India After Independence

Question 1.
Name three problems that the newly independent nation of India faced. The Problem of the rehabilitation of given below

Answer:

• The three problems that the newly 8 million refugees who had come into the country from newly born Pakistan.
• The problem of the princely states. There were almost 500 princely states, each ruled by a Maharaja or a Nawab, and each of them had to be persuaded to join the new nation,
• The new nation had to adopt a political system that would best serve the hopes and aspirations of the people.

Question 2.
What was the role of the Planning Commission?

Answer:
Role of Planning Commission

1. Lifting India and Indians out of poverty, and building a modem technical and industrial base were among the major objectives of the new commission.
2. A broad agreement was reached on “mixed economy” model.
3. In mixed economy, both the State and the private sector would play important and complementary roles in increasing production and generating jobs.
4. These roles were:
   • Which industries should be initiated by the state.
   • Which industries by the market.
   • How to achieve a balance between the different regions and states.
5. Roles of state and private sectors were to be defined by the Planning Commission.
6. To make 5-year plans.

Question 3.
Fill in the blanks.

1. Subjects that were placed on the Union List were ………….., …………, and …………..
2. Subjects on the Concurrent List were …………… and ………….
3. Economic planning by which both the state and the private sector played a role in development was called a …………. model.
4. The death of …………. sparked off such violent protests that the government was forced to give in to the demand for the linguistic state of Andhra.

Answer:

1. Taxes, defense, foreign affairs
2. Forests, agriculture
3. ‘mixed economy’
4. Potti Sriramulu

Question 4.
State whether true or false:

1. At independence, the majority of Indians lived in villages.
2. The Constituent Assembly was made up of members of the Congress Party.
3. In the first national election, only men were allowed to vote.
4. The Second Five Year Plan focused on the development of the heavy industry.

Answer:

1. True
2. False
3. False
4. True

Question 5.
What did Dr. Ambedkar mean when he said that In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life we will have inequality”?

Answer.
By the statement, he meant that in political life UAF would give equality. We have one person one vote policy. But this would not automatically remove inequality between castes, rich or poor.In our social and economic life the principle of one man one value will still be denied.

Question 6.
After Independence, why was there a reluctance to divide the country on Uguistic times?

Answer.

• Way back in the 1920s, the Indian National Congress, in the beginning, had promised that after independence, each major linguistic group would have its own province.
• After independence, the Congress did not take any steps to honour this promise.
• India had been divided on the basis of religion: despite the wishes and efforts of Mahatma Gandhi, freedom had come not to one nation but to two.
• As a result of the partition of India, more than ten lakh people had been killed in riots between Hindus and Muslims.
• The country could not afford further divisions on the basis of language.
• Both Prime Minister Nehru and Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Patel were against the creation of states on the basis of languages.

Question 7.
Give one reason why English continued to be used in India after Independence.

Answer.
English continued to be used in India after Independence because south Indian states expressed strong opposition to Hindi.

Question 8.
How was the economic development of India visualised in the early decades after Independence?

Answer.
In 1950, the government set up a Planning Commission to help design and execute suitable policies for economic development. There was a broad agreement on the “mixed economy’ model. Here, both the state and the private sector would play important and complementary roles in increasing production and generating jobs. Now, it was on the Planning Commission to define which industries should be initiated by the state and which by the market and how to achieve a balance between the different regions and states.

In 1956, the Second Five Year Plan was formulated which focused on the development of heavy industries such as steel, and on the building of large dams. These sectors would be under the control of the state. This focus on heavy industry and the effort at state regulation of the economy was to guide economic policy for the next few decades.

Question 9.
Who was Mira Behn? Find out more about her life and her ideas.

Answer.
Mira Behn was actually Madeline’s shade, daughter of a British admiral. Mira Behn wrote in 1949, “by science and machinery the mankind may get huge returns for a time, but ultimately will come desolation. We have got to study Nature’s balance, and develop our lives within her laws if we are to survive as a physically healthy and morally decent species.” She worked with Mahatma Gandhi.

Question 10.
Find out more about the language divisions in Pakistan that led to the creation of the new nation of Bangladesh. How did Bangladesh achieve independence from Pakistan?

Answer.
After the division of India in 1947 into India and Pakistan (West and East), the Urdu speaking rulers of West Pakistan kept torturing the Bengali speaking population of East Pakistan. A time came when the East Pakistani population rose in revolt against West Pakistan. The government committed atrocities on the Bengalis and thousands of them came to India as refugees.
The Bengali population formed Mukti Vahini under the leadership of Muziburr Rehman. India helped him and got the West PAKISTANI army surrendered. As a result, Bangladesh came into being on 16th December 1971.