Has anyone here attended the Live Stream feature on Telegram? Will it be useful for our purpose here to discuss some doubts/issues regarding history optional??

The recent debate that is happening about the origin of urbanization in South India - when did it begin and how old it is... So far the narrative has been that second urbanization began in Ganga valley during Buddha age and then spread to other parts of India during Maurya and post-Maurya.

Sangam literature says otherwise and paints an urban picture. We didnt agree with it and thus put the dates of Sangam literature to post-Mauryan era.

However, the archaeological discoveries are now hinting that southern cities may be as old as cities in ganga valley, there is a possibility of it having independent basis. So, if it is proven (may be in next few decades), the Mahajanapada era chapter in out textbooks will then have two sub-parts - North Indian urbanization (Mahajanapada) and South Indian urbanization (Sangama Era)....

I am summarizing some recent archaeological findings in the image here.

@nikhilhistoryoptional

In the context of recent Navy flag, these are the some factoids of Indian navies in Medieval times.

1. Cholas in Bay of Bengal against Srilanka and SE Asia and also in Arabian sea against Maldives. But this was just a great logistical exercise and not naval warfare.

2. Marakkars against Portuguese. There is a movie on it. Extremely brave but sadly less known.

3. Marthanda Varma against Dutch
The famous battle of Colachel.

4. Marathas against Portuguese, Dutch British etc. Best known for Kolhapur campaigns against Portuguese, and 1678 Khanderi campaign. Plus the capture of EIC ship Derby, it was ghe single biggest instance of a British ship capture in India ever. Then there was a 1754 battle against Dutch where in the Dutch changed the trade routes themselves because of fear of Angres.

#navy
@nikhilhistoryculture

2022 GS Paper - History Questions

Q1. How will you explain that medieval Indian temple sculptures represent the social life of those days. (10m, 150 words)
Q2. Why did the armies of the British East India Company - mostly comprising of Indian soldiers - win consistently against the more numerous and better equipped armies of the then Indian rulers? Give reasons. (10m, 150 words)
Q3. Why was there a sudden spurt in famines in colonial India since the mid-eighteenth century? Give reasons. (10m, 150 words)

Q11. The political and administrative reorganization of states and territories has been a continuous ongoing process since the mid-eighteenth century. Discuss with examples. (15m, 250 words)
Q12. Discuss the main contributions of Gupta period and Chola period to Indian heritage and culture. (15m, 250 words)
Q13. Discuss the significance of lion and bull figures in Indian mythology, art and architecture. (15m, 250 words)

We will discuss all the questions with trend analysis, sources, approach and future plan in next two days on Youtube. The details will be announced soon.

@nikhilhistoryculture

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/south/it-s-raining-artefacts-as-curtains-set-to-draw-on-excavations-in-tamil-nadu-1144881.html

#south #sangam #urban
@nikhilhistoryculture

https://youtu.be/N43w8agep3U

Analytical, practical and no non-sense discussion of History and Culture questions asked in CSE Mains GS 1, 2022 paper.

Do watch it for takeaways and mental frameworks for attempting future GS History and Culture questions in UPSC.

PS: For optional, we follow a different approach which is more informed by primary sources and historiography. The present video discussion is done primarily from the GS point of view.

@nikhilhistoryculture

Reminder

Today is the last date of the answer submission for Q23 to Q26.

In this question on the social composition of Indian National Congress, (Q21) I missed one point in the comments.

Its composition doesn’t have to be a limiting factor only in our answer. Cambridge historians focus a lot on this from their own negative view. But we should remember that it was crème de la crème of Indian society (to use a phrase used by Irfan Habib in one of his writings on Congress formation). Also, considering the earlier traditional feudal leadership of India, this was a new type of western educated professional middle class elite that had emerged which carried the western modern ideas of India.

Point is - if you compare it with later Indian leaders, it seems a limitation. If you compare it with the earlier era, it seems like a modern thing. So, it is both good and limited at the same time.

So then which benchmark to choose? It depends on the tenor of the question.

https://youtu.be/eFzg7MAhMBs

This is video prepared by the Team. I am sharing it for its eerie musical effect..:)

@nikhilhistoryoptional

Answer Writing Practice

These are four standard, UPSC-like questions for this round. Try to attempt at least one.

Question 27: Ancient India
Is Ashoka's policy of Dhamma relevant in the present era? Give arguments in support of your view.(10m)

Question 28: Medieval India
Comment on the growth of regional languages and literature during the 1400-1550 CE. (10m)

Question 29: Modern India
Examine the factors that encouraged communalism in Indian politics after 1937. (15m)

Question 30: World History
The British empire didn't go away, it merely transformed into the Commonwealth of Nations. Do you agree? (15m)

PS1: Submit your answers by the end of 27th September.
PS2: Reply here in the comment section with your answers (scanned image) for evaluation.

#AnswerWritingPractice
@nikhilhistoryoptional

Those of you who are able to write all the four answers in a very good manner with high quality content and do timely submission (by 27 September)..... will get a physical copy of full set of New NCERTs of History (three books of Themes) as a complement from the Level Up IAS office in Delhi.

If you are interested in taking the challenge, respond here in the reply as Yes or In or Challenge Accepted. Only those entries will be taken valid who respond to this message here within 24 hours of posting this message.

@nikhilhistoryoptional

This news appeared on the front page of Indian Express today. Can anyone tell me how to do carbon dating of a stone?

I guess they want to date the shivling stone sculpture and match it with the date of the rest of the building structure. It is a very logical way of looking at the things. But carbon dating is not the method for doing that.

#archaeology
@nikhilhistoryculture

For those writing Main exam on 25th Sept

In the world history, do revise USSR (revolution to disintegration), China (colonization to revolution), post-cold war situation, EU and NATO, decolonization issues quickly before the exam. These topics are anyway evergreen but due to the current issues like Taiwan, Ukraine, death of the queen and Gorbachev and US-Russia-China tension, these themes are more topical this year.

Students generally tend to revise 19th century history of Europe more and give relatively less time to 20th century history, but this year, many developments have taken place which might make questions from 20th century equally important.

@nikhilhistoryculture

In next 5 mins we will close the entries to the challenge of winning complementary NCERTs gift for writing good quality four answers in time.

This is the poster that the team has floated. And you can find all the course details and the micro-schedule with daily targets here:

https://www.levelupias.com/course/upsc-damp-history-optional/

As I said, if we also include the Weekly Mapping Practice Tests in this program, I will notify it at the time. I am trying my best to include that too, however, I dont want to load too many agenda points in one single program and make it complicated. The foremost objective here are three fold:

1. Ensure that you write around 270 answers in 4 months and improve your answer writing skill from basic to advanced.
2. Update the historiographical understanding and your answers should be informed with the latest historiographical perspective
3. Nudge you to revise entire History optional revision in 4 months on your own.

To add weekly Mapping tests into it might take us off the course. However, if too many students insist, we will try to include it.

I will attach a cleaner copy later. This is the first copy to satisfy the curiosity.

@nikhilhistoryoptional

What do you think of the overall paper? Any views? Let's discuss...

Cleaner Copy

Thanks Netaji Subhash
@Netaji_shubhas

History Optional: Paper I - First Reaction

I think Paper I questions were quite easy. These are my first observations


In the Part I – all these questions are mainstream questions. In such easy questions, which are generally covered by book and teachers, what are the challenges?

1. Many questions are re-hashing of PYQs. It is well known that PYQs help us answer around 60-70% questions ever year in History optional, this year, the proportion is much higher.
2. Senior aspirants with multiple years of experience may get advantage
3. How to differentiate your content? It becomes a challenge. Most aspirants would be able to cover the Part I.
4. Out of these 9 questions, 6 questions (2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 3b and 4c) need sound historiographical base to be able to write a good insightful answer. Rest of the 3 questions are quite factual and straightforward.
5. 6 out of 9 questions are directly either from sources or religion-culture. Relatively less questions from polity/society/economy. No question from pre-history.

Mapping – sites seems relatively easy with 8 pre-historic, 3 political-economic and 9 cultural sites. 9 Cultural sites are not difficult but seem unusually high. A sincere candidate would be able to get 15-17 sites correct here. Easy sites like Dholavira and Sannati were numerous while difficult ones like Kalighata were few.

Part II
1. From every single unit of the Medieval India (there are 12 units), there is at least one question. Not a single unit is untouched.
2. In Early medieval, (Part I + II combined, as it is split in two sections), this year a lot of focus is given, like in 2021. In both 2021 and 2022, a lot of questions came from 550-1200 era.
3. 5 questions on economy (fully or partly) and 4 questions on religion-culture – these two themes dominate the Medieval section.
4. Like in Part I – many questions have roots in PYQs. So, our focus should always be on writing good and well-informed answers to at least these questions.
5. There are no surprise questions in this section either. Only one totally new question that I could was on classical music. But that we generally cover in Art and Culture module when we discuss history of Indian music in detail. So, here also, no surprises as such.
6. Overall in Part I + Part II – there are three questions on Bhakti Movement’s various facets. Total 5 questions on religion. 3 questions on religion in Part I (Buddhism, Ashokan Dhamma, Bhakti) and 2 questions in Part II (Virshaiva, Vaishnava).
7. As in the last year, there is no regional kingdom asked in medieval (apart from Chola, Vijayangara and Maratha, which are quite mainstream). So, focus is back to very traditional areas this year too.

Lets wait for Paper II. It should be available in next 1 hour or so.
You can type your comments here after reading this.

@nikhilhistoryoptional