Grade 10

Social Studies (History & Civics)

Worksheet 1
1. Why did Europeans flee to America in 19th century ? Explain.
Ans. Europeans fled to America in 19th century beacause :
i. Untill the 19th century power and hunger were common in Europe.
ii. Cities were crowded and deadly diseases were widespread.
iii. Religious conflicts were common and religious dissenters were persecuted .
iv. In America ,plantations were growing cotton and sugar for European market .
These plantations were worked on by slaves.

2. Why two policies of Sri Lankan government had increased the feeling of alienation
among Sri Lankan Tamils ?
Ans. The Sri Lankan Tamils felt alienated because:
i. The government adopted the majoritarian measure to establish Sinhala
supremacy. In 1956 an act was passed to recognise Sinhala as only official
language thus disregarding Tamil.
ii. The government followed preferential politics that favoured Sinhala applicants
for university positions and government jobs .
iii. A new constitution stipulated that the state shall protect and foster Buddhism.
iv. Sri Lankan Tamil felt the none of the major political parties led by Buddhist
Sinhala leaders were sensitive to their language and culture .
v. As a result, the relation between Sinhala and Tamils strained over time and
soon it turned to civil war.

3. Print culture created the conditions within which French revolution

occurred .Support the statement with suitable arguments .
Ans. Print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
i. Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers.
ii. They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic powers of
the state; thus eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition.
Voltaire and Rousseau were widely read.
iii. All values norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public
that was inquisitive critical and rational. Hence new ideas of social revolution
came into being.
iv. By the 1780s Literature mocked the royalty and criticized their morality. This
led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the monarch.
 OR

“Colonial administrators found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on

native life and customs.” Prove the statement by giving three evidences .

Ans. i. The novels written in different Indian languages often contained descriptions of
domestic life. The British, as outsiders, knew little about life inside Indian households and
the novels therefore increasingly became a great source of information for the colonizers.

ii. Information from these vernacular novels provided insights that were of immense
importance to the colonial administrators. They depicted a large variety of communities
and castes and the systems of governance that existed in ancient India.

iii. Descriptions in novels with regard to the way people dressed, forms of religious
worship, beliefs and practices gave the colonial masters a glimpse of the culture underlying
the Indian society.

4. How is democracy accountable and responsible to the needs and expectations to

the citizens . Analyze.

Ans. Democracy is accountable and responsive to the needs and expectations of the
citizens because:

1) In a democracy people have the right to choose their representatives and the
people will have control over them.
2) Citizens have the right to participate in decision making that affects them all. This
ensures that the working of the government is transparent.
3) Everybody expect the government to be attentive to the needs and
expectations of the people.
4) It is expected that the democratic government develops mechanisms for citizens
to hold the government accountable.
5) The opposition parties can also question and criticize the government policies.
They keep a check on the ruling party and make sure that it does not misuse the
power.

5. Describe the explosive conditions prevailed in Balkans after 1871 in Europe.

Ans. (i) After 1871, explosive conditions prevailed in Balkans area in Europe. The Balkans
was a region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern day Romania, Bulgaria,
Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Crotia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro
whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs.

(ii) In 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen itself through
modernisation and internal reforms but with very little success.
(iii) One by one, its European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared
their own independence.

(iv) The Balkan peoples based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality
and used history to prove that they had once been independent but had subsequently been
subjugated by foreign powers.

(v) Hence, the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of their struggle as their
attempts to win back their long lost independence which converted the region into a battle
ground.

OR

Illustrate with examples that food offers many opportunities of long distance cultural
exchange .

Ans. i. Traders and travellers introduced new crops to the lands they travelled.

ii. lt is believed that noodles travelled west from China to become spaghetti.

iii. Arabs traders took pasta to 5th century Sicily an island now in Italy.

iv. Many of our common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes,
chillies, sweet potatoes and so on were not know to our ancestors.

5. ‘Communalism can take various forms in politics’. Explain.

Ans. Communalism : It means attempts to promote religious ideas between groups of
people who are identified as different communities.
Communalism can take various forms in politics :
(i) The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs. It involves
religious, prejudices, belief in the superiority of one’s religion over others.
(ii) When it tries to have political dominance of one’s own religious community,
especially by the majority community, it leads to the desire in minority community to
form a separate political unit.
(iii) Political mobilization : Political mobilization on religious lines is another frequent
form of communalism. This involves the use of sacred symbols, religious leaders,
emotional appeal and plain fear in order to bring the followers of one religion
together in the political arena. In electoral politics, it leads to emotional appeals to
the voters of one religion in preference to others.
(iv) Sometimes, communalism takes its most ugly form of communal violence, riots
and massacre. This we have seen in the case of India and Pakistan at the time of
partition of the country.
 OR

‘In India , women still lag behind men despite some improvement since independent .’
Support the statement with examples.

Ans. In our country, women still lag much behind men despite some improvements since
Independence. Women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways:

(i) The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent as compared with 76 per cent among
men.

(ii) Similarly, a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies. Girls are performing
as well as boys in school. But they drop out because parents prefer to spend their resources
for their boys education rather than spending equally on their sons and daughters.

(iii) The proportion of women among the highly paid and valued jobs is still very small. On
an average an Indian women works one hour more than an average man everyday.

(iv) The Equal Wages Act provides that equal wages should be paid for equal work.
However in almost all areas of work, from sports and cinema, to factories and fields,
women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work.

(v) In many parts of India, parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girl child
aborted before she is born. Such sex selective abortion led to a decline in child sex ratio.

(vi) Women face harassment, exploitation and violence on the domestic front.

7. Map Work –

a. Place where INC session was held in September 1920.

Ans. Calcutta

b. The place where the cotton mill workers satyagraha organised in 1918.

Ans. Ahmedabad