Revision Notes Class 8

Social Science - History

Chapter 1 - How, When and Where

The Place of Dates in History

As discussed above, history tells us about how the world looked in the past and
how it looks now. So, there is a comparison between the past and the present. As
soon as we establish any kind of relationship between ‘now’ and ‘then,’ we have
to skip the timelines and periods out of the picture. For example, today you are
15 years old but how do you know that? It is because you know the history of
your birth. It is due to your knowledge that 15 years ago you took birth so you
know you are 15 years old today.

Precise Date vs A Period of Time

If you pick up any history book, you will find two ways of talking about a time
in history. First, you will see the precise dates on which certain incidents
happened. Then there are the timelines during which something began to happen.
Ask your mother exactly when you started speaking. Your mother will obviously
say that it was a long process. You did not just start speaking fluently one fine
morning. You learnt one word, then two, three and so on. Similarly, in Europe,
industrialisation did not happen at once. It was a process that spanned over years.
So, we say that the first industrial revolution started from the 18th century and
we have no exact date.
Traditional history uses exact dates. Traditional historical discourse takes big
events like the coronation of a king, start or end of a war, birth of somebody
famous etc. as the standard against which the events of these periods are told.
Because a decisive battle was fought between the Indian King Hemu and the
Mughal forces.

The Demerits of the Date-Based History

Traditional date-based history has a severe flaw that it takes the major incidents
like wars, coronation of a king etc. as the focal points and then talks about the
incidents surrounding these focal points. But history is not made up of these big
incidents alone. It is made up of the actions of ordinary people like you and us.
Traditional history has no place for these ordinary laymen. Neither does this kind
of history show things in different perspectives.
For example, when history talks about the Second Battle of Panipat, it tells the
story of how the Mughal forces won Delhi after defeating Hemu. But it does not
tell us a thing about how he had driven the Mughals out of Delhi to Lahore and
and how he had captured the entire Gangetic Plains in less than a year. He also
ruled Delhi and issued coins in his name, as Hemchandra Vikramaditya.

Who Gets to Decide Which Dates Are Important?

History is filled with dates and years. It is not feasible to talk about each one of
them. So, who decides which year is important and which year isn’t? If a country
is ruled by foreigners, they will try to tell its history from their point of view. It
is only when the countrymen take the responsibility of telling their own history
that we get the real picture.
The history book talks about how the history of India written from a British
perspective tends to give importance to the years that mark the rule of various
governor-general of British India. All the other dates were considered secondary.
Let us take another example. In the higher classes, you will read about the
Independence of America - how it fought against the British. But did you know
that the Americans were mostly the British and European settlers? Before these
settlers came to America, it was inhabited by the Native Americans.
A Vox article rightly says that if the foreign settlers had not forcibly marginalised
the Native Americans - depriving them of their own land, it is the Native
Americans who would have built the nation-state that we call America today. The
history of North America has ignored the existence of Native Americans.

Which Periods Are Important?

As we said, we cannot use dates everywhere. So, we use periods. Here too, we
have the same problem of deciding what historical incidents we should use to
mark the start and end of a particular period.
James Mill, a historian who supported the British rule in India, divided the Indian
history into Hindu, Muslim and British periods. The assumption was, during the
reign of the Hindu and Muslim rulers, India was in the dark ages. It is the British
rulers who pulled India out of the darkness. The ancient Sanskrit language is
deeply intertwined with mathematics.
Then there is the question, why should we categorise periods based on religions.
There are many aspects of history apart from the religious angles.
To banish this bias, modern historians started dividing Indian history into ancient,
medieval and modern. But the Indian civilisation did not advance
chronologically. It was during the so-called ‘ancient’ times that the Indians were
at the prime of socio-political growth.
Only when the British came in the so-called modern age that India plunged into
darkness. So, this chronological way of periodicity is wrong.
The Colonial Period
Because India plunged into darkness during British rule, modern historians refuse
to term that age as the modern age. The British came to India and sucked the very
life force of the country reducing it to a poor, socially divided nation.
During their 190 years of rule, they replaced the Indian customs, culture, language
and even the thought process with their own versions. To this date, we shake
hands when we greet people.
When a country subjects another country to forceful rule leading to an
annihilation of the local culture, traditions, language, customs, and the original
thought process - we call that colonialism. That is exactly what happened when
the British came to India.

Where Do Historians Get the Info?

Historical incidents of the last 250 years had the fortune of being written down.
So, what are the sources of this historical info?

Official Documents
The British were of the opinion that every instruction, plan, execution of the plan,
research etc should be written down so that these things could be studied and
analysed in the future.
So, every government department in the British Raj - like the courts or the village
Tahsildar’s office made it a point to create documents stating their works and
plans.

Surveys
The surveys of the topography, number of people in a region, density of forests,
number of people belonging to a particular religion or gender etc produced
historically significant records.
Then there were archaeological, Zoological or Botanical surveys. However,
official documents were official. These documents spoke the language of the
government. The lives of ordinary people, tribal and marginalised, were never in
the focus.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

1. Can we get a 360-degree view of history from the official records?
Ans: Official documents were mainly written by the British officials or the people
who worked for the British. So, they hid many dark things that the British did. To
give you an example - the official records of the British said that only 379 people
died in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. But actually, the number was as high as
1000.
Again, during the rule of Hitler, the books and properties of the Jews were
destroyed. But still, we have the personal accounts of the Jews like the diary of
Anne Frank from where we get the dark details of that time.

2. What is the flaw in Mill’s way of periodisation of Indian history?

Ans: Based on this assumption, he divided the Indian history into - Hindu,
Muslim and British. This kind of periodisation is wrong because:
● It groups together the entire history of India based on religion and politics.
It is not that during the Hindu rule, Muslims were not living in India and
vice versa.
● This kind of periodisation ignores cultural or scientific advancements.
● It is during the Hindu rule that scientists like Aryabhata or Sushruta existed.

3. How are newspaper reports different from the official records?

Ans: Official records spoke favourably of the government. But the newspaper
reports presented the truth. So much was the power of newspapers that the British
had to come up with the Vernacular Press Act.

4. Can we use paintings made by the British as a historical source?

Ans: No, we can’t. Most of the paintings commissioned by the British
psychologically tried to hammer in the notion that the British Raj was good and
the Indians needed it. The picture drawn by James Runnel that we have in our
history book shows that the Indians wilfully submit the Indian Shastras to
Britannia. This painting is actually an example of cultural colonialism. So, we
must take the paintings drawn during British rule with a grain of salt.

5. Is history all about dates?

Ans: History is not about dates. Let’s start the discussion from an evolutionary
point of view. Suppose you went to a village. While you were roaming around,
you saw a tiger sufficiently far from you. What would be your natural reaction?
You would quickly take shelter and hide from the view of the tiger. Why would
you do that? Because you know tigers attack humans.
Now, think, how did this knowledge come to you? You have seen on TV, read in
books about this basic characteristic of tigers. In the past, men were attacked by
the tigers. So, this knowledge about the past improves your life in the present.
Can you now see, History is not just about memorising dates? We learn from
history. Avner Seagal rightly says that history shows the students the world as it
was, the world as it is. Most importantly, History makes us wonder how the world
should be.
As soon as we establish a relationship between the past and the present, we usher
in the concepts of ‘yesterday’, ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. These concepts are
intrinsically connected with dates and years. So, history has to include dates.