NCERT Class 12 History Understanding Partition Politics Memories Experiences

We know that the joy of our country’s independence from colonial rule in 1947 was tarnished by the violence and brutality of Partition. The Partition of British India into the sovereign states of India and Pakistan (with its western and eastern wings) led to many sudden…

NCERT Class 12 History Through The Eyes Of Travellers Perceptions of Society

Women and men have travelled in search of work, to escape from natural disasters, as traders, merchants, soldiers, priests, pilgrims, or driven by a sense of adventure. Those who visit or come to stay in a new landinvariably encounter a world that is different: in terms of the…

NCERT Class 12 History Thinkers Beliefs and Buildings Cultural Developments

  In this chapter we shall go on a long journey across a thousand years to read about philosophers and their attempts to understand the world they inhabited. We will also see how their ideas were compiled as oral and written texts as well as expressed in architecture and…

NCERT Class 12 History Rebels And the Raj The Revolt of 1857 And Its Representations

Late in the afternoon of 10 May 1857, the sepoys in the cantonment of Meerut broke out in mutiny. It began in the lines of the native infantry, spread very swiftly to the cavalry and then to the city. The ordinary people of the town and surrounding villages joined the sepoys.…

NCERT Class 12 History Peasants Zamindars And the State Agarian Society And the Mugal Empire

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries about 85 per cent of the population of India lived in its villages. Both peasants and landed elites were involved in agricultural production and claimed rights to a share of the produce. This created relationships of cooperation,…

NCERT Class 12 History Mahatma Gandhi and The Nationalist Movement Civil Disobedience and Beyond

In the history of nationalism a single individual is often identified with the making of a nation. Thus, for example, we associate Garibaldi with the making of Italy, George Washington with the American War of Independence, and Ho Chi Minh with the struggle to free Vietnam…

NCERT Class 12 History Kinship Caste and Class Early Societies

In the previous chapter we saw that there were several changes in economic and political life between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE. Some of these changes influenced societies as well. For instance, the extension of   agriculture into forested areas transformed the lives of forest…

NCERT Class 12 History Kings Farmers and Towns Early States and Economies

There were several developments in different parts of the  subcontinent during the long span of 1,500 years following the end of the Harappan civilisation. This was also the period during which the Rigveda was  composed by peopleliving along the Indus and its tributaries.…

NCERT Class 12 History Kings and Chronicles The Mughal Courts

The rulers of the Mughal Empire saw themselves as appointed by Divine Will to rule over a large and heterogeneous populace. Although this grand vision was often circumscribed by actual political circumstances, it remained important. One way of transmitting this vision was…

NCERT Class 12 History Framing The Constitution The Beginning Of a New Era

The Indian Constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950, has the dubious distinction of being the longest in the world. But its length and complexity are perhaps understandable when one considers the country’s size and diversity. At Independence, India was not…

NCERT Class 12 History Colonialism and The Countryside

  In this chapter you will see what colonial rule meant to those who lived in the countryside. You will meet the zamindars of Bengal, travel to the Rajmahal hills where the Paharias and the Santhals lived, and then movewest to the Deccan. You will look at the way the English…

NCERT Class 12 History Colonial Cities Urbanisation Planning and Architecture

In this chapter we will discuss the process of urbanisation in colonial India, explore the distinguishing characteristics of colonial cities and track social changes within them. We will look closely at developments in three big cities – Madras (Chennai), Calcutta (Kolkata)…

NCERT Class 12 History Bricks Beads and Bones The Harappan Civilisation

The Harappan seal (Fig.1.1) is possibly the most distinctive artefact of the Harappan or Indus valley civilisation. Made of a stone called steatite, seals like this one often contain animal motifs and signs from a script that remains undeciphered. Yet we know a great deal…

NCERT Class 12 History Bhakti Sufi Traditions Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts

We saw in Chapter 4 that by the mid-first millennium CE the landscape of the subcontinent was dotted with a variety of religious structures – stupas, monasteries, temples. If these typified certain religious beliefs and practices, others have been reconstructed from textual…