CHSE Odisha Elective History flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Soanian tradition

A Lower Palaeolithic pebble-tool industry of the Soan valley in the sub-Himalayas, dominated by choppers and chopping tools rather than handaxes, named after the Soan river.

Harappan burnt bricks

Standardised kiln-fired bricks in the ratio 4:2:1 (length:breadth:thickness) used across Harappan cities, indicating uniform building regulations and centralised craft standards.

Purusha-sukta

Hymn X.90 of the Rigveda that describes the cosmic being and is the earliest textual reference to the fourfold varna order of brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra.

Dhamma-mahamatta

A class of Mauryan officers appointed by Ashoka to propagate dhamma, look after public welfare and mediate disputes among different religious communities.

Iqta system

A Delhi Sultanate arrangement in which revenue from a territory was assigned to a noble (muqti) in lieu of salary, with the holder responsible for maintaining troops.

Zabti revenue system

Akbar's land revenue system, associated with Todar Mal, fixing cash demand on the basis of a ten-year average of produce and prices (dahsala).

Mansabdari ranks

Mughal official hierarchy measured by zat (personal rank) and sawar (cavalry obligation), determining salary, status and the number of horsemen a noble maintained.

Chauth and sardeshmukhi

Two Maratha levies: chauth was one-fourth of revenue claimed as protection money from neighbouring territories, and sardeshmukhi an additional tenth claimed as hereditary headship dues.

Amara-nayaka system

A Vijayanagara military-revenue arrangement in which nayakas held territory and commanded troops in return for tribute and service to the rayas.

Permanent Settlement

Cornwallis's 1793 Bengal revenue system fixing land revenue permanently with zamindars as proprietors, who collected rent from cultivators and paid a fixed sum to the Company.

Doctrine of Lapse

Dalhousie's policy of annexing states where a ruler died without a natural heir, denying adopted sons' claims; applied to Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur.

Drain of wealth

Dadabhai Naoroji's argument that colonial rule transferred India's surplus to Britain through home charges, profits and unrequited exports, impoverishing the Indian economy.

Lucknow Pact 1916

An agreement between the Congress and Muslim League on separate electorates and representation, marking a period of Hindu-Muslim cooperation during the Home Rule movement.

Dandi March

Gandhi's 1930 march from Sabarmati to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the salt law, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement across India.

Operation Polo

The Indian army action of September 1948 that ended the Nizam's rule in Hyderabad and integrated the state into the Indian Union after failed negotiations.

States Reorganisation Act 1956

Legislation redrawing Indian state boundaries largely on linguistic lines following the Fazl Ali Commission, creating Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and other reorganised states.

Panchsheel

The five principles of peaceful coexistence agreed in the 1954 India-China agreement on Tibet, covering sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and peaceful settlement.

Bretton Woods institutions

The IMF and World Bank, established at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference to manage post-war monetary stability and reconstruction, and later development finance.

Hathigumpha inscription

A Prakrit inscription of Kharavela at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar recording his reign, military campaigns, Jain patronage and public works in Kalinga.

Anantavarman Chodaganga

Eastern Ganga ruler credited with beginning the construction of the Jagannath temple at Puri in the twelfth century and extending Ganga authority over coastal Odisha.

Kapilendra Deva

Founder of the Suryavamsi Gajapati dynasty of Odisha in 1434, who expanded territory from Bengal to the Godavari and assumed the title Gajapati.

Paika Rebellion 1817

An armed uprising of Odia paika militias and zamindars in Khurda against British revenue and administrative changes, led prominently by Bakshi Jagabandhu.

Na'anka famine

The 1866 famine in coastal Odisha that killed a large share of the population and prompted the first systematic colonial famine-relief codes in India.

Utkal Sammilani

An Odia organisation founded in 1903 under Madhusudan Das that campaigned for the political unification of Odia-speaking tracts and a separate Odisha province.

Estates-General

The French representative assembly of three estates summoned in 1789; the conflict over voting by head or by order triggered the French Revolution.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The March 1918 treaty in which Bolshevik Russia ceded vast western territories to Germany and exited World War I, provoking domestic opposition.

Munich Pact 1938

An agreement allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, a symbol of appeasement that failed to prevent the outbreak of World War II.

Warsaw Pact

A 1955 military alliance of Soviet-bloc states formed in response to NATO's admission of West Germany, dissolved in 1991 after the Cold War ended.

External criticism

The branch of source criticism that establishes a document's authenticity, date, authorship and provenance before its content is assessed for reliability.

Subaltern Studies

A historiographical project begun by Ranajit Guha in 1982 that recovers the agency and perspectives of peasants, labourers and other marginal groups in South Asian history.

Radiocarbon dating

A method dating organic remains by measuring the decay of carbon-14, whose half-life is about 5,730 years, useful for archaeological material up to roughly 50,000 years old.

Numismatics

The study of coins, used by historians to reconstruct dynastic chronology, economic conditions, trade contacts and iconography through legends, metals and hoards.