Match List-I with List-II:
| List-I Village Community Terms | List-II Meanings | ||
| (A) | Kharbandi | (I) | Place of Refuge |
| (B) | Mawas | (II) | Village Headman |
| (C) | Begar | (III) | Scrubland |
| (D) | Muqaddam | (IV) | Unpaid Labour |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → (A) - (III), (B) - (I), (C) - (IV), (D) - (II)
(A) Kharbandi — this matches (III) Scrubland. Beyond the settled villages, huge stretches of dense forest (jangal) or scrubland (kharbandi) covered much of eastern, central and peninsular India.
(B) Mawas — this matches (I) Place of Refuge. For the Mughal state the forest was a subversive place, a place of refuge (mawas) for troublemakers.
(C) Begar — this matches (IV) Unpaid Labour. Villagers petitioned the panchayat against extortionate taxation and the demand for unpaid labour (begar) imposed by the “superior” castes or state officials.
(D) Muqaddam — this matches (II) Village Headman. The village community had three constituents: the cultivators, the panchayat and the village headman (muqaddam or mandal).
NCERT (2025-26): “4.1 Beyond settled villages … There was more to rural India than sedentary agriculture. Apart from the intensively cultivated provinces in northern and north-western India, huge swathes of forests – dense forest (jangal) or scrubland (kharbandi) – existed all over eastern India, central India, northern India (including the Terai on the Indo-Nepal border), Jharkhand, and in peninsular India down the Western Ghats and the Deccan plateau. Though it is nearly impossible to set an all-India average of the forest cover for this period, informed conjectures based on contemporary sources suggest an average of 40 per cent.… 4.1 Beyond settled villages … For the state, the forest was a subversive place – a place of refuge (mawas) for troublemakers. Once again, we turn to Babur who says that jungles provided a good defence ‘behind which the people of the pargana become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes’.… 2.2 Panchayats and headmen … Archival records from western India – notably Rajasthan and Maharashtra – contain petitions presented to the panchayat complaining about extortionate taxation or the demand for unpaid labour (begar) imposed by the ‘superior’ castes or officials of the state.… 2. The Village Community … We have seen that peasants held their lands in individual ownership. At the same time they belonged to a collective village community as far as many aspects of their social existence were concerned. There were three constituents of this community – the cultivators, the panchayat, and the village headman (muqaddam or mandal).…” |