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia lands were cleared and food production
increased to meet the British demand.
 Railways were built for linking the agricultural regions to the ports. New harbours were built
and new homes and settlements were constructed.
 The capital came from Britain and labour was supplied from America, Australia and other
places.
 By 1890, many people and cultures were exchanged due to this interaction.

Role of Technology in Spreading


Globalisation
 The railways, steamships and the telegraph were important inventions of the 19th century
world.
 Social, political and economic factors made the technology advanced.
 Refrigerated ships were made for transporting perishable food over long distances.
 Frozen meat could now be transported, making it available for the poor in Europe.
 Better living conditions promoted social peace within the country and support for
imperialism abroad.

Late Nineteenth Century


Colonialism
 The expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the world economy meant a loss of
freedom and livelihoods for many Asian, American and African countries.
 Late nineteenth century European conquests produced many painful economic,
 social and ecological changes through which the colonized societies were brought into the
world economy.
 Britain, France, Belgium, US and Germany became colonial powers.
 Europeans faced a shortage of labour in Africa due to the unwillingness of the self sufficient
people to work for wage.
 Rinderpest or the Cattle Plague, 1890: Rinderpest arrived in Africa. It was carried by infected
cattle imported from British Asia for feeding the Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East
Africa. Rinderpest killed 90 per cent of the cattle. African livelihoods were destroyed due to
the loss of cattle.
 Planters, mine owners and colonial governments now successfully monopolized what scarce
cattle remained and strengthened their position in Africa and forced the Africans into the
labour markets.
 Heavy taxes were imposed, which could be paid only by working for wages on plantations
and mines.
 Only one person of the family was allowed to inherit the land; thus, pushing the others into
the labour market.

2|Page
 Mineworkers were also confined to compounds and not allowed to move about freely.

Indentured Labour Migration from


India
 Hundreds and thousands of indentured Chinese and Indian labourers were hired for working
in plantations, mines and road and railway construction projects around the world.
 Most indentured workers came from the present-day regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Central India and the dry districts of Tamil Nadu. These regions experienced a decline in
cottage industries and rising land rents.
 The poor could not pay their rents and became deeply indebted and were forced to migrate
in search of work.
 The main destinations of Indian indentured migrants were the Caribbean islands (Mainly
Trinidad,), Mauritius and Fiji. Tamil migrants went to Ceylon and Malaya.
 Indentured workers were also recruited for tea plantation in Assam.
 Recruitments were done by the agents engaged by employers.
 Nineteenth century indenture has been described as a ‘new system of slavery’.
 Living and working conditions of indentured labourers were harsh and few legal rights were
granted to them.
 Labourers assimilated themselves with the culture of the new place. In Trinidad, the annual
Muharram procession was transformed into a riotous carnival called ‘Hosay’ in which
workers of all races and religion joined. ‘Chutney music,’ popular in Trinidad and Guyana, is
another creative contemporary expression of the postindenture experience.
 1921: Indenture labour migration was abolished officially

Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad


 Indian traders followed the colonialists and established business at the newly colonised
regions of the world.
 Shikaripuri Shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars financed export agriculture in Central and
Southeast Asia, using either their own funds or those borrowed from European banks.
 Hyderabadi Sindhi traders established flourishing emporia at busy ports worldwide,selling
local and imported curios to tourists.

Indian Trade, Colonialism and the


Global System
 Imposition of tariffs on cloth imports into Britain made the demand of the fine Indian cotton
decline.
 India helped Britain balance its deficits with other countries by importing British goods at
high cost and exporting its raw materials at a low cost.

3|Page
Wartime Transformations
 The First World War (1914-18) was fought between two power blocs i.e., the Allies
comprising Britain, France and Russia (later joined by the US) and the Central Powers
comprising Germany, Austria, Hungary and Ottoman Turkey.
 The First World War was the first modern industrial war. Machine guns, tanks, aircrafts,
chemical weapons, etc. were used on a massive scale.
 The death of the able-bodied led to a decline in the workforce in Europe. Hence, household
incomes declined.
 During the war, industries were reconstructed to produce war-related goods.
 Entire societies were also reorganized for war as men went to battle and women did jobs
that earlier only men were expected to do.
 Britain borrowed large sums of money from US banks and the public. Thus, making the US
and its citizens own more overseas assets than foreign governments and citizens owned in
the US.

Post-War Recovery
 Post-war recovery for Britain was hopeless. Burdened with huge external debts, Britain
could not compete with Japan and recapture its dominance over the Indian market.
 1921: One in every five British workers was out of work due to the increase in the
unemployment rate and a fall in the production, after an initial period of the wartime boom.
 Grain prices fell, rural income declined and farmers fell deeper into debt because of
the recovery of the European wheat production as markets were over-flooded with food
grains.

Rise of Mass Production and


Consumption
 1920: Mass production seen as an important feature in the US The T-Model Ford was the
world’s first mass-produced car.
 An increase in the output per worker was achieved by speeding up the pace of the work
under the watchful eyes of the conveyor.
 Wages were doubled and trade unions were disbanded.
 The purchasing capacity of workers increased.
 Credit repaid in weekly or monthly instalments increased the demand for refrigerators,
washing machines, radios, gramophone players etc.
 Large investments in housing and household goods created high employment and incomes
and a rise in consumption, investments, employment and incomes.
 1923: The US resumed exporting capital to the rest of the world and became the largest
overseas lender. US imports and capital exports also boosted European recovery and world
trade and income growth over the next six years.

4|Page
The Great Depression (1929-1930)
 The world experienced declines in production, employment, incomes and trade.
 The fall in agricultural prices was more prolonged than the prices of industrial goods.
 Causes
1.Agricultural overproduction: The falling agricultural prices caused a decline in agricultural
incomes. The farmers now tried to expand production and bring a larger volume of produce
to the market for maintaining their overall income. This worsened the situation in the
market, pushing down prices even further. Farm produce rotted for a lack of buyers.
2.In the first half of 1928, US overseas loans amounted to over $1 billion.Countries that
depended crucially on US loans now faced an acute crisis.
3.The withdrawal of the US loans led to the failure of some major banks and the collapse of
currencies such as the British Pound Sterling.
4.In Latin America and elsewhere, it intensified the slump in agricultural and raw material
prices.
5.The US attempt to protect its economy in the depression by doubling import duties also
affected the world trade.
 Effects
1.By 1933, over 4,000 banks had closed.
2.1929-1932: 110,000 companies had collapsed.
3.Farmers could not sell their harvests, households were ruined and business collapsed.
4.A household in the US could not repay what they had borrowed and were forced to give
up their homes, cars and other consumer durables.
5.Unable to recover investments, collect loans and repay depositors, thousands of banks
went bankrupt and were forced to close. Thus, the US banking system collapsed.

India and the Great Depression


 1928-1934: India’s exports and imports nearly halved
 Wheat prices in India fell by 50%.
 Though agricultural prices fell sharply, the colonial government refused to reduce revenue
demands. Peasants producing for the world market were the worst hit.
 Peasants who borrowed in the hope of better times or to increase output in the hope of
higher incomes faced even lower prices and fell deeper into debt.
 Peasants used up their savings, mortgaged lands and sold whatever jewellery and precious
metals they had to meet their expenses.
 India became an exporter of precious metals notably gold, which helped speed up the British
recovery.
 In urban India, because of the fall in prices, the fixed salaried people found themselves
better off. Industrial investment also grew as the government extended tariff protection to
industries under the pressure of nationalist opinion.

Second World War


 The Second World War broke out a mere two decades after the end of the First World War.

5|Page
 It was fought between the Axis Powers (Mainly Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy) and the Allies
(Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the US).
 Many more civilians and soldiers died. Vast parts of Europe and Asia were devastated and
several cities were destroyed by aerial bombardment or relentless artillery attacks. Immense
amount of economic devastations and social disruptions were caused.
 Effects
1.The US emerged as the new economic, political and military superpower of the Western
world.
2.The Soviet Union transformed itself from a backward agricultural country into a world
power, by defeating the Nazi Germany during the Great Depression.

Post-War Settlements and the


Bretton Woods Institution
 Steps for minimizing price fluctuations, output and employment were adopted by the
governments all over the world for ensuring economic stability.
 July, 1944: A framework for preserving economic stability and full employment was agreed
upon at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods in New
Hampshire, USA.
 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was set up to deal with external surpluses and
deficits of its member nations.
 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) was set up for
financing post-war reconstruction.
 1947: The IMF and World Bank commenced financials operations The Bretton Woods
System was based on fixed exchange rates. In this system, national currencies were pegged
to the dollar at a fixed exchange rate. The dollar itself was anchored to gold at a fixed price
of $30 per ounce of gold.

Early Post-War Years


 The Bretton Woods system inaugurated an era of unprecedented growth of trade and
incomes for the Western industrial nations and Japan.
 1950-1970: World trade grew annually at over 8% and incomes at nearly 5 %.
 The unemployment rate averaged less than 5% in most industrial countries.
 1920: First multinational companies were established

Decolonisation and Independence


 After the Second World War, colonies in Asia and Africa emerged as free and independent
nations. These nations were handicapped by the colonial rule and were therefore
overburdened by poverty and a lack of resources.
 The IMF and the World Bank failed on the face of poverty and lack of development.
 Japan and Europe rapidly rebuilt their economies and grew less dependent on the World
Bank.

6|Page
 1950s: The Bretton Woods shifted their attention more towards developing countries.
 The former colonial powers still controlled vital resources such as minerals and land in many
of their former colonies.
 The developing countries organized themselves as a group – the Group of 77 (G-77) for
demanding a new international economic order (NIEO).
NIEO is a system that would give control to the developing countries over their natural
resources, more development assistance, fairer prices for raw materials and better access to
their manufactured goods.

End of Bretton Woods and the


Beginning of Globalisation
 From 1960s, the rising cost of overseas involvements weakened US finances and competitive
strength.
 The US dollar lost its value as it could not maintain its value in relation to gold.
 Therefore, the system of fixed exchange rates collapsed and the system of floating exchange
rates emerged.
 Developing countries were forced to borrow from Western commercial banks and private
lending institutions. This led to a periodic debt crisis in the developing
 world, which resulted in lower incomes and increased poverty in Africa and Latin America.
 Unemployment increased in the industrial world.
 By late 1970s, MNCs began shifting production to Asian countries where cheap labour was
available. This stimulated world trade and capi

If you find anything of importance missing from this note, email it to us at –


mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/sikandar.mughal

7|Page
Chapter 5

The Age of Industrialisation

Before the Industrial Revolution


 Proto-industrialisation: There was large-scale industrial production for an international
market not based on factories. It was controlled by merchants and the goods were produced
by a vast number of producers working within their family farms, not in factories.
 17th and 18th century: Merchants from the towns of Europe began moving to the
countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an
international market. Merchants offered advances for producing clothes for them at a time
when open fields were disappearing and commons were being enclosed. Income from
proto-industrial production supplemented their shrinking income from cultivation.

The Coming Up of the Factory


 1730s: The earliest factories in England came up.
 First symbol of the new era was cotton.
 Inventions in the 18th century increased the efficacy of each step of production (carding,
twisting, spinning and rolling). The output per worker also rose.
 Richard Arkwright invented the cotton mill. Mill production of cotton started,which allowed
a more careful supervision over the production process.
 Cotton became the leading sector in the first phase of industrialization.

The Pace of Industrial Change


 The expansion of railways in England and its colonies rapidly increased the demand for iron
and steel.
 The new, technologically advanced industrial sectors could not easily displace the traditional
industries. Textiles were still produced within domestic units and not in factories.
 The high cost of machines and the uncertainty of their performance made technological
changes slow. Merchants and industrialists were cautious about accepting and using the
new technology.
 1781: James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen and patented the
new engine.

Importance of Hand Labour


 Introduction of machines required large capital investment. Hence, cheap labour was
preferred over the use of machines.

8|Page
 Manual labour was also preferred in the industries where production fluctuated with
seasons.
 Goods with intricate designs and specific shapes were in great demand in the European
markets. This was possible only with hand labour and not machine outputs.
 The aristocrats and the bourgeoisie in Victorian Britain preferred the refined and carefully
handmade products; machine made goods were for the colonies.

Life of the Workers


 Large scale migrations to towns and cities from countryside in search of jobs.
 Many job-seekers had to wait weeks, spending nights under bridges or in night shelters.
 Workers became jobless after the busy season of work got over.
 Some returned to the countryside when the demand for labour in the rural areas opened up.
 Most people looked for odd-jobs, which till the mid-19th century were difficult to find.
 The fear of unemployment made workers hostile to the introduction of new technology.
Women who survived on hand-spinning began protesting when the Spinning Jenny was
introduced.

The Age of Indian Textiles


 Before the age of machines, silk and cotton goods from India dominated the international
textile market.
 Armenian and Persian merchants took goods from Punjab to Afghanistan, Eastern Persia and
Central Asia.
 Surat on Gujarat coast connected India to the Gulf and the Red Sea ports.
 Masulipatam on the Coromandel Coast and Hooghly in Bengal had trade links with Southeast
Asian ports.
 A variety of Indian merchants and traders were involved in this network of export trade,
financing production, carrying goods and supplying exporters. They gave advances to the
weavers, procured the woven cloth from weaving villages and carried the supply to the
ports.
 The European companies gradually gained power and monopoly rights.
 Trade through the new ports of Calcutta and Mumbai came to be controlled by the
European companies.

Plight of Weavers
 The East India Company gained monopoly rights over the Indian textile trade. It tried to
eliminate the existing traders and brokers connected with the cloth trade and established
direct control over the weavers.
 A paid servant called the gomastha was appointed for supervising weavers, collecting supply
and examining the quality of cloth.
 The Company prevented the weavers from dealing with other buyers.
 Once the order was placed, the weavers were given loans for purchasing raw material for
production. The produced cloth was to be handed over to the gomastha.

9|Page
 The new gomasthas had no social link with the village. They acted arrogantly, marched into
villages with sepoys and peons and punished weavers for delays in supply.
 The price received by weavers from the Company was miserably low and the loans that they
had accepted tied them to the Company.
 In Carnatic and Bengal weavers deserted villages and migrated, setting up looms in other
villages where they had some family relation. Elsewhere, the weavers along with the village
traders revolted, opposing the Company and its officials.
 Weavers began refusing loans, closing down their workshops and taking to agricultural
labour.

British Textiles in India


 The British industrialists pressurized the government to impose duties on cotton textiles so
that Manchester goods could sell in Britain without any outside competition.
 The industrialists also persuaded the East India Company for selling the British manufactures
in the Indian markets.
 Exports of British cotton goods increased dramatically in the early 19 th century.
 The export market of the Indian cotton weavers collapsed and the local market shrank,
being glutted with cheap Manchester imports.
 The weavers could not get sufficient supply of good quality raw cotton. Weavers in India
were starved of supplies and forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices.
 By the end of the 19th century, factories in India began production, flooding the markets
with machine-made goods. Consequently, the weaving industry decayed and died.

Factories in India
 1854: First cotton mill came up in Bombay
“The purpose of education is not to
 1855: The first jute mill came up; and another one in 1862 make a machine, but to make the
 1860s: The Elgin mill was started in Kanpur human being”
 1861: The first cotton mill of Ahmadabad was set up -Sheikh Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani r.a.
 1874: The first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began
production

The Early Entrepreneurs


 The British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England.
Many Indians participated in this trade by providing finance, procuring supplies and shipping
consignments.
 In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade and established six joint-
stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s.
 In Bombay, Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata built huge industrial empires in
India. They accumulated their initial wealth partly from exports to China and partly from raw
cotton shipments to England.
 Merchants from Madras traded with Burma, Middle East and East Africa.

10 | P a g e
 Other trading activities included carrying goods from one place to another, banking,
transferring funds between cities and financing traders.
 However, Indian traders were barred from trading with Europe in manufactured goods and
had to export raw materials and food grains required by the British. They were also gradually
edged out of the shipping business.

Workers
 In most industrial regions, workers came from the nearby districts The job-seekers were
always more than the jobs available.
 Industrialists employed a jobber for getting new recruits. He got people from his village,
ensured them jobs, helped them settle in the city and provided them money in times of
crisis.

The Peculiarities of Industrial


Growth
 The European Managing Agencies established tea and coffee plantations, acquiring land at
cheap rates from the colonial governments. They also invested in mining, indigo and jute.
 Since yarn was not an important part of British imports into India, the early cotton mills in
India produced coarse cotton yarn rather than fabric. The yarn produced in Indian spinning
mills was used by handloom weavers in India or exported to China.
 Nationalists during the Swadeshi movement mobilized people to boycott foreign cloth.
 Industrial groups organized themselves to protect their collective interests, pressurizing the
government to increase tariff protection and grant other concessions.
 From 1906, the export of Indian yarn to China declined since produce from Chinese and
Japanese mills flooded the Chinese market.
 1900 and 1912: Cotton piece goods production in India doubled With British mills busy with
war production to meet the needs of the army, Manchester imports into India declined. As
the war prolonged, Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs including jute
bags, cloth for army uniforms,tents and leather boots, horse and mule saddles and a host of
other items.
 Industrial production boomed owing to the increase in the working hours and the
establishment of new factories.
 Unable to modernize and compete with the US, Germany and Japan, the British economy
crumbled after the war. Cotton production collapsed and exports of cotton cloth from
Britain fell dramatically.
 Within the colonies, local industries substituted the foreign manufactures and captured the
home market.

Small-scale Industries
 Large industries formed only a small segment of the economy. Most of them were
 located in Bombay and Bengal.

11 | P a g e
 Most of the workers worked in small workshops and household units.
 While cheap machine-made thread wiped out the spinning industry in the 19th century, the
weavers survived. Handloom cloth-production expanded steadily between 1900 and 1940.
 Technological changes and other small innovations made the handloom clothproduction
rise. By the second decade of the 20th century, weavers used looms with a fly shuttle.
 Amongst weavers, some produced coarse cloth while others wove finer varieties.
 The coarser cloth was bought by the poor and its demand fluctuated violently along with the
fluctuations in their incomes. The finer ones were bought by the rich and its demand was
constant.

Market for Goods


 New consumers were created through advertisements. Advertisements expanded the
markets for products and shaped a new consumer culture.
 The label was needed for making the name and the place of manufacture and the name of
the company familiar to the buyer.
 Images of Indian gods and goddesses were imprinted on goods for making a foreign product
familiar to the Indian masses.
 Calendars were used for advertisements.
 Figures of important personages adorned advertisements and calendars.
 Advertisements became a vehicle of the nationalist message of Swadeshi.

If you find anything of importance missing from this note, email it to us at –


mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/sikandar.mughal

12 | P a g e
Chapter 6

Work, Life and Leisure

Charactaristics of the city


 Cities are the centres of political power, administrative network, trade and
industry, religious institutions and intellectual activity, and support various social
groups such as artisans, merchants and priests.
 Three historical processes have shaped modern cities in decisive ways.
1.The rise of capitalism
2.The establishment of colonial rule over large parts of the world
3.The development of democratic ideals.

Industrialisation and the Rise of the


Modern City in England
 The early industrial cities of Britain such as Leeds and Manchester attracted large
 number of migrants to the textile mills set up in the late 18th century.
 Five major types of industries employed large number of people. These were
1.Clothing and footwear
2.Wood and furniture
3.Metals and engineering
4.Printing and stationary
5.Precious products such as surgical instruments, watches and objects of
precious metal
 During the First World War (1914-18), London began manufacturing cars and
electrical goods. The number of large factories increased until they accounted for
nearly one-third of all jobs in the city.

Marginal Groups
 Women
1.Lost their industrial jobs owing to technological developments and were
forced to work within households.
2.A large number of women used their homes for increasing family income by
taking lodgers or through such activities as tailoring, washing or matchbox
making.
3.In the 20th century, women got employed in wartime industries and offices and withdrew
from domestic service.

13 | P a g e
 Children
1.Large numbers of children were pushed into low paid work by their parents,
while many became thieves.
2.The Compulsory Education Act of 1870 and the Factory Act of 1902 kept
children out of industrial work.

Housing
1.Factories or workshops did not provide housing to the migrant workers. Instead,
individual landowners put up cheap, and usually unsafe, tenements for the new
arrivals.
2.The unhygienic condition of slums highlighted the need of housing for the poor.
3.There was widespread fear of social disorder, especially after the Russian
Revolution in 1917. Workers’ mass housing scheme were planned for preventing
the London poor from turning rebellious.
4.Attempts were made for decongesting localities, creating open spaces and reducing
pollution. Large blocks of apartments were also built.
5.Rent control was introduced in Britain during the First World War for easing the
impact of severe housing shortage.
6.Between the two World Wars, the responsibility for housing the working classes
was accepted by the British state, and a million houses, most of them single-family
cottages, were built by the local authorities.

Transport in the City


1.The London underground railway was introduced. It partially solved the housing
crisis by carrying large masses of people to and from the city.
2.10th January, 1863: The first underground railway in the world opened between
Paddington and Farrington Street in London.
3.Between the two World Wars, the London tube railway led to massive
displacement of the London poor.
4.Better-planned suburbs and a good railway network enabled large numbers to live
outside Central London and travel to work.

Social Change in the City


 In the Industrial city, ties between household members loosened, increasingly
higher levels of isolation was faced and among the working class and the institution of
marriage tended to break down.
 The city encouraged a new spirit of individualism among both men and women.
 The public space increasingly became a male preserve and the domestic sphere was
seen as the proper place for women.

14 | P a g e
 The 19th century Chartism Movement was a movement demanding the voting
rights for all adult males.
 The 10-hour movement demanded limited hours of work in factories.
 Women also demanded voting rights and the right to property from 1870s.

Leisure
 Various methods of recreation were adopted by the working class people in the 19 th
century. These included
1.Cultural events such as opera, theatre and classical music performances.
2.Working classes met in pubs to have a drink, exchange news and sometimes
for organizing political action.
3.Libraries, art galleries and museums provided a glimpse of the British
history.
 By the early 20th century, cinema became the great mass entertainment for mixed
audiences.

The City in Colonial India


 The pace of urbanisation in India was slow under the colonial rule. In the early 20 th
century, no more than 11% of Indians were living in cities.
 Population in the Presidency towns rose considerably owing to the availability of
major ports, warehouses, homes and offices, army camps, as well as educational
institutions, museums and libraries.
 Bombay: The Prime City of India
1.Bombay was a group of seven islands.
2.1661: The control of Bombay passed into the British hands after the
marriage of Britain’s King Charles II to the Portuguese princess.
3.Bombay became the principal Western port for the East India Company. At
first, Bombay was the major outlet for cotton textiles from Gujarat.
4.It became an important administrative and industrial centre of Western
India.
5.1819: Bombay became the capital of the Bombay Presidency after the
Maratha defeat in the Anglo-Maratha war.
6.1854: First cotton textile mill was established in Bombay
7.1919-1926: Women formed 23% of the mill workforce
8.Late 1930s: Women’s jobs were increasingly taken over by machines or men
9.With the rapid and unplanned expansion of the city, the crisis of housing and
water supply became acute by the mid-1950s.
10.More than 70% of the working people lived in the thickly-populated chawls
of Bombay. Chawls were multi-storeyed old structures.
11.Merchants, bankers and building contractors owned these chawls. Each chawl
was divided into one-room tenements with no private toilets.
12.Lower castes were kept out of many chawls and often had to live in shelters
made of corrugated sheets, leaves or bamboo poles.

15 | P a g e
13.Town planning emerged from fears of social revolution and the fears about the plague
epidemic.
14.1898: The City of Bombay Improvement Trust was established. It focused
on clearing poor homes out of the city centre.

Land Reclamation in Bombay


 The need for additional commercial space in the mid-19th century led to the
formulation of several government and private plans for the reclamation of
more land from sea.
 1864: The Back Bay Reclamation Company won the right of reclaiming the Western
foreshore from the tip of Malabar Hill to the end of Colaba.
 As population started growing in the early 19th century, every bit of the
available area was built over and new areas were reclaimed from the sea.

Bombay as the City of Dreams: The


World of Cinema and Culture
 1896: Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar shot a scene of a wrestling
match in Bombay’s Hanging gardens and it became India’s first movie.
 1913: Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra
 By 1925, Bombay became the film capital of India.
 Many people in the film industry were migrants from cities such as Lahore,
Madras and Calcutta.

cities and the Challenge of the


Environment
 Large quantities of refuse and waste products polluted air and water, while
excessive noise became a feature of urban life.
 Black fog engulfed the towns owing to pollution, thereby causing bad temper and
smoke-related illnesses.
 The Smoke Abatement Acts of 1847 and 1853 did not work to clean the air as
smoke was not easy to monitor or measure.
 By 1840s: Towns such as Derby, Leeds and Manchester had laws for controlling
smoke in the city.
 In Calcutta, high level of pollution was a consequence of the huge population that
depended on dung and wood as fuel, and also the use of steam engines that ran on
coal.
 The railway line introduced in 1855 introduced a new pollutant-coal from Raniganj.
 1863: Calcutta became the first Indian city to get smoke nuisance legislation

If you find anything of importance missing from this note, email it to us at –


mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com

16 | P a g e
Chapter 7

Print Culture and the Modern World

The First Printed Books


 The earliest print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea. From AD 594
onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper.
 China remained the major producer of printed material by printing vast numbers of
textbooks for the civil service examinations held for recruiting its personnel.
 Academicians and merchants used print in their everyday lives. Many people started
to read and write.
 Shanghai became the hub of new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools. There
was a gradual shift from hand printing to machine printing.

Print in Japan
 AD 768-770: Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology to Japan
 The Buddhist Diamond Sutra was the oldest Japanese book.
 The illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture involving artisans,
courtesans and teahouse gatherings.

Print Comes to Europe


 11th century: Chinese paper reached Europe through the silk route
 In Italy, Marco Polo brought the knowledge of print.
 Scribes or skilled hand writers were employed by wealthy or influential patrons and
booksellers for increasing the production of handwritten manuscripts.
 However, the handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for
goods because the manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle and could not be carried
around or read easily.
 By the early 15th century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe for printing textiles,
playing cards and religious pictures with simple, brief texts.
 1430s: Johann Gutenberg developed the printing press
 The first book printed on Gutenberg’s printing press was the Bible. It took three years to
print 180 copies of the Bible.
 Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.
 1450-1550: Printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe. 20 million copies of
printed books flooded the European markets during the second half of the 15th century.
 The time and labour required for producing each book decreased and multiple copies could
be produced with greater ease.
 Common people now had access to books and therefore the oral culture of a hearing public
was now replaced by a reading public.

17 | P a g e
 Oral culture entered print and the printed material was orally transmitted. Printers began
publishing new ballads and folktales with profusely illustrated pictures.

Religious Debates and the Fear of


Print
 The new printed literature was criticized as it was feared that if there was no control over
what was printed and read, then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread. Those
who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate ideas.
 1517: A religious reformer, Martin Luther wrote ‘Ninety-five Theses’ criticizing many
of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
 Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
 This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
 Several scholars think that print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped
spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.
 1558: The Roman Church, troubled by effects of popular readings and questionings of faith,
imposed several controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of
Prohibited Books.

The Reading Mania


 By the end of the 18th century, literacy rates in Europe were as high as 60 to 80%.
 Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages, carrying literacy to peasants
and artisans.
 New forms of literature appeared in print that targeted new audiences.
 There were almanacs or ritual calendars, along with ballads and folktales.
 In England, penny chapbooks were carried by petty pedlars known as chapmen.
 They were sold for a penny and could be afforded even by the poor.
 Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published. Maps and scientific
diagrams were widely printed. The discoveries of Isaac Newton and the writings of Thomas
Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also widely printed and read.
 People believed that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and
tyranny and herald a time when reason and intellect would rule.

Print Culture and the French


Revolution
 Print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
 Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers. They attacked the sacred
authority of the Church and the despotic powers of the state; thus, eroding the legitimacy of
a social order based on tradition. Voltaire and Rousseau were widely read.

18 | P a g e
 All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that was
inquisitive, critical and rational. Hence, new ideas of social revolution came into being.
 By the 1780s: Literature mocked the royalty and criticized their morality. This led to the
growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.

Children, Women and Workers


 As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century children became
an important category of readers.
 1857: A children’s press devoted to literature for children alone was set up in France.
 Women became important readers and writers. The writings of George Eliot, Jane Austen
and the Bronte sisters were read and enjoyed.
 In the 19th century, lending libraries in England became instruments for educating white-
collar workers, artisans and lower middle-class people.

Further Innovations
 By the mid-19th century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the powerdriven
cylindrical press, which printed 8,000 sheets per hour.
 In the late 19th century, the offset print was developed that could print about 6 colours at a
time.
 From the turn of the 20th century, presses operated electrically, methods of feeding paper
were improvised, the quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and
photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.
 19th century periodicals serialized important novels, which gave birth to a particular way of
writing.
 1920s: In England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the Shilling Series.
 Book jackets were also introduced.

India and the World of Print


 India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts in Sanskrit,
 Arabic, Persian and other vernacular languages. Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or
on handmade paper. They would be preserved between wooden covers or sewn together.
They were highly expensive, fragile and illegible.
 Print Comes to India
1.Mid-16th century: The first printing press came to Goa with Portuguese
missionaries.
2.By 1674: About 50 books had been printed in Konkani and in Karana
languages.
3.Cochin, 1579: Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book
4.1713: Catholic priests printed the first Malayalam book
5.By 1710: Dutch protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts
6.From 1780: James Augustus Hickey began editing the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine.

19 | P a g e
Religious Reform and Public Debates
1.From the early 19th century, there were intense debates around religious issues. Some
criticized existing practices and campaigned for reform, while others countered the
arguments of reformers.
2.Public tracts and newspapers spread the new ideas and generated discussions and
expressions from the public.
3.1821: Raja Ram Mohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi and the Hindu orthodoxy
commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions.
4.From 1822: Two Persian newspapers were published, Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul
Akhbar. A Guajarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar, was also published.
5.In North India, the ulema were deeply anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties.
They used cheap lithographic presses, published Persian and Urdu translations of Holy
Scriptures and printed religious tracts and newspapers.
6.Calcutta, 1810: The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas,a 16th century
text, appeared.

New Forms of Publication


New literary forms such as novels, lyrics, short stories and essays about political and social
matters reinforced the new emphasis on human lives and intimate feelings and the political
and social rules that shaped such things.
 By the end of 19th century, visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies.
Painters such as Raja Ravi Verma produced images for mass circulation.
 Cheap prints and calendars were easily available in the bazaar. These prints shaped ideas
about modernity and tradition, religion and politics, and society and culture.
 By the 1870s, there were imperial caricatures lampooning nationalists as well as nationalist
cartoons criticizing imperial rule.

Women and Print


 Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home and sent them to
schools.
 Many journals began carrying writings by women and explained why women should be
educated.
 Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that
educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
 1876: Rashsundari Debi’s autobiography, Amar Jiban, was published. It was the first full-
length autobiography published in the Bengali language.
 From 1860s: Few Bengali women such as Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the
experiences of women.
 In 1880s (Maharashtra): Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger
about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows.

20 | P a g e
Print and the Poor People
 Very cheap and small books were brought to markets in 19 th century. Madras townssold at
crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets to buy them.
 Public libraries were set up from the early 20th century. These libraries were mostly located
in cities and towns and at times in prosperous villages.
 1871: Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about
the injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri.
 In the 20th century, B. R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker in
Madras, better known as Periyar, wrote powerfully on caste and their writings were read by
people all over India.
 1938: Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal. The
poems of Kashibaba and Sudarsan Chakr (another Kanpur millworker) were compiled in
Sacchi Kavitayan.
 By 1930s: Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries for educating themselves.
 These were sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking among
them, for bringing literacy and, sometimes, for propagating the message of nationalism.

Print and Censorship


 Before 1789: The colonial state under the East India Company was too concerned with
censorship.
 By 1820s: The Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom
and the Company began encouraging publication of newspapers that would celebrate the
British rule.
 In 1835: Faced with urgent petitions by editors of the English and vernacular newspapers,
Governor-General Bentinck agreed to revise press laws. Thomas Macaulay formulated new
rules that restored their earlier freedoms.
 After the revolt of 1857, press freedoms were clamped down.
 1878: The Vernacular Press Act was passed, modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It provided the
government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
 1907: When the Punjab revolutionaries were deported, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote with
great sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment in 1908.
 During the First World War, under the Defence of India Rules, 22 newspapers had to furnish
securities.

If you find anything of importance missing from this note, email it to us at –


mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/sikandar.mughal

21 | P a g e
Chapter 8

Novels, Society and History

The Rise of the Novel


 Novels emerged as a new literary genre in many parts of the world.
 The novel first took firm root in England and France. New groups of lower middle class
people such as shopkeepers and clerks, along with the traditional aristocratic and
gentlemanly classes in England and France, formed the readership for novels.
 Earnings of authors increased, which freed them from financial dependence on the
patronage of aristocrats and gave them independence to experiment with different literary
styles.
 The novel allowed flexibility in the form of writing.

The Publishing Market


 People had easier access to books.
 Technological improvements in printing brought down the prices of books and innovations
in marketing led to expanded sales.
 Novels were both personally and publicly read as they described worlds that were both
absorbing and believable.

Community and Society


 The Novel created a feeling of connection with the fate of the rural communities.
 It used vernacular languages that are spoken by common people and created a sense of
shared world between diverse people in a nation.

The New Women


 Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. They drew upon their experiences,
wrote about family life and earned public recognition.
 Many novels, like that of Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), gave a glimpse of the world of
women in rural society in early nineteenth century Britain.
 Women novelists not only popularized the domestic role of women but also showcased the
women rebel. Writers such as Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) dealt with the new rebel women.

Novels for the Young


 Novels for young boys idealized a new man: someone who was powerful, assertive,
independent and daring.
 These novels aroused the excitement and adventure of conquering strange lands.

22 | P a g e
 Love stories written for adolescent girls also first became popular in this period. Ramona
(1884) by Helen Hunt Jackson, and Sarah Chauncey Woolsey’s What Katy Did (1872) along
with R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book (1894) became great
hits.

Colonialism and After


 The early novel contributed to colonialism by making the readers feel they were a part of a
superior community of fellow colonialists.
 The view of the colonised people as primitive and barbaric holds true in works such as Daniel
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
 Later in the 20th century, writers such as Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) wrote novels that
criticized colonialism.

The Novel Comes to India


 Some of the earliest Indian novels were written in Bengali and Marathi.
 1857: Baba Padmanji wrote Yamuna Prayatnam
 1861: Lakshman Moreshwar Halbe’s Muktamala was published
 Indian novelists wrote for developing a modern literature of the country that could produce
a sense of national belonging.
 Translations helped spread the popularity and growth of the novel.

The Novel in South India


 1889: O.Chandu Menon’s novel named Indulekha was published. This was the first modern
novel in Malayalam.
 1878: In Andhra Pradesh, Kandukuri Viresalingam wrote a Telegu novel called Rajasekhara
Caritamu.

The Novel in Hindi


 Bharatendu Harishchandra, the pioneer of modern Hindi literature, encouraged many poets
and writers to recreate and translate novels from other languages.
 1882: Srinivas Das published his novel Pariksha-Guru (The Master Examiner).
 Pariksha-Guru reflects the inner and outer world of the newly emerging middle classes
under the colonial rule.
 The writings of Devaki Nandan Khatri created a novel-reading public in Hindi. His novel
Chandrakanta was hugely popular.
 Premchand’s writings brought about excellence in the Hindi novels. He began writing in
Urdu and then shifted to Hindi.
 1916: Premchand’s novel Sewasadan lifted the Hindi novel from the realm of fantasy,
moralizing and simple entertainment to a serious reflection on the lives of ordinary and
social issues. Sewasadan deals with the poor conditions of women, dowry and the
hegemony of the Indian upper classes.

Novels in Bengal
 There were two kinds of Bengali novels that emerged in the 19 th century:

23 | P a g e
 one was based on historical issues and the other was based on social problems and romantic
relationships between men and women.
 The new bhadralok found himself at home in the more private worlds ofreading novels.
 Initially, the Bengali novel used a colloquial style associated with urban life;it also used
meyeli, the language associated with women’s speech. This style was replaced by Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyay’s prose, which was sanskritised but also contained a more
vernacular style in it.
 By the 20th century, the power of telling stories in simple language made Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) the most popular novelist in Bengal and probably in the rest of
India.

Uses of the Novel


 Colonial administration found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on native
life and customs. Such information was useful for them in governing Indian society, with its
large variety of communities and castes.
 Books were translated into English, often by British administrators or Christian missionaries.
 Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to criticise what they considered defects in the
society and to suggest remedies.
 Novels presented a glorified account of the past, which in turn created a sense of national
pride among the readers.
 Novels created a sense of collective belonging on the basis of one’s language.
 The novels made their readers familiar with the ways in which people in other parts of their
land spoke their languages.

Indian Women and the Novel


 Women not only read novels but also started to write.
 Novels allowed for a new kind of conception of womanhood. Women in South India began
writing novels and short stories.
 Ideas of a liberal environment and reform for women were presented in many works such as
Rokeya Hossein’s Sultana’s Dream and Padmara.
 Many women authors such as Hannah Mullen and Sailabala Ghosh Jaya wrote in secret.

Caste Practices, ‘Lower Castes’ and


Minorities
 Novels such as Indirabai and Indulekha were written by members of the upper castes, and
were primarily about upper caste characters.
 1892: Pothere Kunjambu, a ‘lower caste’ writer from Kerala, wrote a novel called
Saraswativijayam, which mounted a strong attack on caste oppression.
 From the 1920s, a new kind of novel emerged that depicted the lives of peasants and ‘low
castes’.

24 | P a g e
 Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer (1908-94) was one of the early Muslim writers to gain wide
renown as a novelist in Malayalam. Basheer’s short novels and stories
 spoke about details from the everyday life of Muslim households, poverty, insanity and life
in prison.

The Nation and its History


 New educated minds wanted a new view of the past that would show that Indians could be
independent minded and had been so in history.
 1857: Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay’s (1827-94) Anguriya Binimoy was published, and it became
the first historical novel written in Bengal.
 These novels produced a sense of a pan-Indian belonging. They could inspire actual political
movements and raised questions about nation and nationality.

The Novel and Nation-Making


 Novels included all kinds and classes of people in its narrative so that they could be seen to
belong to a shared world.
 Writers such as Premchand wrote novels that looked towards the future without forgetting
the importance of the past. His works such as Rangbhoomi and Godan (1936) depict a
community based on democratic values.
 Rabindranath Tagore wrote about the condition of women and nationalism in his novels
such as Ghare Baire (1916).

If you find anything of importance missing from this note, email it to us at –


mirzasikandarbaig11@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/sikandar.mughal

25 | P a g e

You might also like