CBSE Class 10 Social Sciences Print Culture and Modern World VBQ
Q.1. Mention any four social values which print culture promoted.
Ans. (i) Print culture promoted application of reasoning and rationality.
(ii) It created a new culture of dialogue and debate.
(iii) It did open up the possibility of thinking differently.
(iv) It promoted spirit of people’s rule i.e., democracy.
Q.2 How the growth of print culture lead to women empowerment ? Explain.
Ans. (i) Women became important as readers as well as writers. Penny magazines were especially meant for women, as were manuals teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping. When hovels began to be written in the nineteenth century, women were seen as important readers. Some of the best-known novelists were women : Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot. Their writings became important in defining a new type of woman: A person with will, strength of personality, determination and the power to think.
(ii) Social reformers and novels created a great interest in women’s lives and emotions, there was also an interest in what women would have to say about their own lives. From the 1860s, a few Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women-about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated unjustly by the very people they served. In the 1880s, in present-day Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows. A woman in a Tamil novel expressed what reading meant to women who were so greatly novel confined by social regulations : ‘For various reasons, my world is small … More than half my life’s happiness has come from books.
(iii) While Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed early, Hindi printing began seriously only from the 1870s. Soon, a large segment of it was devoted to the education of women. In the early twentieth century, journals, written for and sometimes edited by women, became extremely popular. They discussed issues like women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the national movement. Some of them offered household and fashion lessons to women and brought entertainment through short stories and serialised novels.
Q.3. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for the poor people In the 19th century India ? [CBSE Sept. 2010, 2011, 2012]
Or
‘From the late 19th century, issue of caste discrimination began to be written about in many printed tracts and essays.’ Explain by giving examples.
Ans. (i) Public libraries : The print reached to the poor in the 19th century. Publishers started producing small and cheap books. These books were sold at crossroads. Public libraries were set up by the Christian missionaries and the rich people.
(ii) Highlighting the issue of class discrimination : From the late 19th century, many writers started writing about the issue of class distinction.
(i) Jyotiba Phule was a social reformer. He wrote about the poor condition of ‘low caste’. In his book Gulamgiri (1871), he wrote about the injustices of the caste system.
(ii) In the 20th century, B.R. Ambedkar also wrote powerfully against the caste system. He also wrote against untouchability.
(iii) E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, also known as Periyar, too wrote about the caste system prevailing in Madras (Chennai). The writings of these writers were read by people all over India. Local protest movements and sects also created a lot of popular journals and tracts criticising ancient scriptures with a view to creating new and just future.
(iv) Poor workers and the print : Workers in factories were too overworked, and thus, lacked the education to write about their expectations and experiences. But Keshibaba, a Kanpur mill worker wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to depict the links between caste and class exploitation. The poems of another Kanpur mill worker, who wrote under the name of Sudarshan Chakra between 1935 and 1955, were brought together, and published in a collection called Sacchi Kavitayain. By the 1930s, Bangaluru cotton mill workers set up libraries to educate themselves. By doing so, they were following the example of Bombay (Mumbai) workers. These libraries were sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking among the poor, to bring literacy and, sometimes, to propagate the message of nationalism.
Q.4. What was the attitude of people in India in the nineteenth century towards women reading? How did women respond to this?
[CBSE 2011]
Or
How did the practice of reading and writing increase among women in India in the 19th century. Support your answer with the help of examples. [CBSE 2013]
Ans. (i) Writings about lives and feelings of Women: Lives and feelings of women began to be written in particularly vivid and intense ways. Women’s reading, therefore, increased enormously in middle-class homes.
(ii) Women and liberal families: Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home, and sent them to schools when women’s schools were set up in the cities and towns after the mid-nineteenth century. Many journals began carrying writings by women, and explained why women should be educated. They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable reading matter which could be used for home-based schooling.
(iii) Women and Conservatives: Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
Reaction:
(i) Sometimes, rebel women defied such prohibition. In East Bengal, in the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen. Later, she \yrote her autobiography Amar Jiban which was published in 1876. It was the first full- length autobiography published in the Bengali language.
(ii) In the 1880s, in present-day Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows.
(iii) A woman in a Tamil novel expressed what reading meant to women who were so greatly confined by social regulations: ‘For various reasons, my world is small. More than half my life’s happiness has come from books.
(iv) In 1926, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, a noted educationist and literary figure, strongly condemned men • for withholding education from women in the name of religion.
Q.5. Analyse the impact of print revolution on religion. [CJBS£ 2012]
Ans. (i) Fear of spread of irreligious thoughts: Not everyone welcomed the printed book, and those who did also had fears about it. Many were apprehensive of the effects that the easier access to the printed word and the wider circulation of books, could have on people’s minds. It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
(ii) Division of Church: In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. This lead to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
(iii) Index of prohibited books: The Roman Church, troubled by such effects of popular readings and questionings of faith, imposed severe controls • over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
{iv) Print and Muslims: To check conversion or fear of change of laws Muslims used cheap lithographic presses-, published Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures, and printed religious newspapers and tracts. The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published many fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives, and explaining the meanings of Islamic doctrines.
(v) Print and Hindus: Among Hindus, too, print encouraged the reading of religious texts, especially in the vernacular languages. The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmant MS of Tulsidas, a sixteenth- century text, came out from Calcutta in 1810. Religious texts, therefore, reached a very wide circle of people, encouraging discussions, debates and controversies within and among different religions.
