Question Answers: NCERT Class 12 History - Themes in Indian History - II

Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.

How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.

On an outline map of the world mark the countries visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he may have crossed?

Discuss the ways in which panchayats and village headmen regulated rural society.

Discuss Al-Biruni’s understanding of the caste system.

Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.

On an outline map of the world, mark the areas which had economic links with the Mughal Empire, and trace out possible routes of communication.

Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta.

What do you think was the significance of the rituals associated with the mahanavami dibba?

To what extent is it possible to characterise agricultural production in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries as subsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.

What impression of the lives of the ordinary people of Vijayanagara can you cull from the various descriptions in the chapter?

Read this excerpt from Bernier:

Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate so perfectly articles of European manufacture that the difference between the original and copy can hardly be discerned. Among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling- pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness, and delicacy of  their paintings.

List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Compare
these with the descriptions of artisanal activity in
the chapter.

Discuss the ways in which panchayats and village headmen regulated rural society.

Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.

Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful in arriving at an understanding of life in contemporary urban centres? Give reasons for your answer.

To what extent do you think caste was a factor in influencing social and economic relations in agrarian society?

Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.

What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier?

Discuss the ways in which the Alvars, Nayanars and Virashaivas expressed critiques of the caste system.