How, When and Where Extra Questions Chapter 1 Class 8 History
On this page you will get Chapter 1 How, When and Where Extra Questions for Class 8 History that will be helpful in answering all the important questions appear in the exams and improve your tally. Class 8 Extra Questions is one of the best way through which one can understand the concepts given in the chapter properly.
Chapter 1 How, When and Where Very Short Answer Questions (VSAQs):
1. Who was the last Viceroy of India?
Answer
Lord Mountbatten
2. Who prepared the first map and when?
Answer
James Rennel in 1782.
3. Who was James Mill?
Answer
He was a Scottish economist and a political philosopher who published a massive three volume work- A History of British India.
4. How did Mills divide Indian History?
Answer
Mills divided Indian History into three periods namely, Hindu, Muslim and British.
5. Why did the British establish botanical gardens?
Answer
To collect plant specimens and information about their uses.
6. Who was the first Governor General of India?
Answer
Warren Hastings.
7. Who wrote the book ‘The History of British India’?
Answer
‘The History of British India’ was written by James Mill.
8. Why did the British set up record rooms attached to all administrative institutions?
Answer
They did so to preserve important documents and letters there.
9. Why did the British establish botanical gardens?
Answer
The British established botanical gardens to collect plant specimens and information about their uses.
10. How do dates become important in history?
Answer
Dates become vital in history because we focus on a particular set of events as important.
11. Why do we divide history into different periods?
Answer
In an attempt to capture the characteristics of a time, its central features as they appear to us.
12. Why were revenue surveys conducted in the villages?
Answer
In the villages, revenue surveys were conducted to know the topography, the soil quality, the flora, the fauna, the local histories and the cropping patterns. These facts were necessary to administer the region.
13. What is the Botanical Survey of India?
Answer
The Botanical Survey of India (1351) is an institution set up by the Government of India in 1890 to survey the plant resources of the Indian empire.
14. What was an important aspect of the histories written by the British historians in India?
Answer
The rule of each Governor-General was an important aspect.
Chapter 1 How, When and Where Short Answer Questions (SAQs):
1. Why do we associate history with dates?
Answer
Because there was a time when history was an account of battles and big events.
• Historians wrote about the year a king was crowned, the year he married, the year he had a child, the year he fought a particular war, the year he died, and the year the next ruler succeeded to the throne.
• For these events specific dates can be determined, and dates continue to be important.
2. The periodisation of Indian history into ‘ancient’, ‘medieval’ and ‘modern’ has its own problems. What are these problems?
Answer
• It is a periodisation that is borrowed from the West where the modern period was associated with the growth of all the forces of modernity – science, reason, democracy, liberty and equality.
• Medieval was a term used to describe a society where these features of modern society did not exist.
• Under British rule or in modern period people did not have equality, freedom or liberty. Nor was the period one of economic growth and progress. It is therefore many historians refer to modem period as colonial period.
3. What do official records not tell? How do we come to know about them?
Answer
Official records do not always help us understand what other people in the country felt, and what lay behind their actions.
• For that we have diaries of people, accounts of pilgrims and travellers, autobiographies of important personalities, and popular books, etc. that were sold in the local bazaars.
• With the spread of printing press, newspapers came to be published and issues began to be debated in public. Leaders and reformers wrote to spread their ideas, poets and novelists wrote to express their feelings.
4. How did the British conquer India and establish their rule?
Answer
• The British subjugated local nawabs and rajas.
• They established control over the economy and society collected revenue to meet all their expenses, bought goods they wanted at lower prices and produced crops they needed for export.
• They brought changes in rulers and tastes, customs and practices.
5. What did the British do to preserve important official documents and letters?
Answer
The British felt the need to preserve all the important official documents and letters. For this, they set up record rooms attached to all administrative institutions. The village tahsildar’s office, the collectorate, the commissioner’s office, the provincial secretariats, the lawcourts—all had their record rooms. The British also established specialised institutions such as archives and museums to preserve important records.
Chapter 1 How, When and Where Long Answer Questions (LAQs):
1. Why were surveys carried out under the British Rule in India?
Answer
The British believed that a country had to be properly known before it could be effectively administered. Therefore, by the early nineteenth century detailed surveys were being carried out to map the entire country.:
• They conducted revenue surveys in villages.
• They made efforts to know the topography, the soil quality, the flora, the fauna, the local histories and the cropping pattern.
• They also introduced census operations, held at the interval of every ten years from the end of the 19th century. They prepared detailed records of the number of people in all the provinces of India, noting information on castes, religions and occupation separately.
• The British also carried on several other surveys such as botanical surveys, zoological surveys, archaeological surveys, forest surveys, etc. In this way, they gathered all the facts that were essential for administering a country.
2. Describe how the official records of the British administration helped historians to write about the last 250 years of Indian history.
Answer
The British believed that the act of writing was important. Hence, they got written up every instruction, plan, policy decision, agreement, investigation, etc. Once this was done, things could be properly studied and debated. This conviction produced an administrative culture of memos, notings and reports.
They were very interested in preserving all important documents and letters. For this, they established record rooms attached to all administrative institutions such as the village tahsildar’s office, the collectorate, law courts etc. They also set up archives and museums to preserve important records.
Letters and memos that moved from one branch of the administration to another in the early years of the nineteenth century can still be read in the archives. Historians can also take help from the notes and reports that district officials prepared or the instructions and directives that were sent by officials at the top to the provincial administrators.