Notes- History Class 10th

Chapter 1 – The Rise of Nationalism in Europe

Frédéric Sorrieu vision of World: -
Frédéric Sorrieu, a French artist, in 1848 prepared a series of four prints visualising his dream
of a world made up of democratic and Social Republics.
1. The first print shows the people of Europe and America marching in a long train and
offering homage to the Statue of Liberty as they pass it. The torch of Enlightenment was
carried by a female figure in one hand and the Charter of the Rights of Man in the other.
2. On the earth in the foreground lie the shattered remains of the symbols of absolutist
institutions.
3. In Sorrieu’s utopian vision, the people of the world are grouped as distinct nations,
identified through their flags and national costume.
4. The procession was led by the United States and Switzerland, followed by France and
Germany. Following the German people are the people of Austria, the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies, Lombardy, Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary and Russia.
5. From the heavens above, Christ, saints and angels gaze upon the scene. They have been
used by the artist to symbolise fraternity among the nations of the world.
During the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as a force which brought huge changes in
the political and mental world of Europe. The end result of these changes was the emergence
of the nation-state.

The French Revolution and the Idea of the Nation

1. French Revolution
In 1789 Nationalism came with French Revolution and the political and constitutional
changes led to the transfer of sovereignty from the monarchy to a body of French citizens.
Various measures and practices were introduced such as the ideas of la patrie (the
fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen). A new French flag, the tricolour was chosen to
replace the former one, the administrative system which is consolidated. French was
getting a common language.
2. Napoleonic Code
Democracy destroyed in France by Napoleon and the Civil Code of 1804 known as
Napoleonic Code did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality before
the law and secured the right to property and Guild restrictions were removed. Napoleon
simplified administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom
and manorial dues. Transport and communication systems were improved

The Making of Nationalism in Europe

 Germany, Italy and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons whose
rulers had their autonomous territories.
The Aristocracy and Middle Class
 The Aristocracy was land owning class and the dominant class on the continent politically
and socially. Numerically a small group.
The majority of the population was made up of the peasantry.
 Middle classes –Industrialisation began in England in the second half of the eighteenth
century. New social groups came into being: a working-class population and middle classes
made up of industrialists, businessmen, professionals. Educated class were idea of
nationality gained popularity.

What did Liberal Nationalism Stand for?

 The Liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality for all before the law. The end
of autocracy and clerical privileges. A constitution and representative government through
parliament. In the economic sphere liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the
abolition of state imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.
 Zollverein abolished tariff barriers, reduced the number of currencies to two, and promoted a
network of railways to stimulate mobility.
 A New Conservatism after 1815
 European Believed that established institutions of state and society should be preserved,
with the changes initiated by Napoleon.
 Treaty of Vienna (1815)- Bourbon dynasty was restored to power in France. A series of
states created on the French boundary for preventing French expansion in future. German
confederation was left untouched. Main intentions was to restore the monarchies that had
been overthrown by Napoleon.

The Revolutionaries
 A commitment to oppose monarchical forms that had been established after the Vienna
Congress, and to fight for liberty and freedom.
 Giuseppe Mazzini - Born in Genoa in 1807. A member of the secret society of Carbonari.
Founded Young Italy in Marseellies, Young Europe in Berne. Believed in the unification of
Italy into a republic.

The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848

 In July 1830, Bourbon Kings of France were overthrown and a constitutional monarchy was
established.
 The July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels which led to Belgium breaking away from
the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. 
 Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century, struggle for
independence. Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling

 A cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment,
criticized the glorification of reason and science and focused instead on emotions, intuition
and mystical feelings.
 German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder tried to discovered culture among common
people, through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances.

Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt

 In most countries there were more seekers of jobs than employment. Population from rural
areas migrated to the cities to live in overcrowded slums.
 The rise of food prices or a year of bad harvest led to widespread pauperism in town and
country.
 In 1848, the Population of Paris came out on the roads and Louis Philippe was forced to flee
and National Assembly proclaimed a Republic.
 In 1845, weavers in Silesia led a revolt against contractors.

1848: The Revolution of the Liberals

 The revolution was led by educated middle classes who combined their demands for
constitutionalism with national unification.
Frankfurt Parliament -
 On 18 May 1848, members of political association's elected 831 representatives who took
their places in the Frankfurt Parliament convened in the Church of St. Paul and drafted a
Constitution for the German nation.
 It was opposed by King of Prussia and also lost its social basis as no rights were given to
workers and women.
 It forced the autocratic monarchs to introduce some changes-serfdom and bonded labour
was abolished
 Hungarians were granted more autonomy,
 The Making of Germany and Italy
Unification Germany
Germany came to be unified as nation-states. Prussia took over the leadership of the
movement for national unification.
Three war over seven year ended in Prussian victory and completed the process of unification.
The architect of this process was its chief minister, Otto von Bismarck, carried out with the
help of the Prussian army and bureaucracy.
In January 1871, the Prussian King, William I, headed new German Empire.

Unification Italy Unified

Italy was divided into seven states, in the middle of the nineteenth century and among all the
seven states, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house.
In the 1830’s Giuseppe Mazzini formed a secret society called Young Italy. Initially a
unification programme was initiated by Giuseppe Mazzini but it failed.
The movement was led by Chief Minister Cavour with the help of Giuseppe Garibaldi.
In 1860, they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and succeeded in
winning the support of the local peasants.
In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.

The Strange Case of Britain

 In 1688, England established as a nation state.
 English parliament seized power from the monarchy.
 The Act of Union 1707 resulted in the formation of the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain'.
 In 1801, Ireland was forcibly taken by the British after the failed revolution.
 A new 'British Nation' was founded through the propagation of a dominant English culture.

Visualising the Nation

 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries artists represented a country as a person and
Nations were portrayed as female figure (Allegory).
 The female form that was chosen to personify the nation did not stand for any particular woman
in real life, rather it sought to give the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form.
 In France the allegory was christened as Marianne, in Germany - Germania became the
allegory.

Nationalism and Imperialism

 The Balkans comprised modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro.
 Balkans was a region of geographical and ethnic variation was under the control of the
Ottoman Empire.
 The idea of Romantic nationalism made this region very explosive.
 The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and each hoped to gain more territory
at the expense of each other.
 European powers were also looking for extend their control over the area.
 This led to a series of wars in the region and finally resulted in the First World War.
 Chapter 2 – Nationalism in India
The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation
 In India, the growth of modern nationalism is connected to the anti-colonial movement. Due
to colonialism, many different groups shared bonds together, which were forged by the Congress
under Mahatma Gandhi.
 The war created a new economic and political situation in the years after 1919. Income tax
introduced, increase in defence expenditure and the prices of custom duties were doubled
between 1913 and 1918, which led to a very difficult life for common people.
 In 1918-19 crops failed in India, resulting in shortage of food accompanied by an influenza
epidemic. At this stage, a new leader appeared and suggested a new mode of struggle.

The Idea of Satyagraha

 In January 1915, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa and started the
movement Satyagraha.
 Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth or insistence of
truth.
 According to Mahatma Gandhi, people can win a battle with non-violence which will unite all
Indians.
 In 1917, he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against the
oppressive plantation system. In the same year, he organised Satyagraha to support the
peasants of the Kheda district of Gujarat. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to
organise a Satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

The Rowlatt Act

 In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi launched a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt
Act. The Act gives the government enormous powers to repress political activities and
allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
 The British government decided to clamp down on nationalists by witnessing the outrage of
the people.
 On April 10th, police in Amritsar fired on a peaceful procession, which provoked widespread
attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations. Martial law was imposed and General
Dyer took command.
 On 13th April,1919 the Jallianwala Bagh incident took place. A large crowd gathered in the
Jallianwala Bagh where a few people came to protest against the government’s new
repressive measures, while some came to attend the annual Baisakhi fair.
 General Dyer blocked all the exit points and opened fire on the crowd killing hundreds.
 After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, people became furious and went on strikes, clashes
with police and attacks on government buildings.
 Mahatma Gandhi had to call off the Rowlatt Satyagraha as it was turning into a violent war.

Khilafat movement
 Mahatma Gandhi then took up the Khilafat issue by bringing Hindus and Muslims together.
 The First World War ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. In March 1919, a Khilafat
Committee was formed in Bombay.
 In September 1920, Mahatma Gandhi convinced other leaders of the need to start a non-
cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

Why Non-cooperation?
 According to Mahatma Gandhi, British rule was established in India with the cooperation of
Indians. Non-cooperation movement is proposed in stages. It should begin with the surrender
of titles that the government awarded and a boycott of civil services, army, police, courts
and legislative councils, schools and foreign goods.
 After many hurdles and campaigning between the supporters and opponents of the
movement, finally, congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, the Non-Cooperation
Movement was adopted.
Differing Strands within the Movement
In January 1921, the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began. In this movement, various
social groups participated, but the term meant different things to different people.

The Movement in the Towns

 The middle-class started the movement and thousands of students, teachers, and
headmasters boycotted government-controlled schools and colleges, lawyers gave up their
legal practices.
 In the economic front, the effects of non-cooperation were more dramatic. The production of
Indian textile mills and handlooms went up when people started boycotting foreign goods.
 However, this movement slowed down due to a variety of reasons such as Khadi clothes are
expensive, less Indian institutions for students and teachers to choose from, so they went
back to government schools and lawyers joined back government courts.

Rebellion in the Countryside

 The Non-Cooperation Movement spread to the countryside where peasants and tribals were
developing in different parts of India.
 The peasant movement started against talukdars and landlords who demanded high rents
and a variety of other cesses. It demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar and social
boycott of oppressive landlords.
 Begar – Labour that villagers were forced to contribute without any payment.
 Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ram Chandra and a few other in June 1920, started going around
the villages in Awadh to understand their grievances. In October, he along with few others set
up the Oudh Kisan Sabha and within a month 300 branches had been set up.
 In 1921, the peasant movement spread and the houses of talukdars and merchants were
attacked, bazaars were looted and grain boards were taken over.
 In the early 1920s, a militant guerrilla movement started spreading in the Gudem Hills of
Andhra Pradesh. The government started closing down forest areas due to which their
livelihood was affected.
 Finally, the hill people revolted, which was led by Alluri Sitaram Raju who claimed that he had
a variety of special powers. Raju was captured and executed in 1924.

Swaraj in the Plantations

 For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant right to move freely in and out and
retaining a link with the village from which they had come.
 Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the
tea gardens without permission. After they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement,
thousands of workers left the plantations and headed home.
 But, unfortunately, they never reached their destination and were caught by the police and
brutally beaten up.
 Each group interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways.

Towards Civil Disobedience

 In February 1922, the Non-Cooperation Movement was withdrawn because Mahatma
Gandhi felt that it was turning violent.
 Some of the leaders wanted to participate in elections to the provincial councils.
 Swaraj Party was formed by CR Das and Motilal Nehru.
 In the late 1920s Indian politics again shaped because of two factors. The first effect was the
worldwide economic depression and the second effect was the falling agricultural prices.
 Younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose pressed for more radical
mass agitation and for full independence.
Simon Commission, 1928
 The Statutory Commission was set up to look into the functioning of the constitutional system
in India and suggest changes. In 1928, Simon Commission arrived in India and it was greeted
by the slogan ‘Go back Simon’.
 In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress
formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for India.
 It was declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as Independence Day.

The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement

 On 31 January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands.
Among the demands, the most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax which is
consumed by the rich and the poor.
Salt March
 The demands needed to be fulfilled by 11 March or else Congress would start a civil
disobedience campaign.
 March 12, 1930 the famous salt march was started by Mahatma Gandhi accompanied by 78 of
his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati
to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi.
 April 06, 1930 he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by
boiling seawater. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
 The movement spread across the world and salt law was broken in different parts of the
country.
 Foreign cloth was boycotted, peasants refused to pay revenue and in many places, forest
law was violated.
 In April 1930, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi was arrested.
Mahatma Gandhi was arrested a month later which led to attacks to all structures that
symbolised British rule. By witnessing the horrific situation, Mahatma Gandhi decided to call
off the movement and entered into a pact with Lord Irwin on 5 March 1931.
Gandhi-Irwin Pact (5 March 1931)
 Gandhi consented to participate in a Round Table Conference in London. When the
conference broke down, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India disappointed and re-launched the
Civil Disobedience Movement.  It continued for almost a year, but by 1934 it lost its
momentum.

How Participants saw the Movement

1. Rich peasants - Rich peasant communities expected the revenue tax to be reduced, when
the British refused to do so, they did join the movement. They did not re-join the movement as
the movement was called without revising the revenue rates. The Patidars of Gujarat and the
Jats of Uttar Pradesh were active in the movement.
2. Poor Peasants - The poor peasants wanted rents of lands to be remitted. The Congress
was unwilling to support the "no rent" campaigns due to the fear of upsetting the rich
peasants and landlords. Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI)
in 1927 was formed.
3. Business Classes - After the war, their huge profits were reduced, wanted protection
against import of foreign goods. The spread of militant activities, worries of prolonged
business disruptions, growing influences of socialism amongst the young Congress forced them
not to join the movement.
4. Women - Women also participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed
foreign cloth and liquor shops. Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position
of authority within the organisation.

The Limits of Civil Disobedience

 Dalits, addressed as untouchables were not moved by the concept of Swaraj. Mahatma
Gandhi used to call them harijans or the children of God, without whom swaraj could not be
achieved. He organised satyagraha for the untouchables but they were keen on a different
 political solution to the problems of the community. They demanded reserved seats in
educational institutions and a separate electorate.
 Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the Dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930,
clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the second Round Table Conference by demanding
separate electorates for Dalits.
Poona Pact, 1932
 The Poona Pact of September 1932, gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the
Scheduled Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils.
 After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, Muslims felt alienated from the
Congress due to which the relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened.
 Muhammad Ali Jinnah was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates if Muslims
were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to
population in the Muslim-dominated provinces.
 Nevertheless, the hope of resolving the issue at the All Parties Conference in 1928 disappeared
when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.
 Large section of muslims did not participate in the Civil Disobedience movement.

The Sense of Collective Belonging

 Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation.
 History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a part in the
making of nationalism.
 Finally, in the twentieth century, the identity of India came to be visually associated with the image
of Bharat Mata. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay created the image and in the 1870s he wrote
‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland.
 Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata portrayed as an ascetic figure;
she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual.
 In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they
toured villages to gather folk songs and legends.
 During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was designed
which had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon,
representing Hindus and Muslims.
 By 1921, Gandhiji designed the Swaraj flag, a tricolour (red, green and white) and had a
spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help.

Quit India Movement (QIM)

 The failure of the Cripps Mission and the effects of World War II created widespread
discontentment in India.
 This led Gandhiji to launch a movement calling for complete withdrawal of the British from India.
The Congress Working Committee, in its meeting in Wardha on 14 July 1942, passed the historic
‘Quit India’ resolution demanding the immediate transfer of power to Indians and quit India.
 On 8 August 1942 in Bombay, the All India Congress Committee endorsed the resolution which
called for a non-violent mass struggle on the widest possible scale throughout the country. It was on
this occasion that Gandhiji delivered the famous ‘Do or Die’ speech. The call for ‘Quit India’ almost
brought the state machinery to a standstill in large parts of the country as people voluntarily threw
themselves into the thick of the movement.
 The movement was truly a mass movement which brought into its ambit thousands of ordinary
people, namely students, workers and peasants. It also saw the active participation of leaders,
namely, Jayprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali and Ram Manohar Lohia and many women such as
Matangini Hazra in Bengal, Kanaklata Barua in Assam and Rama Devi in Odisha.
 The British responded with much force, yet it took more than a year to suppress the movement.

Some important dates

1918-19 Distressed UP peasants organised by Baba Ramchandra.
April 1919 Gandhian hartal against Rowlatt Act; Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
January 1921 Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movement launched.
February 1922 Chauri Chaura; Gandhiji withdraws NonCooperation movement.
May 1924 Alluri Sitarama Raju arrested ending a two-year armed tribal struggle.
 December 1929 Lahore Congress; Congress adopts the demand for ‘Purna Swaraj’.
1930 Ambedkar establishes Depressed Classes Association.
March 1930 Gandhiji begins Civil Disobedience Movement by breaking salt law at Dandi.
March 1931 Gandhiji ends Civil Disobedience Movement.
December 1931 Second Round Table Conference. 1932 Civil Disobedience re-launched.
Chapter 3 – The Making of a Global World

The Pre-modern World

 Globalisation is an economic system associated with the free movement of goods,
technology, idea & people across the globe. Since last 50 years.
 But the making of the global world has a long history – of trade, of migration, of people in
search of work, the movement of capital, and much else.
 From ancient times, travellers, traders and pilgrims travelled vast distances for knowledge,
opportunity and spiritual fulfilment, or to escape persecution.
 As early as 3000 BCE an active coastal trade linked the Indus valley civilisations with present-
day West Asia.

Silk Routes
 Silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade and cultural links between distant
parts of the world.
 Several silk routes have been identified by historians, overland and by sea, connecting vast
regions of Asia, and linking Asia with Europe and northern Africa.
 In exchange of textile and species from India, precious metals – gold and silver – flowed from
Europe to Asia.

Food Travels
 Food offers many examples of long-distance cultural exchange.
 New crops were introduced by traders and travellers. Ready foodstuff such as noodles
travelled west from China to become spaghetti.
 Our ancestors were not familiar with common foods such as potatoes, soya, groundnuts,
maize, tomatoes, chillies, sweet potatoes, and so on about five centuries ago.
 Many of our common foods came from America’s original inhabitants – the American
Indians.

Conquest, Disease and Trade

 The Indian Ocean, for centuries before, had known a bustling trade, with goods, people,
knowledge, customs, etc; crisscrossing its waters.
 The entry of Europeans helped in redirecting these flows towards Europe.
 America’s vast lands and abundant crops minerals began to transform trade and lives
everywhere. The Portuguese and Spanish conquest and colonisation of America was
decisively underway by the mid-sixteenth century.
 Europeans’ most powerful weapon was not a conventional military weapon, but germs such
as those of smallpox that they carried on their person. It proved to be a deadly killer.
 Until the nineteenth century, poverty and hunger were common in Europe. Until well into the
eighteenth century, China and India were among the world’s richest countries.
 However, from the fifteenth century, China is said to have restricted overseas contacts and
retreated into isolation. Europe now emerged as the centre of world trade.

The Nineteenth Century (1815-1914)

 In the nineteenth century, economic, political, social, cultural and technological factors
interacted in complex ways to transform societies and reshape external relations.
 Three flows or movements were identified by economists.
1. The first is the flow of trade referred largely to trade in goods (e.g., cloth or wheat).
2. The second is the flow of labour – the migration of people in search of employment.
3. Third is the movement of capital for short or long-term investments over long distances.
 World Economy Shape
 In the nineteenth-century self-sufficiency in food meant lower living standards and social
conflict in Britain.
 It happened because of population growth from the late eighteenth century. Corn Laws were
imposed which means restriction in the import of corn. The British agriculture was unable to
compete with imports and vast areas of land were left uncultivated. So, thousands of men and
women flocked to the cities or migrated overseas.
 In Britain, food prices fell and in the mid-nineteenth century, industrial growth led to higher
incomes and more food imports.
 In order to fulfil British demand, in Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia, lands
were cleared to expand food production. In order to manage linking of railways to
agricultural fields and building homes for people required capital and labour. London
helped in terms of finance and terms of labour people emigrated from Europe to America and
Australia in the nineteenth century.
 By 1890, a global agricultural economy had taken shape, adapting complex changes in
labour movement patterns, capital flows, ecologies and technology.
 In West Punjab, the British Indian government built a network of irrigation canals to transform
semi-desert wastes into fertile agricultural lands to grow wheat and cotton for export. Even
the cultivation of cotton, expanded worldwide to feed British textile mills.

Role of Technology
 Some of the important inventions in the field of technology are the railways, steamships, the
telegraph, which transformed the nineteenth-century world. But technological advances were
often the result of larger social, political and economic factors.
 For example, colonisation stimulated new investments and improvements in transport: faster
railways, lighter wagons and larger ships helped move food more cheaply and quickly from
faraway farms to final markets.
 Animals were also shipped live from America to Europe till the 1870s. Meat was considered
an expensive luxury beyond the reach of the European poor. To break the earlier monotony of
bread and potatoes, many could now add meat (and butter and eggs) to their diet.

Late nineteenth-century Colonialism

 Trade flourished and markets expanded in the late nineteenth century. But, it has a darker
side too, as in many parts of the world, the expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the
world economy meant a loss of freedoms and livelihoods.
 In 1885 the big European powers met in Berlin to complete the carving up of Africa between
them. Britain and France made vast additions to their overseas territories.
 Belgium and Germany became new colonial powers. The US also became a colonial power
in the late 1890s by taking over some colonies earlier held by Spain.

Rinderpest or the Cattle Plague

 In Africa, in the 1890s, a fast-spreading disease of cattle plague impacted people’s
livelihoods and the local economy. Africa had abundant land and a relatively small
population.
 In the late nineteenth century, Europeans were attracted to Africa due to its vast resources of
land and minerals.
 Europeans came to Africa hoping to establish plantations and mines to produce crops and
minerals for export to Europe. But there was an unexpected problem – a shortage of labour
willing to work for wages. Inheritance laws were changed and according to the new one, only
one member of a family was allowed to inherit land.
 In the late 1880s, Rinderpest arrived in Africa carried by infected cattle imported from British
Asia to feed the Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East Africa. The loss of cattle destroyed
African livelihoods.
 Indentured Labour
 Indentured labour illustrates the two-sided nature of the nineteenth-century world. A world of
faster economic growth as well as great misery, higher incomes for some and poverty for
others, technological advances in some areas and new forms of coercion in others.
 In India, indentured labourers were hired under contracts and most of them came from the
present-day regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, central India and the dry districts of
Tamil Nadu.
 Indian indentured migrants main destinations were the Caribbean islands (mainly Trinidad,
Guyana and Surinam), Mauritius and Fiji. Indentured workers were also recruited for tea
plantations in Assam. Nineteenth-century indenture has been described as a ‘new system of
slavery’.
 In Trinidad the annual Muharram procession was transformed into a riotous carnival called
‘Hosay’ in which workers of all races and religions joined.
 Similarly, the protest religion of Rastafarianism is also said to reflect social and cultural links with
Indian migrants to the Caribbean. From the 1900s India’s nationalist leaders began opposing
the system of indentured labour migration as abusive and cruel. It was abolished in 1921.

Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad

 People need huge capital to grow food and other crops for the world market. So, for the
humble peasant Shikaripuri shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars were amongst the many groups of
bankers and traders who financed export agriculture in Central and Southeast Asia, using
either their own funds or those borrowed from European banks.

Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global System

 Cottons from India were exported to Europe. In Britain, tariffs were imposed on cloth
imports. Consequently, the inflow of fine Indian cotton began to decline.
 Over the nineteenth century, British manufacturers flooded the Indian market. By helping
Britain balance its deficits, India played a crucial role in the late-nineteenth-century world
economy.
 home charges - Britain’s trade surplus in India also helped pay the so-called ‘home charges’
that included private remittances home by British officials and traders, interest payments on
India’s external debt, and pensions of British officials in India.

The Inter-war Economy

 The First World War (1914-18) was fought in Europe, but its impact was felt around the world.
During this period the world experienced widespread economic and political instability and
another catastrophic war.

1ST World War Transformations

 The First World War was fought between the Allies – Britain, France and Russia (later joined
by the US); and the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey.
 The war lasted for more than four years which involved the world’s leading industrial nations.
It was considered as the first modern industrial war which saw the use of machine guns,
tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc. on a massive scale.
 During the war, industries were restructured to produce war-related goods. Britain
borrowed large sums of money from US banks as well as the US public, transforming the US
from being an international debtor to an international creditor.

Post-war Recovery
 Post-war economic recovery, Britain, the world’s leading economy faced a prolonged crisis.
Industries had developed in India and Japan while Britain was preoccupied in the war.
 Britain, after the war, found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance in the
Indian market and to compete with Japan internationally.
 At the end of the war, Britain was burdened with huge external debts. Anxiety and uncertainty
about work became an enduring part of the post-war scenario.

Rise of Mass Production and Consumption

 The US economy recovered quicker and resumed its strong growth in the early 1920s. Mass
production is one of the important features of the US economy which began in the late
nineteenth century.
 Henry Ford is a well-known pioneer of mass production, a car manufacturer who established
his car plant in Detroit. The T-Model Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car.
 Ford industrial practices soon spread in the US and were also copied in Europe in the 1920s.
The demand for refrigerators, washing machines, etc. also boomed, financed once again by
loans.
 In 1923, the US resumed exporting capital to the rest of the world and became the largest
overseas lender.

The Great Depression

 The period of The Great Depression began around 1929 and lasted till the mid1930s, most
parts of the world experienced catastrophic declines in production, employment, incomes
and trade.
 The most affected areas were agricultural regions and communities. Combination of several
factors led to depression.
 The first factor is agricultural overproduction, second is in the mid-1920s, many countries
financed their investments through loans from the US. The rest of the world is affected by the
withdrawal of US loans in different ways.
 The US was also severely affected by depression. Unfortunately, the US banking system
collapsed as thousands of banks went bankrupt and were forced to close.

India and the Great Depression

 Indian trade is immediately affected by depression. The prices of agriculture fell sharply but
still, the colonial government refused to reduce revenue demands. In those depression
years, India became an exporter of precious metals, notably gold.
 Rural India was thus seething with unrest when Mahatma Gandhi launched the civil
disobedience movement at the height of the depression in 1931.

Rebuilding a World Economy: The Post-war Era

 Two decades after the end of the First World War, the Second World War broke out.
 It was fought between the Axis powers (mainly Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy) and the Allies
(Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the US).
 The war continued for six years over land, on sea, in the air. The war caused an immense
amount of economic devastation and social disruption.
 Post-war reconstruction was shaped by two crucial influences. The first one is that the US
emerged as the dominant economic, political and military power in the Western world. The
second was the dominance of the Soviet Union.

Post-war Settlement and the Bretton Woods Institutions

 Two-key lessons were drawn out from inter-war economic experience. First, mass production
cannot be sustained without mass communication. The second lesson related to a
country’s economic links with the outside world.
 The Bretton Woods conference (JULY, 1944) established the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) to deal with external surpluses and deficits of its member nations. The International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (popularly known as the World Bank) was set up to
finance post-war reconstruction.
 The IMF and the World Bank commenced financial operations in 1947.
 An era of unprecedented growth of trade and incomes was inaugurated by the Bretton Woods
for the Western industrial nations and Japan. During this decade, technology and enterprise
were spread worldwide.
 Decolonisation and Independence
 After the end of the Second World War, large parts of the world were still under European
colonial rule. The IMF and the World Bank were designed to meet the financial needs of the
industrial countries. The IMF and the World Bank from the late 1950s shift their attention more
towards developing countries. Most developing countries were not benefited from the fast
growth the Western economies experienced in the 1950s and 1960s.
 They organised as a group – the Group of 77 (or G-77) – and demanded a new international
economic order (NIEO).
 NIEO meant a system that would give them real control over their natural resources, more
development assistance, fairer prices for raw materials, and better access for their
manufactured goods in developed countries’ markets.

End of Bretton Woods and the Beginning of ‘Globalisation’

 The US’s finance and competitive strength were weakened due to rising costs of its overseas
involvements from the 1960s.
 In the mid-1970s the international financial system also changed and the industrial world was
also hit by unemployment. MNCs began to shift their production to low-wage Asian
countries.
 China became attractive destinations for investment by foreign MNCs. In the last two
decades, the world’s economic geography has been transformed as countries such as India,
China and Brazil have undergone rapid economic transformation.