NCERT Solutions for Class 8 Social Science History Chapter 12 India After Independence

Class 8 History Chapter 12 India After Independence InText Questions and Answers

Activity (Page 129)

Question 1.
Imagine that you are a British administrator leaving India in 1947. You are writing a letter home where you discuss what is likely to happen to India without the British. What would be your views about the future of India ?
Answer:

(1) Without the British, India would not remain united but it would divide into various parts : among different language speakers between high castes and low castes; Hindu and Muslim; the rich and the poor.

(2) It would again adopt some inhuman customs and become an uncivilised country.

(3) Indians are incompetent to take responsibility. They have no sense of duty and a commitment to work. So, the country would again be enslaved.

Activity (Page 131)

Question 1.
Imagine a conversation between a father and son in a Muslim family. After Partition, the son thinks it would be wiser for them to move to Pakistan while the father believes that they should continue to live in India. Taking information from the chapter so far (and Chapter 11), act out what each would say.
Answer:
Student, do yourself.

Activity (Page 132)

Question 1.
Discuss in your class, one advantage and one disadvantage today of the decision to keep English as a language of India.
Answer:

Advantages :

Today, India is a major outsourcing destination. It links us with the rest part of the world.
English as a language of India unites the whole country, i.e., the north and the south.

Disadvantages :

English creates a sense of inferiority in the minds of a majority of Indians.
English cripples Indians, makes distance between them from their own social surroundings and makes them strangers in their own lands.

Activity (Page 135)

Question 1.
Look at Figs. 5(a), 5(b) and 5(c) (Textbook). Notice how the Princely States
disappear in Fig. 5(6). Identify the new states that were formed in 1956 and later and the languages of these states.
Answer:

States formed in 1956	Langu ages	States formed after1956	Languages
Andhra Pradesh	Telugu, Urdu	Arunachal Pradesh	English ,Hindi
Madhya Pradesh	Hindi	Chhattisgarh	Chhattisgarhi, Hindi
Rajasthan	Hindi	Gujarat	Gujarati, Hindi
		Haryana	Hindi, Punjabi
		Himachal Pradesh	Hindi, Punjabi
		Jharkhand	Hindi
		Manipur	Meitei
		Meghalaya	English, Khasi, Garo
		Mizoram	Mizo
		Nagaland	English
		Sikkim	English
		Tripura	English, Bengali, Kpkborok
		Uttarakhand	English, Hindi, Urdu

Class 8 History Chapter 12 India After Independence Exercise Questions and Answers

Let’s recall

Question 1.
Name three problems that the newly independent nation of India faced.
Answer:

The problem of refugees for their rehabilitation.
Integration of princely states into a united India.
Economic and social disparity.

Question 2.
What was the role of the Planning Commission?
Answer:

The role of the Planning Commission was to help design and execute suitable policies for economic development.
Both the State and the private sector would play important and complementary roles in increasing production and generating jobs. So, the role of the Commission was to define that which industries should be initiated by the state and which by the market, how to achieve a balance between the different regions and states.
Ultimately, lifting India and Indians out of poverty and building a modern technical and industrial base were the main objectives of the Planning Commission.

Question 3.
Fill in the blanks :
(a) Subjects that were placed on the Union List were _____ ,______ And _____ .

Taxes
Defence
Foreign affairs.

(b) Subjects on the Concurrent List were ______ and _____
Answer:

Forests
Agriculture

(c) Economic Planning by which both the State and the private sector played a role in development was called a _____ model.
Answer:
Mixed economy

(d) The death of _____ sparked off such violent protests that the government was forced to give into the demand for the linguistic state of Andhra.
Answer:
Potti Sriramulu

Question 4.
State whether true or false :
(a) At Independence, the majority of Indians lived in villages.
Answer:
True

(b) The Constituent Assembly was made up of members of the Congress Party.
Answer:
False

(d) The Second Five Year Plan focused on the development of heavy industry.
Answer:
True.

Let’s discuss

Question 5.
What did Dr. Ambedkar mean when he said that “In politics, we will have equality, and in social and economic life we will have inequality”?
Answer:
What Ambedkar wanted to say was that providing the voting right to the lower caste people would not remove other inequalities such as between rich and poor, or between upper castes and lower castes. These classes of people could be labeled equal only politically but in reality, it could not be possible due to our social and economic structure.

Question 6.
After Independence, why was there a reluctance to divide the country on linguistic lines?
Answer:
India had been divided on the basis of religion. As a result of the partition of India, more than a million people had been killed in riots between Hindus and Muslims. So, the country could not afford further divisions on the basis of language. That was why, both Prime Minister, Nehru and Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel were against the creation of linguistic states.

Question 7.
Give one reason why English continued to be used in India after Independence.
Answer:
Because of the opposition against Hindi in the South Indian States, English is still used in courts, services, and communication between states.

Question 8.
How was the economic develop¬ment of India visualized in the early decades after Independence?
Answer:
The economic development was visualized through steel plants, bridges, dams, etc. in the early decades after Independence. All these came to be seen as an important sign of the development of modern India after Independence.

Let’s do

Question 9.
Who was Mira Behn? Find out more about her life and her ideas.
Answer:
Mira Behn (1892-1982) was the daughter of a British Admiral. Her real name was Madeline Shade. She left England to live and work with Mahatma Gandhi. She devoted her life to human development, the advancement of Gandhiji’s principles and to the freedom struggle. She was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1982’.

Question 10.
Find out more about the language divisions in Pakistan that led to the creation of the new nation of Bangladesh. How did Bangladesh achieve independence from Pakistan?
Answer:
Pakistan was divided into two regions—East Pakistan and West Pakistan. This division was done on the basis of the linguistic majority. East Pakistan was dominated by Bengala-speaking Muslims while West Pakistan was dominated by Urdu-speaking Muslims. The people of West Pakistan always considered the Bengali Muslims living in East Pakistan inferior to them. So, the Muslims living in East Pakistan were devoid of all facilities and fundamental rights. It caused great dissatisfaction among them.

They began migrating to India. Their number grew so large that India was compelled to intervene in the situation. It supported the cause of East Pakistan which resulted in a war between India and Pakistan. Finally, India won the war in favor of East Pakistan and declared it as a new country named Bangladesh on 16th December 1971. Bangladesh was now recognized as a sovereign nation and Muziburr Rehman was its first President.