RBSE Solutions for Class 8 Social Science History Chapter 7 Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation

Rajasthan Board RBSE Solutions for Class 8 Social Science History Chapter 7 Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation Textbook Exercise Questions and Answers.

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Solutions History Chapter 7 Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Civilising the Native, Educating the NationInText Questions and Answers

Activity (Page-85)

Question 1.
Imagine you are living in the 1850s. You hear of Woods Despatch. Write about your reactions.
Answer: 
My reactions about Woods Despatch would be as follows-

1. It completely opposed Oriental knowledge and emphasized on practical benefits of a system of European learning. Whereas the Oriental knowledge of India was very advanced.
2. I would like to oppose the argument strongly in which he said that the practical benefits of European learning would be in the fields of trade and commerce.

Activity (Page-88)

Question 1. 
Imagine you were born in a poor family in the 1850s. How would you have responded to the coming of the new system of government-regulated pathshalas?
Answer: 
My opinion about this would be as follows-

1. In the earlier system children from poor peasant families had been able to go to pathshalas, since the timetable was flexible.
2. The discipline of the new system demanded regular attendance, even during harvest time when children of poor families had to work in the fields.
3. In earlier system, less fees were charged from poor children and high fees from those who had higher income. In the new system, due to the same fees from all, poor children would have difficulty in paying the fees.

Question 2. 
Do you know that 50 per cent of the children going to primary school drop out of school by the time they are 13 or 14? Can you think of the various possible, reasons for this fact?
Answer: 

1. Yes, I know that 50 per cent of the children going to primary school drop out of school by the time they are 13 or 14 years of age.

2. The following are the reasons for leaving the school:

• One-third of our population is still living below the poverty line. Therefore, children from these families are unable to study due to financial inefficiency.
• In the absence of awareness, parents do not give any due importance to education.
• There is lack of schools in remote rural areas. Therefore, children in those areas are unable to continue further studies.

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation Textbook Questions and Answers

Let’s Recall

Question 1. 
Match the following-

Answers :

Question 2. 
State whether true or false -
(a) James Mill was a severe critic of the Orientalists.
(b) The 1854 Despatch on education was in favour of English being introduced as a medium of higher education in India.
(c) Mahatma Gandhi thought that promotion of literacy was the most important aim of education.
(d) Rabindranath Tagore felt that children ought to be subjected to strict discipline.
Answers : 
(a) True 
(b) False 
(c) False 
(d) False.

Let’s Discuss

Question 3. 
Why did William Jones feel the need to study Indian history, philosophy and law? 
Answer: 

1. In order to understand India it was necessary to discover the sacred and legal, texts that were produced in the ancient period.
2. For only those texts could reveal the real ideas and laws of the Hindus and Muslims, and only a new study of these texts could form the basis of future development in India.
3. This project, they believed, would not only help the British learn from Indian culture, but it would also help Indians rediscover their own heritage, and understand the lost glories of their past.
4. In this process the British would become the guardians of Indian culture as well as its masters.

Question 4. 
Why did James Mill and Thomas Macaulay think that European education was essential in India?
Answer: 
(1) They believed that knowledge of the East was full of errors and unscientific thoughts whereas European learning was scientific and practical.

(2) According to James Mill view, the aim of education ought to be to teach what was useful and practical. So Indians should be made familiar with the scientific and technical advances that the west had made.

(3) According to Macaulay, India was an uncivilised country that needed to be civilised.

(4) According to Macaulay, ‘a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia’. He believed that no branch of Eastern knowledge could compare with the knowledge that England produced.

(5) Macaulay believed that knowledge of English whould allow Indians to read some of the finest literature the world had produced; it would make them aware of the developments in western science and philosophy.

Question 5.
Why did Mahatma Gandhi want to teach children handicrafts?
Answer: 
(1) According to him this will develop a person’s mind and soul.

(2) He thinks that literacy - or simple learning to read and write - by itself did not count as education. People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know-how different things operated. This would develop their mind and their capacity to understand. For every process, the child should know the answer of ‘why’ and ‘what for’.

Question 6. 
Why did Mahatma Gandhi think that English education had enslaved Indians? Answer: Mahatma Gandhi thought that English education had enslaved Indians because-

1. He believed that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of IndiAnswer:
2. It made them see western civilization as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture. There was poison in this education, it v/as sinful, it enslaved Indians, it cast an evil spell on them.
3. According to Mahatma Gandhi, education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own'social surroundings, and made them “strangers in their own lands”.
4. Speaking a foreign tongue, despising local culture, the English educated Indians did not know how to relate to the masses.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians regain their honour and self-pride.