Tamil Nadu HSE Second Year History flashcards

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

Founding of Indian National Congress

Founded in December 1885 at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay, with W.C. Bonnerjee as first president and 72 delegates; A.O. Hume was the convenor.

Partition of Bengal 1905

Lord Curzon divided Bengal in October 1905, provoking the Swadeshi and boycott movement; the partition was annulled in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar.

Purna Swaraj declaration

At the Lahore session of 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress declared complete independence and hoisted the tricolour; 26 January 1930 was observed as Independence Day.

Quit India Movement

Launched on 8 August 1942 at the Bombay session with the slogan 'Do or Die'; the British arrested the entire Congress leadership, and the movement became leaderless and violent.

Treaty of Versailles

Signed 28 June 1919; imposed the war-guilt clause on Germany, stripped it of colonies and Alsace-Lorraine, limited its army to 100,000 and fixed heavy reparations.

October Revolution 1917

Bolsheviks under Lenin seized power in Petrograd, promising peace, land and bread; they withdrew Russia from World War I by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918.

Mussolini's March on Rome

In October 1922 Mussolini's Fascists marched on Rome, and the king invited him to form a government; Italy became a one-party dictatorship by 1926.

Pearl Harbor attack

Japan attacked the US naval base in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into World War II on the side of the Allies.

Constituent Assembly first sitting

The Assembly met on 9 December 1946; the Objectives Resolution was moved by Nehru on 13 December 1946, and the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949.

Article 32

Grants the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of Fundamental Rights through writs; Ambedkar called it the heart and soul of the Constitution.

Directive Principles of State Policy

Part IV, Articles 36 to 51, sets out non-justiciable goals such as a uniform civil code and village panchayats; they guide government policy but cannot be enforced in court.

Kesavananda Bharati case

The 1973 Supreme Court judgment held that Parliament can amend the Constitution but cannot destroy its basic structure, a doctrine reinforced in Minerva Mills in 1980.

States Reorganisation Act 1956

Following the Fazl Ali Commission report and the death of Potti Sriramulu, it reorganised India into 14 states and 6 union territories largely on linguistic lines.

Bank nationalisation 1969

Indira Gandhi's government nationalised 14 major commercial banks to extend credit to agriculture and small industry; a further six banks were nationalised in 1980.

73rd Amendment Act

Passed in 1992, it gave constitutional status to panchayats, mandating three-tier structures, elections every five years and reservation for women and Scheduled Castes and Tribes.

Brahmo Samaj

Founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Calcutta in 1828; it opposed sati and idolatry and promoted monotheism, widow remarriage and women's education, later splitting under Keshab Chandra Sen.

Satyashodhak Samaj

Founded in 1873 by Jyotirao Phule in Pune to challenge caste hierarchy and Brahmin dominance; Phule's Gulamgiri dedicated the struggle against slavery of lower castes.

Self-Respect Movement

Launched by E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar) in 1925 with the journal Kudi Arasu; it attacked caste, ritual and gender inequality and demanded rational, self-respecting social relations.

Muthulakshmi Reddy

First woman legislator in Madras, physician and social reformer; she campaigned against the devadasi system, leading to the Madras Devadasi Abolition Act of 1947.

V.O. Chidambaram Pillai

Called Kappalottiya Thamizhan, he founded the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company in 1906 to compete with British shipping and was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment in 1908.

Vedaranyam salt march

Led by C. Rajagopalachari in April 1930 from Tiruchirappalli to Vedaranyam to make salt, mirroring Gandhi's Dandi march during the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Justice Party 1916

Founded in Madras by Natesa Mudaliar, T.M. Nair and Thyagaraya Chetty to press for non-Brahmin representation in education and government jobs under the 1916 non-Brahmin manifesto.

DMK formation 1949

C.N. Annadurai split from Periyar's Dravidar Kazhagam in 1949 and founded the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which entered electoral politics and won power in Tamil Nadu in 1967.

Marshall Plan

The 1947 US programme of economic aid to rebuild Western Europe, intended to contain communism; the Soviet Union rejected it and formed Cominform in response.

Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962 the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba brought the USA and USSR close to nuclear war; the crisis ended with Soviet withdrawal and a US pledge not to invade Cuba.

Non-Aligned Movement

Formed at Belgrade in 1961 by Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah; it sought independence from both Cold War blocs and supported decolonisation.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

On 9 November 1989 the wall dividing East and West Berlin was opened, symbolising the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War.

Permanent Settlement 1793

Introduced by Cornwallis in Bengal, it fixed land revenue with zamindars as permanent owners; the system encouraged absentee landlordism and left cultivators insecure.

Ryotwari system

Introduced in Madras and Bombay by Thomas Munro, it settled revenue directly with individual cultivators, who paid a relatively high assessment and remained subject to revision.

Wood's Despatch 1854

Called the Magna Carta of English education in India, it recommended a graded system from primary to university level and led to the universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1857.

Swadesamitran

Tamil newspaper founded in 1882 and edited by G. Subramania Iyer; it spread nationalist ideas in Tamil and supported the Congress and the Swadeshi movement.

Primary versus secondary sources

Primary sources are produced at the time of an event, such as letters, gazettes or photographs; secondary sources interpret them later, such as textbooks and later histories.