Explain ‘Imperialism’ write a note on the stages of imperialism.

According to Maritz Julius Bonn, “Imperialism” is a policy which aims at creating,  ‘organizing and maintaining an empire; that is a state of vast size composed of various more or less distinct national unit s and subject to a single centralized will”  Charles a beard wrote : “Imperialism is…..employment of the engines of government and diplomacy to  acquire territories, protectorates, and on spheres of influence occupied usually by other races or peoples, and to promote industrial, trade, and investment opportunities …..”A clear yet crisp definition was given by p.t. moon. He wrote, “Imperialism ….means domination of non- European native races by totally dissimilar European nations. “Thus moon clearly indicates domination of colored peoples of Asia and Africa by the Europeans who considered themselves superior and their colonial administration as burden on the white man. Though Beard excludes all economic motivations, the history of imperialism definitely points to economic exploitation as a primary drive in expansion of the empire by western countries. History reveals that the world has gone through many stages of development. It is known that the history of humankind is related to the development of society and social structures. Capitalism generally developed out of feudalism, and was Responsible for colonialisation and imperialism, Feudalism prevailed before the 16^th- 17^th century. In Europe, feudalism was generally associated with medieval states based on aristocracies (run by kings and nobles) who controlled the economic and political power of the state. The church too had an important role in the functioning of the feudal state. Feudalism as a system began to decay in different parts of Europe, beginning from England in the thirteenth century. The industrial revolution, the growth of towns, inter-feudal wars etc. led to this decline , social life in Europe thus began to change, this also involved a change from the feudal type economic organization to a different one where the control was no longer with the land owning aristocracies. Independent groups of merchants and traders began dominating the economy. This meant, thus, the growth of new classes which formed the bases for mercantile capitalism. The letter was a transition from feudalism to capitalism to capitalism, which was prevalent between the 16^th and 19^th centuries. The kind of transformation made by each nation out of feudalism differed. For example in England capitalism grew faster than in any other European nations. France followed this transition and later Germany, Russia and others did the same. Thus each transition was a unique experience. Industrialization in Europe led the capitalists to look for raw materials and markets outside Europe. This search fueled imperial penetrations into Asia and Africa. Capitalism can be defined as a system in which goods and services are produced for exchange in the market so that profit is made. The form of capital in the capitalist system is deferent from that of the feudal system where merchant capital was dominant. Under capitalism productive capital dominates, that is capital invested in labor power. Labor power is what the worker has to sell in exchange for money in order to survive. This labor power is then organized in the production process to produce new commodities for making more profit. Thus the capital of the merchants and financiers circulated and are invested for commodity production. The function of this merchant finance, Capital is determined and based on the need of productive capital. Labor power thus becomes like a commodity which can be bought and sold according to market prices.The growth of capitalism had an important effect on the social and political life of people and social systems. Just it had on their economic life. Capitalism brought about the formation of two large classes- the capitalist class (bourgeoisie) and the working class. In addition to these there also give rise to new political systems wherein besides landed aristocracies, other classes’ also shared state power as in England. Similarly it led to the overthrow of the French landed aristocracy and brought into being the French republic. Thus with capitalism began as era of private enterprises in the economic sphere and popular participation in the exercise of state power in the political sphere.

Write an essay on the military technology of medieval India.

The military technology of medieval India was marked by remarkable progress. Conventional weapons like Bow-arrow, sword etc were accompanied by different kind of firearms for the first time. The industrial technology during the sixteenth and the seventeenth century saw remarkable achievements in the form of artillery. The manufacture of cannon was then the real heavy industry, on the handgun were lavished all the fruits of the increasing mechanical sophistication attained during the period. Modern artillery was mainly brought to India, on the one hand by Babur, who had received it from Persia and on the other by the Portuguese early in the sixteenth century. Evidence has however, now been adduced of the presence of cannon during the later half of the fifteenth century. The specimens of handguns from the mughal period are hand enough in case of studying different methods of manufacture of firearms in India. In case of a handgun the most significant portion is the propelling mechanism. In the earliest guns the change was fired by applying a ‘match’ or burning rope or cord to the priming pan which communicated through the touch hole with barrel into which gun powder had been previously rammed. During the 15^th century and the 16^th century the match lock developed in Europe by first providing for a pivoted lever. With the help of this lever the match could be hold and a spring controlled the lever and then converting it into an arm. But Indian evidences are little in this context and the development of the match lock in India cannot be traced back. In Abul Fazl’s writing there are references to match locks being manufactured by Akbar’s arsenal but that it was also turning out a lock in which the match was done away with. The practical knowledge of the world emperor helped in evolving a gun which can be fired without the use of the match but with just a slight movement of the masha. At the same time the pellet is also discharged. Such a gun could either have a decider of the seventeenth century saw the appearance  of the flint lock in Europe, where it gradually, but not completely supplanted the match lock during the later half of the century. Its first appearance in India is difficult to date, but in 1623 it excited the great curiosity of the zamorin of Calicut, for their guns have only matches. The subsequent development of the flint lock in India again is not easy to trace. It would appear that Indian guns began to be equipped with flint lock during the later half of the seventeenth century. But the basis for this view is assumption and there is very little evidence to substantiate it. Bernier says that Indian sometimes imitated perfectly articles of European manufacture. He also says that “among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling pieces. The barrel of the gun is a great problem for the blacksmith as it had to with stand the explosion inside it. Great accuracy was needed with regard to its bore and alignment.

In the manufacture of cannon, two trends were noticeable in the mughal period. The first was to make very large pieces. This was possible as long as they were cast of bronze. The method of casting such cannon pieces was apparently similar to the one employed by the ottoman Turks during the middle of the fifteenth century, A method which lasted in Europe until about 1750.Babur’s gun founders cast cannon by precisely the same means. Whether the process of bronze casting was further improvised in India or the alloy used was better, it would appear that by the end of the sixteenth century, the heaviest guns in the world were being cast in India. The climax being reached with the famous Malik Maidan cast in bronze at diameter at the muzzle, 5’5” and of the bore, 2’4 and half Inc which threw stone balls of 10 maunds.

What do you understand by the term ‘de- industrialization ’? What was its Impact on the Indian Economy?

Commentators often talk of the long decline of industry in the British economy. In simple terms this is what we mean by de-industrialization - a fall in the contribution made by the manufacturing sector to national output, employment and income. We can consider manufacturing as a whole, or focus on individual industries such as steel and clothing and textiles

De-industrialization is a long-term process of structural change in an economy – leading to a change in the composition of national output, and important alterations to the structure of our labour market.

There is a number of different ways of measuring the extent to which our manufacturing sector is experiencing de-industrialization:

Its impact on the Indian Economy

The economic condition of India in the 19th century started becoming worse due to several polices of the British government. The Indian manufacturing sector was sometimes sharply disrupted sue to the import of machine made foreign goods. While analyzing the economic impact of British rule and consequent poverty, Indian nationalists has quite convincingly argued that British rule has de-industrialized India. However, recent researches in modern economic history of India after independence has challenged this widely accepted hypothesis on many grounds. To reach at final analysis it is imperative to go through all major views of the scholars and sources of information of different parts of 19th century India.

Drain of wealth the systematic policy of ferrying the economic resources of India to Britain. The officials of the British I government were paid out of the Indian exchequer money went out of India. There was a heavy tax t on the Indian people because large sums had to b annually as interest on loans contracted by the Gove~ of India. It was first time in India’s history that the balance of trade t unfavorable towards India.

De-industrialization The British caused 1 Duos harm to the traditional handicraft industry decayed beyond recovery. Heavy customs dutiE imposed on Indian goods. The

British officials! Preference for European goods. This provided an. to the demand for

European goods and contribute decline of Indian handicrafts. The availability of n made goods in abundance at a comparatively low H greatly contributed to the decline of Indian handicri failure of the British Government to offer any protE indigenous industry also contributed to the de Indian handicrafts because they could not compt machine-made goods produced in bulk, and Consequently cheaper. With the subjugation of Indian princely 51 patronage to the handicraft industry ceased to exist.

Ruralisation Indian economy tended to more and more agricultural with the disintegration traditional industries. The increase in the number 01 in agriculture. Did not mean increase in agricultural, but impoverishment of the rural masses; then industrial alternative.

This accounted for the famines and increasing poverty in the 19th and quarter of the 20^th century. India merely became of raw material for industrial Britain.

Yellow Journalism.

The emergence e of modern mass media has generated a great enthusiasm among intellectuals and general people as well, in the earlier of this century. The Mass circulated news papers appear in all the countries as educators, jurists as ideal mentor to the public. The basic function of mass media to influence the public opinion has started getting momentum. But more concentration on entertainment and circulation of the news papers bring a diversion from ethical practice in this noble field of journalism. It has caused great anxiety about Media’s alleged baneful influence on individual’s moral outlook and behavior. Not only the newspaper, but all the media including electronic media are indulging such practice of neglecting any ethical value. Yellow journalism, at its worst, is the new journalism without any objective. Trumpeting the concern for the people the media practitioners of both print and electronic media infiltrate the yellow journalism to affect common people using several news channels. Yellow journalism is a kind of sensational, gaudy and irresistible devil in journalism. It turns the high drama of life into a cheap melodrama twisting the information in their best suited way to make a howling newstay. Yellow journalism offers a palliative of sin, sex and violence to the readers.

The origin of the term ‘Yellow Journalism’ dates back to the later half of the 19^th century (1894). When an U.S Publisher, Joseph Politzer paper, introduces comic strip entitled ‘Shanty Town’ with a cartoon character of a child with a yellow dress which becomes known as the yellow kid. The man who more than anyone else brought about the era of yellow journalism is William Randolph Hearst. As a very controversial journalist Hearst was well known for his practical jokes. He started such a stylist joke strip ‘yellow kid’ in his paper New York Journal.’ yellow kid’ made a breezy headway with sensational journalism. as a symbol the term yellow journalism is coined from this column. Yellow kid with end of previous century the trend of sensationalism gets wide popularity and the newspapers from Europe adopt the technique of news presentation from the United States.

Yellow journalism replaces serious journalism in many cases irrespective of countries, media or situation. Especially the tabloid newspapers are totally banking on such sensationalism. They are quickly read and forgotten. Yellow journalism born in the atmosphere of society after rapid industrialization and cultural degradation. This creates unnecessary tension and abnormal state of mind and brings anarchy among individuals and society.

What do you understand by under-development? Discuss any one society that falls within your identification of under-development.

The world we live in is bipolar in nature. This characteristic can be seen not only in relation to geographical entity but also in relation to our social pattern, on one hand we can see affluent and well to do class and on the other hand we can see deprived and discriminated class. In our world eight hundred and eighty million are malnourished and millions go without schooling. On the other hand, three richest people in the world have assets that would surpass the sum total of the GDP’S of 48 least developed countries. People who are deprived are excluded from full participation in the society in which the live, lack of options, entitlement to resources and lack of social capital are the main reasons behind it. Economic development is a process by which an underdeveloped society can be economically competitive. It is the way in which a traditional society is transformed into a modern, high technology, high income economy. Such a developed economy uses capital, skilled labour and scientific knowledge to produce wide variety of products for the market. Capital goods and human capital plays an important role in such a society. The World Bank has put forward the following development goals: a) Reduction of poverty b)Low mortality rates c) Universal primary education d)Access to reproductive health services e) Gender equality. There are a number of underdeveloped countries which are unable to attain these development goals due to lack of resources. They share wide spread and chronic absolute poverty, high and rising burden of unemployment and underemployment, growing disparities in income distribution, low and stagnant agricultural productivity sizeable gap between urban and rural levels of living. Underdeveloped countries are also suffering from lack of education, health and housing facilities dependence on foreign and often in appropriate technologies and more or less stagnant occupational structure. In many respects underdeveloped countries are common. At the same time there are significant differences also. These differences can be seen in respect of the size of the country, their historical evolution, their natural and human resources and the difference in structure regarding industry, institutions etc. one of the most important problem of an under developed country is the presence of a large section of low income group. Ghana and India with per capita income below $785 are low income countries; china between ($785-3125) is a lower middle income country. Brazil is a country where per capita is between ($3125-9655). It falls in the upper middle income category. Per capita income is an evaluation of average income based on market evaluations. The proper assessment of a country’s economy can be made on the basis of some extra dimensions. They are life expectancy, health facilities, condition of employment, distributing of assets and the social structure. The under developed countries of different continents have certain common features.  These are low standards of living, low level of productivity, high rate of population growth, Greater importance on agricultural production and primary product exports. Dominance and vulnerability in international relations, a low standard of living reflects through in adequate housing, poor health, limited education, high infant mortality. The same can be seen in case of India and Ghana, Lack of distribution of wealth in an even manner. As a result chronic poverty’s can be seen. Slow GDP growth rates and higher under-5 mortality can be seen. Besides these countries have high population pressures on their resources. This is due to high birth rates and maternal fertility rates. Some countries like china and Brazil have succeeded to a large extent in controlling population growth. Under utilization of labour is also an important feature of the underdeveloped. Disguised unemployment has low productivity level. In an underdeveloped economy people is large or primarily dependent on agricultural production. Due to primitive techniques, poor organization, lack of capital etc the output is low. Such underdeveloped economies are not blessed with wide scale industrialization and these resources are also limited. Under developed countries Like India and Ghana have to depend on rich countries or advanced nations in terms of technology, foreign aid and private capital transfers.

Write a detail note on commercial capitalization.

The international encyclopaedia of social sciences refers to capitalism as the economic and political system that in its industrial or full form first developed in England in the late 18^th century.

Dictionary of social sciences explained capitalism as denoting an economic system in which the greater proportion of economic life, particularly ownership of and investment in production goods, is carried on under private(i.c, non-governmental) auspices through the process of economic competition with an avowed incentive of profit.

Marxist historians have identified a series of stages in the evolution of capitalism---for examples, merchant or commercial capitalism, agrarian capitalism, industrial capitalism and state capitalism, and much of the debate on origin and progress Has hinged on differing views of the significance, timing and characteristics of each stage. The first stage, i.e. mercantile or commercial capitalization provided the initial thrust and impetus for capitalization in the sense that merchants started becoming entrepreneurs to cater to market demands by employing wage labourers as well as by exploiting the existing craft guilds. Commercial capitalization metamorphosed into industrial capitalisms, which again, according to Marxist economist, gave way to socialism, because industrial capitalism was inseparably connected with problems of the working class, this invariably gave rise to different currents of socialist thoughts.

 Commercial capitalism and agrarian capitalism were, therefore, two forms of capitalism that overlapped with each other, the difference between them being that one emerged out of commercial surplus while the other out of agricultural surplus. Agrarian capitalism sometimes metamorphosed fully into commercial capitalism i.e. invested the entire surplus accumulated from agriculture into commerce and sometimes transformed directly into industrial capitalism by investing in industrial development alone.

In all this stages of capitalism, identified by the Marxist historians, therefore, the first stage was merchant capitalism or commercial capitalism. Now, what is it? Precisely, capital accumulation out of the profits of merchants to be invested in various economic activities was what is called commercial capitalism. It took different forms in different stages.

In middle age, however, the form assumed by commercial capitalism was entirely different. It was during this time that it developed in the true sense. In England, and even more emphatically in Holland, the birth of capitalism can be dated from the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries. The type of capitalism t5hat was growing up in Europe in the Middle Ages and was well established by 1500 was predominantly of this sort. Here lay the distinction between commercial capitalism, of the ancient and middle ages.                                               

    It can therefore be said that a limited form of ‘early’ or commercial capitalism, already known in the ancient world, had developed in Italy as early as the thirteenth century and later in the Low Countries. This commercial form developed in England in the 16^th century and began to change into industrial capitalism while elements of feudalism and the guild system still existed. In short, therefore, the early stage of capitalism, primarily founded upon commerce is called commercial capitalization, which in course of time metamorphosed into industrial capitalism. Capitalism therefore did exist in ancient world in the form of commerce as well as guild system and merchant dominated putting out system in the medieval world.

Swaraj Party.

Swaraj (Vithalbhai Patel and others, declared that the Non-cooperation Movement had been a failure and, with the detention of Gandhi, had lost its momentum. They proposed an alternative programme of diverting the movement from widespread mass civil disobedience

Vithalbhai Patel and others, declared that the Non-cooperation Movement had been a failure and, with the detention of Gandhi, had lost its momentum. They proposed an alternative programme of diverting the movement from widespread mass civil disobedience programme to a restricted one which would encourage Congress members to enter the Legislative Councils established under the Montford Reforms of 1919 and to use moral pressure to compel authority concede the popular demand for self-government. Remarkable seats in 1924-elections were achieved by the members but their triumph had been short-lived.

The Nehru Report (1928)

The Nehru Report was an eye-opening episode for the Muslims of India as it totally bypassed them and the later could well imagine their future in case of the approval of these recommendations. The report denied the separate electorate for the Muslims which the Congress had agreed with earlier. It ignored even the Delhi Proposals while formulating the report. Nehru showed two Muslims participating in the Report (to justify the Muslim presence); one was Syed Ali Imam who could attend only one meeting out of four because of his illness while Shoaib Qureshi, the other member could not approve the Congress views. Therefore, Nehru Report stayed only a Hindu report ignoring other parties especially the Muslim League, the biggest Muslim entity. Consequently, the Muslim leaders rejected the Report.

“Any sensible person cannot Muslims will accept these insulting conditions, said Sir Agha Khan about the Nehru Report. Jinnah responded to the Nehru Report by saying that “From now the paths of Hindus and Muslims are separate.”

Jinnah suggested four amendments in the Report:

“There should be no less than one/third representation in the Central Legislature.

In event of the adult suffrage not being established, Punjab and Bengal should have seats reserved on population basis for the Musalmans.

The form of the constitution should be federal with residuary powers vested in the provinces. This question is by far the most important from the constitutional point of view.

With regard to the separation of Sindh and NWFP, we cannot wait until the Nehru Report is established…The Musalmans feel that it is shelving the issue and postponing their insistent demand till doomsday and they cannot agree to it.”

Write a note on the Non-Cooperation movement.

Non-Cooperation movement, (September 1920–February 1922), unsuccessful attempt, organized by Mohandas Gandhi, to induce the British government of India to grant self-government, or swaraj, to India. It arose from the outcry over the massacre at Amritsar in April 1919, when the British killed several hundred Indians, and from later indignation at the government’s alleged failure to take adequate action against those responsible. Gandhi strengthened the movement by supporting (on nonviolent terms) the contemporaneous Muslim campaign against the dismemberment of Turkey after World War I.

The movement was to be nonviolent and to consist of the resignations of titles; the boycott of government educational institutions, the courts, government service, foreign goods, and elections; and the eventual refusal to pay taxes. Noncooperation was agreed to by the Indian

National Congress at Calcutta (now Kolkata) in September 1920 and launched that December. In 1921 the government, confronted with a united Indian front for the first time, was visibly shaken, but a revolt by the Muslim Moplahs of Kerala (southwestern India) in August 1921 and a number of violent outbreaks alarmed moderate opinion. After an angry mob murdered police officers at Chauri Chaura (February 1922), Gandhi himself called off the movement; the next month he was arrested without incident. The movement marks the transition of Indian nationalism from a middle-class to a mass basis.

Write a note on the Indian National Army.

Indian National Army, also known as the Azad Hind Fauj, was formed for the liberation of India from theBritish rule. It was formed in South-East Asia in the year 1942 by pioneering Indian Nationalists and prisoners who wanted to throw off the yoke of foreign domination and liberate the country. The INA was initially formed under Mohan Singh, after the fall of Singapore, the captain in the 1/14th Punjab Regiment in the British Army. However, the first INA under Mohan Singh collapsed and finally it was revived under the leadership of Subash Chandra Bose in 1943. Bose`s army was declared as the Azri Hukumat e Azad Hind. Indian National Army emerged along with Mahatma Gandhi`s peaceful resistance movement within

India. In contrast to Mahatma Gandhi, Bose advocated a more aggressive confrontation with the British authorities.

Origin of Indian National Army

INA was formed during the first world war when the Ghadar Party and the emergence form of the Indian Independence League planned to rebel in the British Indian Army from the Punjab through Bengal to Hong Kong. However, this plan met with failure after the information was leaked to British Intelligence. During the Second World War, the plan to fight the British found revival and a number of leaders and movements were initiated. These included the various "liberation armies" which were formed in as well as with the help of Italy, Germany as well as in South-east Asia. Thus in South East Asia the concept of the Indian National Army emerged. It was supported by the Japanese 15th army and led by Bose.

Composition of the Indian National Army

Indian National Army had many valued freedom fighters that helped in the battles. They all had a brilliant background and fought for a similar cause, freedom of India. The INA freedom fighters were from every sphere ranging from barristers to plantation workers. The revival of the Indian National Army was done by Subhash Chandra Bose.

Discuss the factors that led to the partition of India.

Causes for Partition of India mainly rests around three vital causes which include the British policy of divide and rule on the basis of religion, races, caste and creed, the relationship of Muslim League and Indian National Congress; and the demand of Muslim league for a separate country for the Muslims living in India. The partition of India not only changed the geography of the subcontinent; it at the same time left a deep rooted impact on the hearts of people who had struggled for years to see the dawn of peace with a new India.

The Partition of India was based on number of factors. With the passage of time number of issues developed within Indian politics. The newly rising factors which occupied the political scenario in India included factors like rise of Communalism, creation of new political parties and their rising political awareness, the question of security of the minority groups living in India and the inherent conflict within the existing parties. As a foreign rule the British government made all efforts to understand these variations which helped them to great a strong base in India .It was only during and after the Second World War that the British Government was forced internally as well as externally to grant freedom to India. Among these factors the rise of communalism was the most alarming one which sowed the seeds of partition in the long run. The major group affected by this was the newly created All India Muslim League under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

The rise of communalism which turned out to be the most important cause for the Partition of India rested mainly on three factors. Firstly, a belief which prevailed was that people of the same community who follow the same religion will have common secular interest i.e. common political, social and cultural interest; in a multi cultural society like India the secular interests of each community differs with the other; and finally communalism arises when the interests of different religions are seen as antagonistic, incompatible and hostile to each other. As these principles formed the base of the newly created parties this forced them to remain away from each other. On the other side the British rule which lasted in India for last 200 years gave full encouragement to this growing in difference. This was further encouraged by the announcement of Communal awards. The encouragement provided by the British Government could be traced back to the period of Partition of Bengal. With this the British government for the first time raised the issue of difference within the communities of Muslim and Hindus to begin with which was though vehemently protested yet led to partition of India as a whole.

With the roots of communalism already sworn by the British rulers it in the long run formed the base of the new party namely All India Muslim League. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the pioneer of the party, was initially member of Indian National Congress but due to his differences with Mahatma Gandhi he chose to form a new party. The struggle for Pakistan continued to remain as the bone of contention till the end of the struggle till it achieved its mission.

Along with the existing dissatisfaction with the Muslim League the Indian politics faced some more changes within Indian politics. 1940s witnessed the strengthening of some of the existing parties and their new generation politicians like the Akalis of Punjab and Hindu Mahasabha who added to the existing communal drift. The major concern of the present day politics was to look after one`s own security and the existence of their own community highlighting vehemently the issue of Communalism in Indian politics.

What is communalism? Discuss the process of its emergence in Indian society.

Communism," for its part, once referred to a cooperative society that would be based morally on mutual respect and on an economy in which each contributed to the social labor fund according to his or her ability and received the means of life according to his or her needs. Today, "communism" is associated with the Stalinist gulag and wholly rejected as totalitarian. Its cousin, "socialism" -- which once denoted a politically free society based on various forms of collectivism and equitable material returns for labor -- is currently interchangeable with a somewhat humanistic bourgeois liberalism.

During the 1980s and 1990s, as the entire social and political spectrum has shifted ideologically to the right, "anarchism" itself has not been immune to redefinition. In the Anglo-American sphere, anarchism is being divested of its social ideal by an emphasis on personal autonomy, an emphasis that is draining it of its historic vitality. A Stirnerite individualism -- marked by an advocacy of lifestyle changes, the cultivation of behavioral idiosyncrasies and even an embrace of outright mysticism -- has become increasingly prominent. This personalistic "lifestyle anarchism" is steadily eroding the socialistic core of anarchist concepts of freedom.

Let me stress that in the British and American social tradition, autonomy and freedom are not equivalent terms. By insisting the need to eliminate personal domination, autonomy focuses on the individual as the formative component and locus of society. By contrast, freedom, despite its looser usages, denotes the absence of domination in society, of which the individual is part. This contrast becomes very important when individualist anarchists equate collectivism as such with the tyranny of the community over its members

Today, if an anarchist theorist like L. Susan Brown can assert that "a group is a collection of individuals, no more and no less," rooting anarchism in the abstract individual, we have reason to be concerned. Not that this view is entirely new to anarchism; various anarchist historians have described it as implicit in the libertarian outlook. Thus the individual appears ab novo, endowed with natural rights and bereft of roots in society or historical development.1

But whence does this "autonomous" individual derive? What is the basis for its "natural rights," beyond a priori premises and hazy intuitions? What role does historical development play in its formation? What social premises give birth to it, sustain it, indeed nourish it? How can a "collection of individuals" institutionalize itself such as to give rise to something more than an autonomy that consists merely in refusing to impair the "liberties" of others -- or "negative liberty," as Isaiah Berlin called it in contradistinction to "positive liberty," which is substantive freedom, in our case constructed along socialistic lines?

In the history of ideas, "autonomy," referring to strictly personal "self-rule," found its ancient apogee in the imperial Roman cult of libertas. During the rule of the Julian-Claudian Caesars, the Roman citizen enjoyed a great deal of autonomy to indulge his own desires -- and lusts -- without reproval from any authority, provided that he did not interfere with the business and the needs of the state. In the more theoretically developed liberal tradition of John Locke and John Stuart Mill, autonomy acquired a more expansive sense that was opposed ideologically to excessive state authority. During the nineteenth century, if there was any single subject that gained the interest of classical liberals, it was political economy, which they often conceived not only as the study of goods and services, but also as a system of morality. Indeed, liberal thought generally reduced the social to the economic. Excessive state authority was opposed in favor of a presumed economic autonomy. Ironically, liberals often invoked the word freedom, in the sense of "autonomy," as they do to the present day.2

Despite their assertions of autonomy and distrust of state authority, however, these classical liberal thinkers did not in the last instance hold to the notion that the individual is completely free from lawful guidance. Indeed, their interpretation of autonomy actually presupposed quite definite arrangements beyond the individual -- notably, the laws of the marketplace. Individual autonomy to the contrary, these laws constitute a social organizing system in which all "collections of individuals" are held under the sway of the famous "invisible hand" of competition. Paradoxically, the laws of the marketplace override the exercise of "free will" by the same sovereign individuals who otherwise constitute the "collection of individuals."

No rationally formed society can exist without institutions and if a society as a "collection of individuals, no more and no less" were ever to emerge, it would simply dissolve. Such a dissolution, to be sure, would never happen in reality. The liberals, nonetheless, can cling to the notion of a "free market" and "free competition" guided by the "inexorable laws" of political economy.

Alternatively, freedom, a word that shares etymological roots with the German Freiheit (for which there is no equivalent in Romance languages), takes its point of departure not from the individual but from the community or, more broadly, from society. In the last century and early in the present one, as the great socialist theorists further sophisticated ideas of freedom, the individual and his or her development were consciously intertwined with social evolution -- specifically, the institutions that distinguish society from mere animal aggregations.

What made their focus uniquely ethical was the fact that as social revolutionaries they asked the key question -- What constitutes a rational society? -- a question that abolishes the centrality of economics in a free society. Where liberal thought generally reduced the social to the economic, various socialisms (apart from Marxism), among which Kropotkin denoted anarchism the "left wing," dissolved the economic into the social.3

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as Enlightenment thought and its derivatives brought the idea of the mutability of institutions to the foreground of social thought, the individual, too, came to be seen as mutable. To the socialistic thinkers of the period, a "collection" was a totally alien way of denoting society; they properly considered individual freedom to be congruent with social freedom and, very significantly, they defined freedom as such as an evolving, as well as a unifying, concept.

In short, both society and the individual were historicized in the best sense of this term: as an ever-developing, self-generative and creative process in which each existed within and through the other. Hopefully, this historicization would be accompanied by ever-expanding new rights and duties. The slogan of the First International, in fact, was the demand, "No rights without duties, no duties without rights" -- a demand that later appeared on the mastheads of anarchosyndicalist periodicals in Spain and elsewhere well into the present century.

Thus, for classical socialist thinkers, to conceive of the individual without society was as meaningless as to conceive of society without individuals. They sought to realize both in rational institutional frameworks that fostered the greatest degree of free expression in every aspect of social life.

Write a note on the Quit India Movement.

In August 1942, Gandhiji launched the Quit India Movement (“Bharat Chhodo Andolan”). A resolution was passed on 8 August 1942 in Bombay by the All India Congress Committee, declaring its demand for an immediate end of British rule. The Congress decided to organize a mass struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale. Gandhiji’s slogan of ‘Do or Die’ (‘Karo ya Maro’) inspired the nation. Every man, women and child began dreaming of a free India. The government’s response to the movement was quick. The Congress was banned and most of its leaders were arrested before they could start mobilizing the people. The people, however, were unstoppable. There were hartals and demonstrations all over the country. The people attacked all symbols of the British government such as railway stations, law courts and police stations. Railway lines were damaged and telegraph lines were cut. In some places, people even set up their independent government. The movement was most widespread in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, Bombay, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Places such as Ballia, Tamluk, Satara, Dharwar, Balasore and Talcher were freed from British rule and the people there formed their own governments.

The British responded with terrible brutality. The army was called out to assist the police. There were lathi-charges and firing at the unarmed demonstrators. Even old men and children were shot dead while taking part in processions. Protestors were arrested and tortured and their homes raided and destroyed. By December 1942, over sixty thousand people had been jailed.The few leaders who had escaped arrest went into hiding and tried to guide the mass movement. Among them were Jai Prakash Narayan, S M Joshi, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohis, Achyut Patwardhan and Smt Sucheta Kripalani.

The Indians suffered greatly throughout the Second World War. There was a terrible famine in Bengal in AD 1943 in which over thirty lakh people died. The government did little to save the starving people. The Congress had little success in rallying other political forces under a single flag and program. Smaller parties like the Hindu Mahasabha opposed the call. The Communist Party of India strongly opposed the Quit India movement and supported the war effort because of the need to assist the Soviet Union, despite support for Quit India by many industrial workers. In response the British lifted the ban on the party.[5] The movement had less support in the princely states, as the princes were strongly opposed and funded the opposition.[6]

Muslim leaders opposed Quit India. Muhammad Ali Jinnah's opposition to the call led to large numbers of Muslims cooperating with the British, and enlisting in the army.[7] The Muslim League gained large numbers of new members. Congress members resigned from provincial legislatures, enabling the League to take control in Sindh, Bengal and Northwest Frontier.[8][9]

The nationalists had very little international support. They knew that the United States strongly supported Indian independence, in principle, and believed the U.S. was an ally. However, after Churchill threatened to resign if pushed too hard, the U.S. quietly supported him while bombarding Indians with propaganda designed to strengthen public support of the war effort. The poorly run American operation annoyed both the British and the Indians.

Discuss the causes of the Revolt of 1857. Why did it fail?

One of the primary and severe outbursts of resentment against the British rule came in the form of the Indian revolt of 1857. This revolt followed the battles of Plassey and Buxar and the main cause was resentment against setting up of British rule in Bengal. It is called the first war of independence by many historians though it is a debatable topic. The British historians termed it Sepoy Mutiny and Jawaharlal Nehru called it a feudal revolt which was much more than just a Sepoy Mutiny. Read further about the causes of revolt of 1857 in India.

The revolt was basically started by the soldiers who worked for the East India Company and later was spread across the country by peasants, artisans and soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the sake of others. Different religions of India came together and fought united for one cause. There were many different reasons for the outbreak of the revolt of 1857. Exploitation by the British, imposing of their faith forcefully on Indians, etc. were just some causes. Some of the other causes are discussed below.

Thousands of soldiers were rendered jobless when the northern states were annexed. The able soldiers of kingdoms like Oudh were very frustrated by this move and were waiting to seek revenge.

The Indian soldiers employed under the British were made to use a special type of cartridge that was to be bitten off before being loaded in a rifle. It was rumored that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. This angered the Hindus and Muslims as it hurt their religious sentiments.

The policy of annexation introduced by Lord Dalhousie was received with much discontent among Indians. Due to the introduction of the new policy, Baji Rao's adopted son Nana Sahib was dispossessed of the pension his father was receiving. It was announced that Bahadur Shah Zafar will not be allowed to stay in the Red Fort anymore and they would have to move to a place near Qutub Minar. It was also announced that the successors of Bahadur Shah would not be given the title of king.

The British started to impose Christianity to provoke people further. Taxes were collected form temples and mosques and Hindu and Muslim soldiers were asked to accept the faith of Christianity.

The Revolt of 1857 could not be successful on account of the following factors (reasons):

a) Lack of unity and cohesion:

Many state rulers e.g. the Scindias, Holkars, Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of Bhopal, Rajas of Patiala, Nabha, Jind Jodhpur etc., big Zamindars and traders actively supported the British. The Sikh, Rajput and Gorkha Battalions remained loyal to the British to suppress the Revolt.

b) The rising was not widespread:

The Revolt was limited to U.P., Delhi and West Bengal. It did not assume a national character.

c) No common aims and ideals:

The Hindus and the Muslims wanted to establish their separate empires. There was no unified programme.

d) Lack of discipline, resources and organization:

The revolutionaries lacked resources (men and money), discipline and organization. They were brave and patriotic but lacked leadership qualities.

An unplanned early start: An unplanned early start (Much before the scheduled date i.e. May) alerted the British rulers. The revolt was crushed and failed miserably.

As a teacher you must have felt some problems in implementation of continuous comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) in your school. Mention those problem and also explain how did you overcome those problem .

Continuous and comprehensive evaluation is an education system newly introduced by Central Board of Secondary Education in India, for students of sixth to tenth grades. The main aim of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation is to evaluate every aspect of the child during their presence at the school. This is believed to help reduce the pressure on the child during/before examinations as the student will have to sit for multiple tests throughout the year, of which no test or the syllabus covered will be repeated at the end of the year, whatsoever. The Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation method is claimed to bring enormous changes from the traditional chalk and talk method of teaching provided it is implemented accurately.

As a teacher we do have faced many problems in the implementation of such systems. Problems faced under this method are.

Time Constraints:

Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation requires us to spend more time evaluating individual students. While the advantages of this include a broader view of the child's progress and more interaction with the child's parents, it can put additional strain on us that negatively influences their ability to assess students. Student conferences are more frequent under this system, requiring us to add more hours to their work day. This disadvantage can easily be remedied if parents avail themselves for conferences with the teacher during school hours and if classroom sizes are limited. We have to adjust our timings and schedule as per the system. So we request parents to avail themselves for the conference so that time constraints can be avoided and be maintained well.

Potential for Inconsistencies:

Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation requires all of us to be trained and adhere to the same assessment methods. However, the system is liable to suffer from many inconsistencies. We teachers are charged with assessing cognitive abilities as well as health habits, work habits, cleanliness and cooperation. While a general standard of health habits and cleanliness, for example, may be assumed, the truth is such personal standards can be surprisingly subjective. Training teachers in assessing these values  may not provide any more consistent results than standardized testing.

Potential for Prejudice:

Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation is aimed at grooming students academically as well as shaping their attitudes, beliefs and values. The potential for prejudice against minority groups or sectarian religious groups is a great risk in a system based on teacher-only assessment. Standardized tests allow students whose grades may be negatively influenced by teacher prejudice to prove their capability outside of the classroom.

The Ghost of Classrooms Past:

Kindergarten through high school portfolio assessment may set students up for continued poor performance. Traditionally, students have started each new school year without any known predetermined expectations by teachers. This can be liberating for students who wish to leave their poor performance behind and apply themselves anew. However, carrying records of poor performance in elementary through high school may engender in students a low expectation of their ability to overcome that history of performance. A teacher's ability to read a student's entire history may unintentionally establish expectations of poor performance that prevents teachers from applying different methods of teaching subjects to struggling students.

Student scoring better marks:
A downside of the CCE system is the grading system. This is because the bracket is very wide, for example students that score between 90 and 100 will get an A* grade. You may see this as a positive scheme because it gives the chance for more students to receive a higher grade, however, a student that scores 8 more points than someone else but doesn't receive a better grade may seem unfair. Though * more points does matter a lot. But that student also stands in the same line as of the student who scored 90. Which is a problem for us that how to get a good grade for that particular student.

Stress on Students as well:

Despite the system aiming to lessen stress, the grading system may in fact cause more stress for the students.. For example, a student may feel more pressure to get a higher grade because the grade margin is substantially larger than you would expect. As a teacher it puts a stress on us also to note how a student is doing and what is his requirement to complete is grade goal

INITIAL REACTIONS: 
As a teacher it aggrieves me to share that CCE has created more chaos rather than being welcomed by the schools. The bewilderment it has generated is equivocal amongst school managements, teachers, students, parents, publishers and other agencies working in the field of education. Therefore, there are schools demanding intensive CCE

training for different stakeholders there are Students who feel that it will mean more assessments for them on an ongoing basis. Teachers feel that their work has increased tremendously with assessments having additional ‘descriptive indicators’.

Hence we face more than the above mentioned problems in the continuous comprehensive evaluation system but as teacher we have to get over all the above problems and get a systematic solution to it. If we do not get a solution its ultimately us who suffers because it’s not a system followed by school or college this system is run by whole education system, all over the world and not only in India.

Though the method is problematic its good for the students to achieve marks not only on the basis of class studies but also on the basis of their class behavior also. Students who score well do not think about their behavior and have much attitude in them just because they score well. Because of continuous comprehensive evaluation this thing has almost vanished from the class rooms thus ultimately this method is helpful to teachers like us who now don’t have to tolerate the burden of student’s behavior as they are already cleaned up through continuous comprehensive evaluation. They behave well to get the best possible grades. Hence it’s a very helpful concept of studies and maintaining class discipline too.

Explain the concept of ‘Grading’ & its types with suitable examples.

Grading is a powerful tool faculty use to communicate with their students, colleagues, and institutions, as well as external entities.   The authors, through their personal experiences in the classroom and from listening to faculty from myriad institutions at workshops around the country, have found that teachers have “spent nearly every day of *their+ teaching lives wrestling with the problems, the power, and the paradoxes of the grading system” (xv).  “Effective Grading . . . presents suggestions for making classroom grading more fair, more time-efficient, and more conducive to learning” (xvi).

Letter Grades

With the letter grade system, students can receive A, B, C, D or F grades. Letter grades are usually calculated with a nine or 10-point range assigned to each letter. A is the highest grade, associated with 90 percent accuracy or higher and  F grade is given for a performance with 59 percent accuracy or less.

4.0 Grading Scale

The 4.0 grading scale is another common type of grading, often used in conjunction with letter grades. This scale typically is used in high schools and colleges, as a means to calculate a Grade Point Average (GPA)

 Mastery Grading

A new trend in grading systems is mastery, Rick Wormeli writes in his book, "Fair Isn't Always Equal." Many school systems, in kindergarten through 12th grade, are moving away from the sometimes-subjective traditional grading systems toward the more concrete mastery grade systems.

For example:  Schools ad collages. They use Letter grade system. They give grades according to what student has got marks.

What is distinctive about the cold war as compared to other international conflicts of the twentieth century?

After the Second World War the spirit of rivalry was further strengthened with the chief victors getting into two different fronts. The first and the seconds’ world wars were fought due to imperialistic attitudes of some western countries. But the cold war is ideologically different from the first and the Second World War. The division of Europe into two antagonistic spheres became evident. The main cause of the cold war was the ideological conflict between the U.S.S.R and the U.S. The cold war s origin can be traced back to Russian revolution in 1917. Communism established itself a militant faith. It believed to bring world revolution by the total extinction of the non believers. By exerting internal and external pressures the desired goals were aimed to be achieved. The beliefs and ideas of communism were strictly opposed by America. On the other hand soviet and Chinese communist leaders defined bourgeoisie capitalism as an anti progressive force. It was attributed with the features like oppressive and imperialistic attitude. But they were doomed to be buried under socialism. The first and the second world were inspired by imperialistic interest. Rise of extremist power was also prepared the stage for the Second World War, besides totalitarism surfaced to varying degrees in the first half of the 19^th century. As a result individual liberty was sacrificed on the name of the state. Large scale unemployment and economic distress considerably increased the fear of enemies both internally and externally. Germany’s Nazi regime, Italy’s fascism regime and Japan’s modernization drive also played a vital role. Mutual distrust and failure of building an anti fascist alliance along with the non existence of a strong international body to co-ordinate among international powers also hailed it. The first world was mainly characterised by expansion plans by military and naval commands of different countries. Several mobilization plans and a lightening of the hostile coalitions built a momentum for war over riding arguments for peace developing from trade, industry and good sense created an international crisis. The Great War had claimed t5he lives of no less than 15^th million people. Its development took place due to high ambitions, aspirations and jealousy which centred around countries like Germany, Britain, Russia, France, Belgium etc. But the Second World War was vaster in its impact. The cold war in comparison is an era of conflict which has witnessed no wide scale, direct conflicts. Rather the war was fought on diplomatic terms. In 1945 the US was a supreme power and it was evident in its economy that accounted for about 50 percent of the total world GNP. In the Second World War the U.S.S.R had lost 20 million men in war casualties and approximately the same number in related events. But still a large portion of the eastern and the central Europe into the centre of the Germany and also the Balkans were occupied by U.S.S.R. Germany was divided into two war fronts centring which tensions prevailed between U.S.S.R on one hand and united front of the French ,British and the Americans. The prime foreign policy objective of the US was containment of communism. The country took a number of effective measures to oppose communism. All Latin American countries committed themselves to join defence against internal and external communist subversion in Rio treaty of 1947. Attempts were being made to form a united front of non-communist European countries. In 1949 north Atlantic treaty organization was formed. Its main objective was to provide defence to the west European countries. Turkey and FRG joined it later. On the other central and eastern European countries were brought together in the Warsaw pact time under the leadership of the Soviet Union. Confrontation between two military alliances started a new arms race. The fear of nuclear warfare loomed over the whole world. The cold war came to Asia first when china proclaimed itself as the peoples of china in October 1949.china saw US as an adversary of its interest. The most dangerous crisis of the world war took place in October 1962 over the issue of soviet missiles placed in the Caribbean island of cuba.

Explain briefly the characteristics of a good evaluation tools.

1.  Objective-baseness:  Evaluation is making judgment about some phenomena or performance on the basis of some pre-determined objectives.  Therefore a tool meant for evaluation should measure attainment in terms of criteria determined by instructional objectives.  

2.  Comprehensiveness: A tool should cover all pints expected to be learnt by the pupils.  It should also cover all the pre-determined objectives.  This is referred to be comprehensiveness.

3.  Discriminating power: A good evaluation tool should be able to discriminate the respondents on the basis of the phenomena measured. 

 4.  Reliability: Reliability of a tool refers to the degree of consistency and accuracy with which it measures what it is intended to measure.  If the evaluation gives more or less the same result every time it is used, such evaluation is said to be reliable.

5.  Validity: Validity is the most important quality needed for an evaluation tool.  If the tool is able to measure what it is intended to measure, it can be said that the tool is valid.  It should fulfill the objectives for which it is developed.  

 6.  Objectivity: A tool is said to be objective if it is free from personal bias of interpreting its scope as well as in scoring the responses. Objectivity is one of the most primary pre-requisites required for maintaining all other qualities of a good too.

7.  Practicability: A tool, however, well it satisfies all the above criteria, may be useless unless it is not practically feasible.

Nature and Content of Western political thought.

Political thought is related to politics, but it is history that provides political thought its very basis. Political thought can not be studies without politics sometime it may possible but we cannot study political thought without history.  We must follow history to understanding political thought, so it is in historical context. A political philosopher’s political philosophy emerges in the age of philosopher breaths. Plato classification of states depicted the classification as it prevailed then; his theory of education was drawn heavily from what existed in Athens and Sparta then. Machiavelli’s whole methodology depicted his debt of history. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau made history as the basis interpretation of history. The objectives conditions of history always provide the foundations on which the political philosophers have built their philosophy. We can understand the political philosophy of a political thinker only in the historical context. Separate a political philosopher from his times, one will always find a proper condemning Plato as an enemy of open society. A contextual study is always a safer method of understanding a text. It is true that a text without a context is a structure without a base. In this sense Machiavelli is better understood in the context of renaissance. But Hobbes Locke, with their views as apart as the north-south poles, can be better studied in the background of the English civil war. Also Marx can be understood in the light of the growing capitalism of the European western society. Is it western political thought is based on history? But its history, Professor Sabine rightly says, has no concluding chapter. This has grown and is growing and in fact, will always keep growing. This has grown in a typical way; each subsequent philosopher criticizes the philosophy or political ideas of an earlier philosopher, and in the process builds his own philosophy. Here Aristotle did so with Plato, Locke did so with filmer, Bentham with Blackstone, john Stuart mill, with Bentham, Marx did so with Hegel, Adam smith, proudhon. Then western political thought has grown its proceeds on polemics, it changes, but it continues. It is continuing since the days of Plato and Aristotle. No wonder if then it is said that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Plato and Aristotle together gave the base on which stands the whole fabric of western political thought, for political idealism and political realism are the two pillars of the western political philosophy from where rise numerous other related shades. So we can say that it is not easy to identify what the western political thought contains. The attempt, indeed, would be arbitrary. However, major contents of the western political thought can be, for the sake of making a point, be stated, to be political institution, and procedures, political idealism and realism. Lastly we can say that western political thought is rich in its contents. It has helped in stating the utility of political institutions, political procedures to be followed. It has given the western tradition values such as democracy, nationalism, liberty, justice and above all the two parallel pillars, idealism and realism; on which rest the major frameworks of political theory within which most theorists operate.

Bureaucratisation in the context of the modern world.

Medieval Europe experienced centralization of power in the heads of the king it was quite different from the professional attitude and proficiency which modern bureaucracy displays. Royal absolutism monopolised power in its own favour and appointment in important posts were being made purely on the basis of king’s appraisal. The feudal lords were appointed for their loyalty and efficiency was not a mother of prime importance. The transformation took place in the nineteenth century in Europe. All challenges from feudal nobilities and local estates had been overcome. The modern state could accumulate apparently unlimited resources by means of industrialization. The main challenges before the state was to harness and exploit these vast resources, besides there were newer sources, both material and human. The state began to take direct interest in different fields like industry, education health etc. To mobilise and use the resources efficiency new institutions and professions were required. The emergence of professional bureaucracies takes place against this background. The direct activities of the state vastly expanded. Starting with Britain from the 1830s, but all these were accompanied by a comparable campaign against corruption which is a direct result of bureaucracy. Professionals were being appointed especially through the competitive examination. In stages from 1870, entry into the civil service was to take place through competitive examinations. The professionals took changes everywhere and education itself became a form of investment. This process was slower in France. The France had a reputation for absolutist states, royal bureaucracies and Napoleonic efficiency. High levels of proficiency and bureaucracy were attained in Paris, but the provinces remained in the hads of local interests to a degree greater than Germany or Berlin. In Russia extraordinary concentration of power at the top tends to make it an under governed country. In the second half of the 19^th century political parties also changed into bureaucratic structures. In the 1860s they transformed themselves into large mass organizations. In Britain, the party used to be a loose association of groups engaged in regional or local polities. From about 1867 the loose polities of local parties changed as the parties began to be more organized and centralized. Both liberal and conservative party, benefit societies, each of them organized their own constituency associations. These associations were centralized. The central unit were empowered to exercise full control over the local units. The German party system developed in compatible manner. In 1875 SPD or the social democratic party was formed. Indeed the German civil service became something of a model across the ideological spectrum, the contrast to some extent in the France and the Mediterranean states, France being predominantly occupied with weaker organizational structures. Than the German or the British counterparts. The reason is mainly because of the size of the parties. After the Second World War the communist party became an excellent bureaucracy in typically Stalinist fashion. The fascist bureaucracies formally submitted to the principle of leadership. But this leadership is not a single leadership but a virtual leadership. The bureaucratization of political parties means democratization of the bureaucracy. A political party in this context is conceived as an agent of democracy. In the matter of single party system the bureaucracies are of two types the party and the state.

The democratic institutions of modern times which embody the hopes of the exploited are the trade unions. The trade unions are the organizations which undergoes a new wave of industrialization, new technologies, and above all new structures of management. The emergence of professional management was conceived in the act of professional workers who are not only skilled but also trained on the job. They could frame plans for action, committee work and negotiation eventually they began to play an important role in politics both at national and regional. Unions supported particular political parties. They have to work in union with each other at the bureaucratic level, for the purposes of national representation. Unions built up national organizations to represent them, for ex trade union congress (TUC) in Britain, the confederation general du travail (CGT) in France.

What is history from below? Discuss it with reference to the history-writing in India.

Grass hoods history, history seen from below or the history of the common people, people’s history, and even ‘history of everyday life. The conventional history about the great deeds of the ruling classes received further boost from the great tradition of political and administrative historiography developed by Ranke and his followers. The history from below was an attempt to write the history of the common people. It is history concerned with the activities and thoughts of those people and regions that were neglected by the earlier historians. Peasants and working classes, women and minority groups, unknown faces in the crowd, and the people lost in the past became the central concern of this historiographical tradition.

 According to Raphael Samuel, the term “people’s history” has had a long career, and covers and ensemble of different writing. The beginning of the history from below may be traced to the late 18^th century. In the classical western tradition, history-writing involved the narration of the deeds of great men. The common people were considered to be beyond the boundaries of history and it was beneath the dignity of the historian to write about them. Peter burke points out, ‘until the middle of the eighteenth century, the word “society” in its modern sense did not exist in any European language, and without the word it is very difficult to have any conception of that network of relationships we call “society” or “the social structure”.

     In India, most of members of the subordinate classes, including the industrial classes, are not literate, therefore, direct sources coming from them are extremely rare, if not completely absent. Given this scenario, the historian trying to write history from below have to rely on indirect sources. As sabyasachi bhattacharjee points out, given the low level of literacy we have to depend on interferences from behavior pattern. Report on opinions and sentiments, on oral testimonies etc. oral traditions also have their problems. They cannot be stretched back too far and one has to work within living memory. These problems are outlined by one of the great practitioner of history from below, Ranjit Guha,the founder of the subaltern studies . Above all “history from below” has to face problem of the ultimate relative failure of mass initiative in colonial India,

     Most talk about elitist origins of the evidences which the historians use for understanding the mentalities behind the peasant rebellions. This has come down to us in the form of official records of one kind or another –police reports, army dispatches, administrative accounts, minutes and resolutions of governmental departments, and so on. Non-official sources of our information on the subject, such as newspapers or the private correspondence between persons of authority, too speak in the same elitist voice, even if it is that of the indigenous elite or of non-Indians outside officialdom.

    History from the below,  As the perspective of the common people in the process of history- writing. It is in against that concept of historiography, which believes I Disraeli’s dictum that history is the biography of great men. Instead the history from below endeavors to take into accounts the lives and activities of masses who are otherwise ignored by the conventional historians. Moreover it attempts to take their point of view into accounts as far possible. It is venture; the historians face a lot of problems because the sources are biased in favor of the rulers, administrators and the dominant classes in general.