We had recently uploaded a video of a speech by Romila Thapar. It was on the impact of Sufis and Nathpanthi Yogis on Punjab during 10th-12th centuries, and how Punjab's religious demography changed during the medieval time.

Although it was a very scholarly video, it received massive views in 3-4 days and then a huge amount of abuse and hate from random people. I know that I personally do not agree with a lot of what Romila Thapar claims, and on some points, I stand diametrically opposite to her viewpoint. (not that I am a historian or something). But that does not mean that people can go on abusing scholars. A scholar must be defended/opposed in scholarly fashion. With debates, discussions, arguments and books. Not with trolling which is really not correct.

I hope that our students here, and aspirants in general, are not involved in such avoidable online abuse. We will continue uploading video clips of eminent historians, known as well as unknown, from left-right-and-centre, the entire spectrum. These vides would not be primarily on the syllabus point directly, but on connected issues. As a student of history for UPSC CSE, you would be aware of something related to the topics, and these videos would provide alternative view or some peripheral analysis or some deeper perspective. It will be fun. But please keep it civil.

A very interesting clip is going to be published today evening. Its a short clip of less than 2 mins, but the content is very interesting, to say the least.

I had never imagined personally ki aise bhi kuchh huwa hoga. Personally, it is both shocking and very rational at the same time.

Stay tuned.

Some questions are quite good from this paper, especially more so in Paper I than in Paper II. Paper I questions are more analytical while Paper II questions are more factual and direct.

If you want to discuss some questions, that would be a more constructive use of this platform here.

I have received this query a few times in the past. Will there be coverage of Art and Culture on Youtube?

Response:
There is no separate subject called Art and Culture in History Optional. The foundation course on Youtube is only for History Optional, not for GS. By and large it is sufficient for General studies also.

However, Art and Culture in GS is a slightly different thing. It needs more facts, more aspects, and deeper understanding, than what we need in Optional. So, for GS, we have to do more of AnC than what we do for optional.

That additional aspect we cover in our GS courses - either Foundation course or Prelims crash course (PMP). Those courses are not for Youtube as the specific YT channel was started for History Optional in a dedicated fashion. Its objective is very specific and not generic.

https://www.news18.com/india/activist-dilip-mandal-claims-he-created-fictitious-character-fatima-sheikh-indias-first-muslim-teacher-whats-the-truth-9183659.html

If it is true it is really a very weird story. And that's why historians matter. Those who read primary sources and follow primary sources.

This is the first 10 days schedule for HOT500 - Modern India section.

Over and above these questions, we also add about 1-2 questions every day in the class for discussion. These additional questions are generally totally new, and challenge the boundaries of traditional understanding of the students.

Moreover, our main focus is on historiography of the questions, and how to develop perspective and insight into the demand of the questions. Students often mistake GS for Optional in Modern India and dont understand how it is more analytical. That is something we try to learn in the classes.

In a 2.5-hours lecture, we are able to cover the detailed discussion of about 9-10 questions every day. For Modern India, there will be about 23 lectures, in which we are trying to cover about 230-240 questions in class.

We are sure it will be immensely beneficial to students.

https://youtu.be/3FQ4fxUdm5Y?si=mp_OC0m5ZtfyQmCq

This is a little funny video. Even I am smiling at it. Do watch it.

Hello students,

Most of you have come to this channel through the Youtube channel dedicated History Optional. This channel was started by LevelUp IAS merely 6-7 months ago. As it appears, it is about touching 9000 subscribers and it is already India's largest channel exclusively for History Optional students.

(For those who don't know, here is the link to the History Optional YT Channel)

Please understand that we both, Vishal sir and me, are teachers. We are not content creators or podcasters. Our main objective is to restrict ourself to UPSC CSE demand, although occasionally we end up going perilously close to the limits of its requirement. But I am sure this only helps in deepening our understanding of History as a subject. I am also told that there are many students from various Universities pursuing their BA/MA in History, who also have joined this channel. Some students are also preparing for UGC exam or for state PCS exams. We are only happy to be useful.

Coming to the main point, I guess you all understand the courage it took us to put our entire Optional Foundation course on youtube for everyone. I have been teaching for last 10-11 years now and Vishal sir also almost similar duration. Before coming to LevelUp IAS, he taught in at least half a dozen states to a vast number of students. I used to teach in Vajiram and Ravi and then joined LevelUp IAS. In 2024, we decided to go on Youtube with the entire course. Our idea was two-fold. (1) To reach maximum number of students across India who dont have access to good quality of teaching (self presumptuous..:)) and (2) Refocus our efforts on students at the level of skill building of answer writing, content enrichment, tests and mentorship which requires more time. Daily Foundation classes were not allowing us time to do that earlier. But now we have time for it.

Both Vishal sir and I were also able to come in touch with many new students in this last 6 months. From every nook and corner of India. It was immensely rewarding journey to both of us as well. At personal level, we are also able to read more history books and enrich our content now with more time at disposal.

Now it is almost the end of January 2025. Our entire Foundation course is in public domain. The remaining lectures will be broadcasted in next few days. In this last 6-7 months, except for 2 days where we delayed the posting of the lectures by an hour, there was not a single miss. It was an immense amount of background work and I thank everyone at LevelUp IAS for their relentless, disciplined and creative support.

As most of you are watching these lectures on YT every day, I only request that you like/share and most importantly write comments, either positive, negative, doubts, whatever. Consider this as token of appreciation or guru dakshina of kind. If you write at least one comment for every video you watch, it helps us reach more students. Although we are not podcasters or youtubers, we still cannot escape the rules of Youtube platform.

As our Foundation lectures are coming close, we are planning newer projects for the channel. And in that, wider reach is going to help us a lot. Please consider the request favourably.

Thank you,
Nikhil Sheth
LevelUp IAS

https://theprint.in/feature/around-town/indias-pathshalas-were-inclusive-institutions-dalits-brahmins-studied-together/2461038/?amp


This topic is mentioned in our optional syllabus of Modern India. It is generally not covered in usual books.

Please take proper notes.

This is my most favourite series of books called Very Short Introduction (VSI) published by Oxford. These are little knowledge enrichment capsules.

So far, Oxford has published over 600-700 titles on various topics. I have collected about 65-70 of them, mostly related to History. Today I added a few more titles after visiting the World Book Fair, Delhi.

Tomorrow (9th Feb) is the last day of the book fair. If you are in Delhi, take out some time and visit. Entry is free and it is open from 10AM to 9PM.

#bookreview

This book by Sumit Sarkar was published literally yesterday. And I found it in the World Book Fair.

After a long time his book has hit the market. Almost after a decade I guess. Here are some old uncollected articles. Extremely eager to read.

I am not any way close to being a Marxist. Still, his intellect, insights and pointed writing have been a source of great joy and amazement over the years. Except for 1 or 2 may be, I have almost all the books written by him. This is a new addition now.

(PS: Not required for history optional students. If there is any new relevant thing I find, rest assured it will be added to our upcoming test series and crash course. It is my job as a teacher to read and distill it for you so that you can do value addition without efforts. As a student, you don't practically get time to read all the latest books.)

#bookreview