BCS Written History case studies
BCS Written History · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The BCS Written History examination is the subject-specific written paper taken by candidates who have cleared the preliminary screening of Bangladesh's BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) competitive recruitment process and who have chosen History as their optional or elective subject. It matters most to honours graduates in history, Islamic history and culture, or related fields who intend to build a civil service career on analytical writing rather than on recall. The BCS Written History case studies are 5 cases and about 2,596 words.
1Reading the Sanchi Gateway Inscription as Evidence for Satavahana–Western Kshatrapa Rivalry
A district museum holds estampages of two inscriptions. Inscription A, from a gateway railing at a Buddhist stupa in central India, records a gift by the chief artisan of the southern gateway during the reign of a king whose regnal years are given in a continuing series.
554 words, about 3 min2Mughal Land Revenue Records and the Problem of the 'Standard' Assessment
A researcher is reconstructing the revenue demand of a pargana in the Deccan for a fifty-year window spanning the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. She has three sources: (i) a Mughal administrative manual describing assessment procedure in general terms; (ii) a set of local revenue papers giving annual figures for roughly a dozen scattered years, with gaps; and (iii) a Persian chronicle that praises the emperor for lightening the burden on the peasantry in one specific year.
561 words, about 3 min3A District Gazetteer, a Police Report, and a Crowd Estimate
You are writing the entry for a 1930 civil-disobedience episode in a Bengal district. Three sources give crowd size and outcome.
530 words, about 3 min4Green Revolution Statistics and the Question of Causation
A seminar paper claims: 'Wheat output in a South Asian state rose 60 per cent between 1965 and 1975; therefore the new high-yielding varieties caused the increase.' The author cites state-level production totals, a national fertiliser subsidy figure, and one district-level study of adoption. A reviewer notes that the same decade saw a major canal extension completed in 1968, two consecutive favourable monsoons, and a change in the state's reporting boundaries that added two districts in 1971.
473 words, about 2 min5Periodisation and the 'Decline' Narrative in a Textbook Chapter
A textbook committee is revising a chapter on the transition from ancient to medieval in a South Asian region. The current draft uses a single date - the end of a major dynasty's rule - to mark the boundary, describes the following centuries as 'a period of decline and fragmentation', and organises the chapter around the rise and fall of ruling houses.
478 words, about 2 min