| Read the following passage and answer the question that follows: |
| ?Arya Samaj, A North Indian Hindu reform organisation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly active in Punjab (tried to bring back Hindus who had converted to some other religion) which sought to revive Vedic learning and combine it with modern education in the sciences?. |
| Illustrate how the values integrated with the rich Indian literature paved way for the scientific development of modern India. |
| Analyse the role of Zamindars during the Mughal period. |
| Or |
| Examine how were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. |
| What does Ashokan inscriptions tell about the Mauryas? Describe the limitations of the inscriptional evidences. |
| Or |
| State any three features of Mahajanpadas. How did Magadha become the powerful Mahajanpada? Explain. |
| ?Within the Constituent Assembly of India the language issue was intensely debated?. Examine the views put forward by the members of the Assembly on this issue. |
| Or |
| How did the Constituent Assembly of India protect the powers of the Central Government? Explain. |
| Read the following except carefully and answer the questions that follow: |
| Draupadi?s Marriage |
| Drupada, the king of Panchala, organised a competition where the challenge was to string a bow and hit a target; the winner would be chosen to marry his daughter Draupadi. Arjuna was victorious and was garlanded by Draupadi. The Pandavas returned with her to their mother Kunti, who, even before she saw them, asked them to share whatever they had got. She realised her mistake when she saw Draupadi but her command could not be violated. After much deliberation, Yudhisthira decided that Draupadi would be their common wife. When Drupada was told about this, he protested. However, the seer Vyasa arrived and told him that the Pandavas were in reality incarnations of lndra, whose wife had been reborn as Draupadi, and they were thus destined for each other. Vyasa added that in another instance a young woman had prayed to Shiva for a husband, and id her enthusiasm, had prayed five times instead of once. This woman was now reborn as Draupadi, and Shiva had fulfilled her prayers. Convinced by these stories, Drupada consented to the marriage. |
| (i) How does this story reveal that mother was considered as the highest guru? |
| (ii) Why didn?t Kunti save Draupadi from the dire situation? |
| (iii) Why did Drupada and Sage Vyasa decide Draupadi?s strange marriage with five men? |
| Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions that follow: |
| A warning for Europe |
| Bernier warned that if European kings followed the Mughal model: |
| Their kingdoms would be very far from being well-cultivated and peopled, so well built, so rich, so polite and flourishing as we see them. Our kings are otherwise rich and powerful; and we must avow that they are much better and more royally served. They would soon be kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians, such as those are whom I have been representing (the Mughals)... We should find the great Cities and the great Burroughs (boroughs) rendered uninhabitable because of ill air, and to fall to mine (ruin) without any bodies (anybody) taking care of repairing them; the hillocks abandoned, and the fields overspread with bushes, or fill?d with pestilential marishes (marshes), as hath been already intimated. |
| (i) In what ways did Bernier condemn Mughal rulers? |
| (ii) What contrasts do the account of Bernier and Abul Fazi?s Ain-i-Akbari? |
| (iii) ?Pride has its fall if power and negligence of duty rules any one?. Explain the statement in relevance to the Bernier?s warning. |
| Read the following excerpt carefully and answer the questions that follows: |
| ?Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law? |
| On 5 April 1930, Mahatma Gandhi spoke at Dandi |
| When I left Sabarmati with my companions for this seaside hamlet of Dandi, I was not certain in my mind that we would be allowed to reach this place. Even while I was at Sabarmati there was a rumour that I might be arrested. I had thought that the Government might perhaps let my party come as far as Dandi, but not me certainly. If someone says that this betrays imperfect faith on my part, I shall not deny the charge. That I have reached here is in no small measure due to the power of peace and non-violence: that power is universally felt. The Government may, if it wishes, congratulate itself on acting as it has done, for it could have arrested every one of us. In saving that it did not have the courage to arrest this army of peace, we praise it. It felt ashamed to arrest such an army. He is a civilised man who feels ashamed to do anything which his neighbours would disapprove. The Government deserves to be congratulated on not arresting us, even if it desisted only from fear of world opinion. Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law. Whether the Government will tolerate that is a different question. It may not tolerate it, but it deserves congratulations on the patience and forbearance it has displayed in regard to this party........... What if I and all the eminent leaders in Gujarat and in the rest of the country are arrested? This movement is based on the faith that when a whole nation is roused and on the march no leader is necessary. |
| (CWMG) vol. 49 Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi |
| (i) Why did Gandhiji started the Dandi March? |
| (ii) Why was Salt March notable? |
| (iii) ?The power of peace and non-violence are universally felt?. Why did Gandhiji said so? |
| (i) On the given political outline map of India (on page 15), locate and label the following with appropriate symbols: |
 |
| (a) The place where Gandhiji called off Non Cooperation Movement. |
| (b) Agra, the imperial capital of Mughal. |
| (ii) On the same outline map of India, three paces related to the mature Harappa sites have been marked as A, B and C. Identify them and write their correct names on the lines drawn near them. |
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