Question

0. By the early 1800s, the Indian subcontinent was transformed into a British colony. The British rulers of India introduced new economic policies and new measures that were meant to maximize the extraction of resources from India. Imagine that you are a journalist responsible for recording the state of India’s economy and society in the 1800s;

1. write a short report on any one of the economic-social issue of that time period in India.

Answer 1

History of India and History of the Republic of India
Ancient India
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in South Asia are from approximately 30,000 years ago.[13] Nearly contemporaneous Mesolithic rock art sites have been found in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, including at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh.[14] Around 7000 BCE, the first known neolithic settlements appeared on the subcontinent in Mehrgarh and other sites in western Pakistan.[15] These gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation,[16] the first urban culture in South Asia,[17] which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India.[18] Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade.[17]

Paintings at the Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, 6th century.
During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent evolved from copper age to iron age cultures.[19] The Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism,[20] were composed during this period, and historians have analyzed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Ganges Plain.[19] Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west.[20] The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure, arose during this period.[21] In the Deccan, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation.[19] In South India, the large number of megalithic monuments found from this period,[22] and nearby evidence of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions suggest progression to sedentary life.[22]
By the 5th century BCE, the small chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-west regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies called Mahajanapadas.[23][24] The emerging urbanisation as well as the orthodoxies of the late Vedic age created the religious reform movements of Buddhism and Jainism.[25] Buddhism, based on the teachings of India's first historical figure, Gautam Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle;[25][26] Jainism came into prominence around the same time during the life of its exemplar, Mahavira.[27] In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up renunciation as an ideal,[28] and both established long-lasting monasteries.[23] Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire.[23] The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent excepting the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.[29][30] The Maurya kings are known as much for their empire building and determined management of public life as for Ashoka the Great's renunciation of militarism and far-flung advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.[31][32]
The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200 BCE and 200 CE, the southern peninsula was being ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and South-East Asia.[33][34] In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the family leading to increased subordination of women.[35][23] By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex administrative and taxation system in the greater Ganges Plain that became a model for later Indian kingdoms.[36][37] Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion rather than the management of ritual began to assert itself.[38] The renewal was reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons among an urban elite.

Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics made significant advances.[37]
Medieval India

The granite tower of Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by Raja Raja Chola I.
The Indian early medieval age, 600 CE to 1200 CE, is defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity.[39] When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Ganges plain from 606 to 647 CE, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan.[40] When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal.[40] When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther south.[40] No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond his core region.[39] During this time, pastoral peoples whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agriculture economy were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes.[41] The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.[41]
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil language.[42] They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent.[42] Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised, drew citizens in great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well.[43] Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation.[43] By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in South-East Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to what today are Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Java.[44] Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; South-East Asians took the initiative as well with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.[44]
After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206.[45] The Sultanate was to control much of North India, and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the Sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs.[46][47] By repeatedly repulsing the Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the Sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north.[48][49] The Sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire.[50] Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the Sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India,[51] and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards.[50]
Early modern India