Two Accounts of February 1939: Writing the Source-Based Answer
Two sources sit on your desk for a Class XII source-based question on the anti-Hindi agitation of 1938–39 in the Madras Presidency. Source A is a CID report dated 4 March 1939: 'The agitation is the work of a handful of political agitators; attendance in government schools is 92 per cent of normal; 41 students have been expelled for picketing.' Source B is a memoir recorded in 1978 by a woman who was nineteen in 1939: 'Thousands of us took the road every morning; the police charged us near the college gate; my brother was expelled and never returned to his studies.' A college register confirms 41 expulsions by March 1939, and a newspaper of 6 February 1939 reports processions in three towns. Your answer must stay within what these four documents support, and must not use the word 'proves'.
1. State what each document can and cannot establish, and then write the strongest single claim the four documents jointly support.
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Source A (CID, March 1939). It can establish that the government was monitoring the agitation, that it counted 41 expulsions, and that it wished to portray the movement as marginal. The '92 per cent attendance' figure cannot settle the size of the movement: an average attendance figure for government schools measures school days, not commitment, and may exclude the very students who were picketing, since picketers are absent by definition. A police assessment is also an interested one - it was written by the body whose performance was being judged.
Source B (memoir, 1978). It can establish what the experience felt like and that at least one family lost a student's career to expulsion. 'Thousands' is a memory claim made 39 years later; it is not a count, and it may be shaped by later telling. It cannot establish numbers, but it can establish ordinary participation, which the CID report denies.
The college register. Strongest document for the expulsions because it is a routine record, not a public claim, and it was not written to persuade anyone.
The newspaper of 6 February 1939. Corroborates that processions occurred in three named towns, but a newspaper may exaggerate and may report only what it saw.
The strongest joint claim: expulsions for picketing were numerous enough to be recorded independently by police and by a college, and opposition to compulsory Hindi was public and geographically spread; the scale of participation is contested, and the documents do not settle it.
2. Write the paragraph an examiner would reward, and then name the one further source that would most improve it.
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Paragraph (model):
The four documents disagree less about events than about size. The CID report and the college register agree on 41 expulsions, and because a college register is an administrative record rather than a public statement, that figure is the firmest number available. The newspaper confirms processions in three towns in early February 1939. What remains uncertain is how many people took part. The report's claim of 92 per cent attendance does not settle it, because students who picketed would not be in class to be counted, and the report was written by a department with an interest in showing that the agitation was small. The memoir supplies ordinary participation and a human cost the report ignores, but a recollection of 'thousands' after nearly four decades is not a count. The defensible conclusion is that the agitation was widespread enough to require police attention and to cost students their places, while its exact scale cannot be measured from these sources.
The further source: the attendance registers of two or three government colleges for January to March 1939. They are routine records, they cover the disputed months, and they would allow a comparison between the CID's figure and the actual daily attendance - which is precisely the point on which the documents divide.
3. Explain why the word 'proves' is banned, and how your use of the memoir would change if the question asked about 'popular support' rather than 'events'.
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Why 'proves' is banned. Historical documents are not instruments that yield certainty. Each of these four is partial in a different way: the CID report is official and interested, the memoir is retrospective and personal, the register is routine but narrow, the newspaper is public and possibly sensational. To write 'the CID report proves the agitation failed' or 'the memoir proves thousands marched' is to mistake a source's assertion for a conclusion. The correct verbs are 'indicates', 'corroborates', 'is consistent with', 'cannot settle' - and an answer that uses them will be marked higher, because it shows awareness that evidence has to be weighed rather than cited.
If the question asked about popular support:
- The memoir rises in value, because one of the few ways to get at support is through the testimony of participants, and 'thousands of us took the road every morning' is evidence of a social experience, not of a headcount.
- The newspaper becomes more important than the register, because reports of processions in three towns speak to breadth of sympathy, whereas attendance figures speak only to compliance with a school day.
- The CID's 92 per cent becomes even weaker evidence, because high attendance is compatible with support for the agitation outside school hours.
- The limits must be stated more carefully: a memoir can show that one woman believed the movement was widely supported; it cannot show that the belief was accurate, and support among students is not the same as support among their parents.