Meera, a college student in Kolkata, is preparing a project on what the rule of the English East India Company meant for rural India. She plans to begin with powerful landholders who paid a fixed yearly sum to the Company. Next she will study two communities: one of hunters and shifting cultivators who gathered forest produce, and another of settled peasants who came later and cleared the forests for farming. Along the way she wants to see how new laws changed the lives of ordinary people, and her guide has given her a reading list of sources to work through.
Which set of sources would Meera mainly read on her list for these histories of the colonial countryside?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Revenue records, surveys and the journals of surveyors
Option (1) Revenue records, surveys and the journals of surveyors — Correct. Histories of the colonial countryside rest on revenue records and surveys, the journals and accounts of surveyors and travellers, and reports of enquiry commissions.
Option (2) Zamindari sanads, Persian farmans and court newsletters — Incorrect. Sanads and farmans are records of the older Mughal order. The Company's rural history is read from its own revenue and survey records.
Option (3) Vernacular novels, missionary sermons and folk songs — Incorrect. Novels, sermons and songs are cultural sources. The countryside story is built from official and survey records.
Option (4) Peasant petitions, village tales and police diaries — Incorrect. Petitions and village tales tell the peasant side. The main sources for these histories are official revenue records and surveys.
NCERT (2026-27): “Colonialism and the THEME Countryside NINE Exploring Official Archiv … “You will also come to know about the sources that tell us about these histories, and the problems historians face in interpreting them. You will read about revenue records and surveys, journals and accounts left by surveyors Fig. 9.1” |