WBBSE Madhyamik History key terms

The policy of a strong country extending political and economic control over weaker regions, often through colonies. In the Madhyamik syllabus it explains why European powers competed for territory in Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century.

The system in which one country rules another territory and settles or administers it for its own benefit. British rule in India is studied as a colonial system that reshaped land, law, education and trade.

An economic system in which private owners invest capital, hire labour and sell goods for profit in markets. Its growth in Britain created demand for raw materials and markets, which fed colonial expansion.

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century shift from hand production to machine and factory production, beginning in Britain. It increased demand for Indian raw cotton and helped destroy Indian handicrafts.

The decline of a region's manufacturing, especially handicrafts, because machine-made imports outcompete local goods. Indian weavers lost work as British cloth flooded the market under colonial trade rules.

The one-way transfer of Indian wealth to Britain through home charges, salaries, pensions and profits, with no economic return. Dadabhai Naoroji used the idea to argue that colonial rule impoverished India.

The 1793 land revenue system of Bengal introduced by Cornwallis, which fixed revenue with zamindars permanently and made them landowners. It created a new landlord class and left peasants with little security.

A land revenue arrangement, used largely in Madras and Bombay, in which revenue was settled directly with the individual cultivator, the ryot, rather than through a landlord. It fixed the state's demand on cultivated land.

A landholder who collected revenue from peasants and paid it to the colonial state. Under the Permanent Settlement zamindars gained hereditary ownership, while cultivators became tenants with fewer rights.

The shift from growing food for local use to growing cash crops for sale, such as indigo, jute, cotton and opium. It tied peasants to distant markets and moneylenders and increased their risk of debt.

The 1859-60 peasant uprising in Bengal against forced indigo cultivation under unfair contracts with European planters. It is studied as an early peasant movement that drew support from educated Bengali opinion.

Another name for the 1793 revenue settlement with Bengal's zamindars, remembered for fixing state demand and reshaping rural society. It is often discussed alongside later peasant distress and rent disputes.

The 1855-56 uprising of Santhal communities in the Rajmahal hills against moneylenders, revenue officials and outside settlers who threatened their land and way of life. It was brutally suppressed by colonial troops.

A category of uprisings by adivasi communities defending land, forest rights and customs against colonial revenue systems, moneylenders and missionaries. Examples include the Kol and Munda movements studied in the syllabus.

A Munda leader who mobilised adivasi communities in Chotanagpur against landlord and colonial exploitation in the 1890s. He is remembered for asserting tribal land rights and religious identity.

Organised action by cultivators over rent, tenure, debt or forced cultivation. In Bengal the indigo and later sharecropper agitations show peasants acting collectively, sometimes with urban political support.

A 1946-47 sharecroppers' movement in Bengal demanding two-thirds of the crop instead of half. Led largely by the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha, it challenged landlord control in rural Bengal.

A sharecropper in Bengal who cultivates another person's land and shares the produce with the owner. Bargadars were at the centre of the Tebhaga demand and later land reform debates.

A revival of learning and critical enquiry that in Bengal produced new writing, education and social reform in the nineteenth century. It is studied through reformers, print culture and new schools.

The nineteenth-century flowering of Bengali literature, journalism, education and social reform centred on Calcutta. It combined Western learning with debate over religion, caste and the position of women.

A group of radical students of Hindu College influenced by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio in the 1820s and 1830s. They questioned orthodox religion and caste and championed rational, liberal ideas.

A reform society founded in Calcutta in 1828 by Rammohan Roy, teaching worship of one formless God and rejecting idolatry. It campaigned against sati and for rational, ethical religion.

An early nineteenth-century Bengali reformer and scholar who argued against sati and idolatry and founded the Brahmo Samaj. He also promoted English education and a free press.

The practice in which a widow was burned on her husband's funeral pyre. Campaigns by reformers such as Rammohan Roy contributed to its legal prohibition in Bengal in 1829.

An 1856 law permitting Hindu widows to remarry, promoted by the reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. It is studied as an example of reform achieved through legislation and public argument.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a nineteenth-century Bengali scholar and reformer who promoted widow remarriage and girls' education. He also simplified Bengali prose and supported women's schooling.

The spread of ideas through newspapers, books, pamphlets and cheap printing. In colonial India it enabled public debate, political organisation and the growth of regional literatures.

A sense of shared identity and the demand that a people should govern themselves in their own nation-state. Indian nationalism grew through associations, press campaigns and mass movements against colonial rule.

A political organisation founded in 1885 that became the main vehicle of the Indian national movement. It moved from petitioning to mass agitation and eventually demanded complete independence.

The 1905 division of Bengal by Lord Curzon, which separated the eastern districts from the west. It provoked the Swadeshi and boycott agitation and was annulled in 1911.

The principle of preferring goods and institutions produced within one's own country. During the anti-partition agitation it meant boycotting British cloth and promoting Indian industry and education.

The organised refusal to buy or use foreign goods, especially British cloth, as a political weapon. It accompanied the Swadeshi agitation after the partition of Bengal in 1905.

The 1920-22 campaign led by Gandhi urging Indians to withdraw cooperation from colonial institutions, including courts, schools and councils. It was suspended after violence at Chauri Chaura.

An agitation by Indian Muslims after the First World War to protect the Ottoman Caliphate. Gandhi linked it with non-cooperation, making it a joint Hindu-Muslim political campaign in 1919-22.

The 1930-34 campaign of deliberate, non-violent breaking of unjust colonial laws, opened by Gandhi's Dandi march against the salt tax. It drew wide participation and led to negotiations with the government.

Gandhi's 1930 walk to the Gujarat coast, where he made salt in defiance of the colonial salt law. It launched the Civil Disobedience Movement and drew mass attention to the freedom struggle.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, leader of the Indian national movement from 1920, who built campaigns on non-violence and mass participation. His methods shaped non-cooperation, civil disobedience and Quit India.

The 1942 campaign demanding an immediate end to British rule, launched after the All India Congress Committee's Bombay resolution. The government arrested leaders and suppressed the movement harshly.

A Bengali nationalist who broke with Gandhi's strategy, sought foreign support and led the Indian National Army. He is remembered for the Azad Hind government and the slogan of giving blood for freedom.

A force of Indian soldiers and volunteers organised abroad during the Second World War to fight British rule in India. Its trials after the war stirred public sympathy and unrest.