IAS Prelims (GS) preparation 2018
Day # 10 (April 2, 2017)
Topics of the day: History 8th NCERT part I chapter 5 and 6 key points
Chapter 5
-Awadh was one of the last territories to be annexed. In 1801, a subsidiary alliance was imposed on Awadh, and in 1856 it was taken over. Governor- General Dalhousie declared that the territory was being misgoverned and British rule was needed to ensure proper administration.
-In 1856, Governor-General Canning decided that Bahadur Shah Zafar would be the last Mughal king and after his death none of his descendants would be recognised as kings – they would just be called princes.
-Many failed to pay back their loans to the moneylenders and gradually lost the lands they had tilled for generations.
-In 1856 the Company passed a new law which stated that every new person who took up employment in the Company‟s army had to agree to serve overseas if required.
-After 1830, the Company allowed Christian missionaries to function freely in its domain and even own land and property. In 1850, a new law was passed to make conversion to Christianity easier. This law allowed an Indian who had converted to Christianity to inherit the property of his ancestors. Many Indians began to feel that the British were destroying their
religion, their social customs and their traditional way of life.
-On 29 March 1857, a young soldier, Mangal Pandey, was hanged to death for attacking his officers in Barrackpore. Some days later, some sepoys of the regiment at Meerut refused to do the army drill using the new cartridges, which were suspected of being coated with the fat of cows and pigs. Eighty-five sepoys were dismissed from service and sentenced to ten years in jail for disobeying their officers. This happened on 9 May 1857.
-On 10 May, the soldiers marched to the jail in Meerut and released the imprisoned sepoys. They attacked and killed British officers. They captured guns and ammunition and set fire to the buildings and properties of the British and declared war on the firangis.
-The sepoys reached Delhi and claimed Bahadur Shah as their Leader.
-Nana Saheb, the adopted son of the late Peshwa Baji Rao who lived near Kanpur, gathered armed forces and expelled the British garrison from the city. He proclaimed himself Peshwa. He declared that he was a governor under Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. In Lucknow, Birjis Qadr, the son of the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, was proclaimed the new Nawab.
-Ahmadullah Shah, a maulvi from Faizabad, prophesied that the rule of the British would come to an end soon. He caught the imagination of the people and raised a huge force of supporters. He came to Lucknow to fight the British.
-In Delhi, a large number of ghazis or religious warriors came together to wipe out the white people.
-Bakht Khan, a soldier from Bareilly, took charge of a large force of fighters who came to Delhi. He became a key military leader of the rebellion.
-In Bihar, an old zamindar, Kunwar Singh, joined the rebel sepoys and battled with the British for many months.
-Delhi was recaptured from the rebel forces in September 1857. The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar was tried in court and sentenced to life imprisonment.
-His sons were shot dead before his eyes. He and his wife Begum Zinat Mahal were sent to prison in Rangoon in October 1858. Bahadur Shah Zafar died in the Rangoon jail in November 1862
-Lucknow was taken in March 1858.
-Rani Lakshmibai was defeated and killed in June 1858.
-Tantia Tope escaped to the jungles of central India and continued to fight a guerrilla war with the support of many tribal and peasant leaders. He was captured, tried and killed in April 1859.
-The British Parliament passed a new Act in 1858 and transferred the powers of the East India Company to the British Crown in order to ensure a more responsible management of Indian affairs. A member of the British Cabinet was appointed Secretary of State for India and made responsible for all matters related to the governance of India. He was given a council to advise him, called the India Council. The Governor- General of India was given the title of Viceroy, that is, a personal representative of the Crown.
Chapter – 6
-For administrative purposes, colonial India was divided into three “Presidencies” (Bombay, Madras and Bengal), which developed from the East India Company‟s “factories” (trading posts) at Surat, Madras and Calcutta.
-A splendid capital of all was built by Shah Jahan. Shahjahanabad was begun in 1639 and consisted of a fort-palace complex and the city adjoining it. Lal Qila or the Red Fort, made of red sandstone, contained the palace complex. To its west lay the Walled City with 14 gates. The main streets of
Chandni Chowk and Faiz Bazaar were broad enough for royal processions to pass. A canal ran down the centre of Chandni Chowk.
-Jama Masjid was among the largest and grandest mosques in India. There was no place higher than this mosque within the city then.
-Jama Masjid is also the first mosque in India with minarets and full domes. Delhi during Shah Jahan‟s time was also an important centre of Sufi culture. It had several dargahs, khanqahs and idgahs. Open squares, winding lanes, quiet cul-desacs and water channels were the pride of Delhi‟s residents.
-Dargah – The tomb of a Sufi saint Khanqah – A sufi lodge, often used as a rest house for travellers and a place where people come to discuss spiritual matters, get the blessings of saints, and hear sufi music Idgah – An open prayer place of Muslims primarily meant for id prayers Cul-de-sac – Street with a dead end.
-In 1803, the British gained control of Delhi after defeating the Marathas.
-The modern city as we know it today developed only after 1911 when Delhi became the capital of British India.
-The establishment of the Delhi College in 1792 led to a great intellectual flowering in the sciences as well as the humanities, largely in the Urdu language. Many refer to the period from 1830 to 1857 as a period of the Delhi renaissance.
-The Delhi College was turned into a school, and shut down in 1877.
-In 1877, Viceroy Lytton organised a Durbar to acknowledge Queen Victoria as the Empress of India.
-In 1911, when King George V was crowned in England, a Durbar was held in Delhi to celebrate the occasion. The decision to shift the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi was announced at this Durbar.
-New Delhi was constructed as a 10-square-mile city on Raisina Hill, south of the existing city. Two architects, Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker, were called on to design New Delhi and its buildings.
-The Mughal aristocracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lived in grand mansions called havelis.
-The Delhi Improvement Trust was set up 1936, and it built areas like Daryaganj South for wealthy Indians. Houses were grouped around parks.