4 | Section 1
Social Science
India , home to 1.2 billion people, is the world’s largest democracy.
3 The Indian subcontinent can be divided into three geographic zones: the Indo-Gangetic Plain , the Himalayan Mountains , and the Deccan Plateau . South Asia is currently divided into eight countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Afghanistan).
¨ The Deccan Plateau was formed in prehistoric times when the Indian tectonic plate ran into Asia, forming the Himalayan Mountains.
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¨ The Deccan Plateau is mainly made of granite and is not as well disposed to agriculture as the coastal regions to its east and west.
¨ The Tibetan Plateau that lies just beyond the Himalayan Mountains provides many river systems to the north Indian heartland. This rich agrarian plain is called the Indo-Gangetic Plain after the two river systems between which it lies, the Indus to the west and the Ganges to the east.
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¨ An additional important feature of India’s geography is its rainfall pattern, mostly concentrated in the two yearly monsoons that bring much-needed rain in vast quantities.
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The first monsoon, blowing from west to east, historically allowed long-distance shipping across the
Indian Ocean. The second monsoon, blowing from east to west, would also allow westward seafaring from India’s Malabar
Coast.
Prior to Indian independence in 1947, the territories that are now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh formed a vast swath of territory, mostly under the control of the British colonial government.
In 1947, at the culmination of a long independence struggle, this territory was divided into two independent nation-states: India and Pakistan. In 1971, the eastern wing of Pakistan gained independence as Bangladesh.
When discussing the period prior to 1947, when we say "India," we shall refer to the entire area of the
Indian subcontinent. When we are discussing the period after 1947, we shall use "India" to refer to the contemporary nation-state of India.
A further note is needed regarding Indian place names. Since Independence, many of India’s cities and states have changed the official spelling of their names to reflect their rejection of colonial-era spellings. So, for example, Bombay became Mumbai in 1995; Calcutta became Kolkata in 2001; and Bangalore became Bengaluru in 2014.

6 | Section 1 Social Science
Islam is the second largest religion in the Indian subcontinent, comprising 13.4 percent 9 of the Indian population. Founded in 632 by the Prophet Muhammad,
Islam spread around the world rapidly due to its simple message of equality and its ability to accommodate a wide variety of cultures into a global community. This monotheistic, scriptural religion emphasizes five religious obligations: reciting and committing to the creed ( shahhadah ), daily prayers ( salat ), almsgiving
( zakat ), fasting in the holy month of Ramadan, and taking hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca.
¨ Caste can refer to both varna and jati , the latter of which is more important in everyday life.
¨ Caste represents a hierarchical division of society along occupational lines.
¨ Though varna is perhaps simpler to understand, in day-to-day life jati is more significant.
10 The table to the right shows some of the key differences:
Pan-Indian; general Jati categories tend to be local and specific, though they can be part of
India-wide/global networks
Five main groupings Thousands
Broad descriptive categories
General descriptive terms; relevance primarily in religious literature and ritual
Highly occupation specific (i.e., carpenter versus clerk versus trader)
Highly influential in determining appropriate marriage partners (this is changing, however), mobilizing credit, and gaining and using political power
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A persistent myth about caste is that it is confined to Hinduism; however, caste practices can be found among adherents of all Indian religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism, despite these religions’ doctrines of equality.
Within early modern India, and even among competing polities, a shared political culture emerged that was responsive, dynamic, capable of incorporating diverse social groups, and economically and politically sophisticated—in short, entirely in step with trends across the early modern world.
Vijayanagara (1336–1565) was the largest empire in south
India. It relied on cavalry warfare and its efficient and centralized administrative system to collect land revenues. It was linked into international and many domestic trade circuits and shared key features with the Mughal political system. Many of the trends of early modernity, such as the increasing sophistication of administrative and especially revenue systems and the increasing interdependence of revenue collection, territorial control, and military sophistication, were a product of interactions between Europe and Asia.

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8 | Section 1 Social Science
X
B The Malabar Coast was slightly set apart from Deccan developments in part by the rocky ghats that separated it; the Zamorin [ruler] of Calicut was a coastal rather than a territorial king, more akin to what one might find at the Straits of Malacca than at Vijayanagara. Merchants of every creed traveled through or settled in Calicut.
B Calicut lay at the center of the three crucial circuits of the Indian Ocean trade. These three zones were:
1) the world of the Arabian Sea, the Mediterranean, and Europe; 2) the western half of the Indian Ocean world, stretching from the Persian Gulf to India’s east coast; and 3) the eastern half of the Indian Ocean, stretching from India’s east coast through Southeast Asia to China.
Y
B Surat, the Mughal port in Gujarat, received a boost when the Portuguese took over Diu in 1535.
B Surat, “The Blessed Port,” was controlled by the Mughal Empire, but its administrators encouraged rather than hindered free trade.
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B Southern Indian kingdoms encouraged trade on the eastern coast by implementing low taxes on imports and creating favorable conditions for Indian and European long-distance traders.
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B Bengal was known for its incredibly thin and light muslin as well as its silk. Weavers in Bengal were centered at the great cities of Dhaka and Murshidabad.
B As the global trade in textiles grew in the early modern period, textile merchants enjoyed steady demand and rising prices.
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Most Indian rulers wanted to ensure free trade and exchange in their ports so that they could reap its benefits.
In contrast, the Portuguese instituted the cartaza system by which they demanded licenses from all traders.
The English East India Company established its first outpost at Surat. Due to Dutch dominance in the spice trade with Southeast Asia, the English Company focused on the textile trade. After establishing an outpost in Surat, it also established outposts in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.

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¨ The East India Company was a joint stock company financed by English merchants.
¨ In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, it was heavily involved in the
Indian Ocean textile trade.
¨ It got its start at Surat and slowly acquired other territories in India, such as at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta.
The English diplomat Thomas Roe obtained permission to build a factory (a depot to store goods before shipment) at
Surat (in modern Gujarat) from the Mughal Empire in 1616.
For a period of about fifty years, from 1617 till the 1660s, the EIC resided in India as a guest of the Mughal emperor.
Its trade volume funded soldiers, and its increasing demand for textiles gave weavers across India employment. However, for the Mughal Empire, the EIC was not an important economic or political force.
The French trading company, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales (CIO), founded in 1664, secured the territory of Pondicherry in 1674. Then, over the next several decades, it acquired additional outposts at Chandernagore, near Calcutta, Masulipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and Malabar.
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It grew far more quickly than the EIC, a “mushroom growth.” 15 The EIC and the CIO operated in similar fashion, but the CIO was primarily controlled by the French crown rather than men with only commercial interests, as was the EIC.
16
This battle took place in 1757 between the Nawab of Bengal
Siraj-ud-Daula on the one side and an alliance of the
East India Company, the great financier Jagat Seth, and
Mir Jafar on the other side. The alliance easily bested young Siraj-ud-Daula, and Mir Jafar took the throne with the backing and control of the EIC. This settlement is often said to mark the formal beginning of Britain’s shift from trade to government in India.
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This farcical battle turned out to be one of the most important in
India’s history. It was motivated by the relatively conservative ambitions of the EIC: to guarantee and increase trade profits. The EIC did not seek political dominion but rather a return to or slight improvement on its privileged commercial status.
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10 | Section 2 Social Science
This battle took place in 1764 between the East India Company and the then-Bengali Nawab Mir Kasim. Mir Kasim sought to restore Indian control of Bengal and in so doing provoked the EIC. Mir Kasim lost his struggle, and his predecessor, Mir Jafar, was restored to the throne by the EIC. Importantly, the 1765 Treaty of Allahabad gave the EIC the right to collect revenue or “ diwani ” in eastern India. This was a crucial step in the Company’s shift from trade to government.
The EIC did not hold ambitions of territorial conquest but rather was focused on commercial profit. Its rivalries with other European trading companies drew it into local
Indian politics. With the Battles of Plassey and Buxar, it took de facto political control of Bengal.
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The EIC built a large military to maintain its dominance over Indian and European rivals. Trade flourished, and the Company’s monopoly of the
India trade ended in 1813.
The Permanent Settlement introduced by
Lord Cornwallis sought to create a class of zamindar landlords who would collect revenue from the peasants on their estates and turn over a revenue tax to the colonial state at a rate fixed in perpetuity.
The Settlement created a new class of landlords, much turnover in land markets, and contributed to peasant impoverishment. Forty-one percent of estates in Bengal changed hands in the first fifteen years of the new regime.
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In Madras and Bombay provinces during the 1820s, a different revenue system took hold, spurred on by the failures of the Permanent Settlement, the loss of comparable classes of reliable local notables after the expansionist wars there, and the realization that more revenue could be extracted if the revenue rate set were not permanent but variable. The ryotwari system reflected these compulsions by creating a direct relationship between the Company state and individual peasants, rather than a relationship mediated by zamindars .
¨ Orientalism
B This term refers to a school of thought that sought to “recover” and preserve the ancient past of nonwestern cultures, in our case that of India.
¨ Utilitarianism
B Adherents of Utilitarianism believed that the purpose of government was the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
¨ Anglicism
B This term refers to an approach to British rule in India that sought to reform Indian society along English lines.
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While Orientalist scholar-administrators like William Jones sought to preserve
Indian society, Anglicist officials like James Mill and Thomas Babington
Macaulay sought to refashion Indian society along English lines.