NCERT Solutions Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India s Political Map

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 8 · SOCIAL SCIENCE

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 2: Reshaping India's
Political Map

NCERT Textbook — Exploring Society: India And Beyond

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

21 – 60 18 28 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 47 pages

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 8 · SOCIAL SCIENCE · EXPLORING SOCIETY: INDIA AND BEYOND

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 2: Reshaping India's
Political Map
Chapter 2 of Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Theme: Tapestry of the Past) follows the political map of
India from the 11th to the 17th centuries — the rise and fall of the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara Empire
in the south, the Mughals, and the many kingdoms and communities that resisted them. It closes with how
these states were administered and what the period meant for ordinary people.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class 8) 21 – 60

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

18 28

MEDIUM

English

The Big Questions — Page 21
Theme: Tapestry of the Past

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Q1 How did foreign invasions and the rise of new dynasties reshape India's political
boundaries during this period?

ANSWER

They redrew the map again and again. Between the 11th and the 17th centuries no single
arrangement of borders lasted even one lifetime: an empire would swell to its greatest size,
then break into regional powers, and a new dynasty would rise in the gap.
The chapter lets you watch this happen on three maps. Compare what they show:

Page 1 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

MAP WHAT IT SHOWS WHAT THAT TELLS
YOU

Fig. 2.3 Extent of the Tughlaq dynasty in 1335 reaches from Peshawar In under 150 years the
(Page in the northwest to Madurai in the far south. The Lodi dynasty Sultanate lost almost
24) in 1479 is only the Ganga plains — Delhi, Gwalior, Jaunpur. everything it had gained.

Fig. The south is now full of separate powers: the Gajapati The territory Delhi could
2.12 kingdom (1458) on the Odisha coast, the Bahmani Sultanate not hold did not stay empty.
(Page (1477) in the Deccan, and Vijayanagara — much larger under New states filled it.
33) Krishnadevaraya in 1529.

Fig. The Mughal Empire under Akbar (1605) across the north; The powers that would
2.16 Aurangzeb's expansion (1700) adds the Deccan and the east replace the Mughals are
(Page coast down to Kanchipuram. The same map already marks drawn on the very map of
39) Rajput territories (1751), the Ahom kingdom (1826) and the the Mughals' greatest
Sikh Empire (1839). extent.

The dated milestones the chapter chooses to keep make the same point in order:

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

1206 Establishment of the Delhi Sultanate

1326 Re-establishment of the Mewar Kingdom

1336 Establishment of the Vijayanagara Empire

1347 Establishment of the Bahmani Sultanate

1398 Timur attacks Delhi

1498 Arrival of the Portuguese in India

1526 First Battle of Panipat; Babur's victory
establishes the Mughal Empire

1556 Second Battle of Panipat; Akbar's decisive victory

1565 Battle of Talikota, destruction of Vijayanagara city

1576 Battle of Haldighati; Maharana Pratap forced to retreat

1671 Battle of Saraighat; the Ahoms defeat the Mughals

1699 Formation of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh

1754 Beginning of Maratha control of Delhi

1799 Establishment of the Sikh Empire

The chapter's own timeline (Fig. 2.2, pages 22–23), redrawn vertically. Notice how often a date marks
a new kingdom being founded rather than an old one being extended.

Why it happens: two forces worked against stable borders. First, conquest by itself
does not create a frontier — an army that marches away leaves behind a governor
who may declare independence, exactly as Harihara and Bukka Raya did in the 1330s
and as the Bahmani tarafdars did later. Second, succession in the Sultanate was
usually violent: almost two sultans out of three seized power by eliminating their
predecessor, so a sultan's average reign was hardly more than nine years. A ruler
who expects to be overthrown fights to survive; he does not consolidate a boundary.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
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Did you know? Under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, most of the Subcontinent came

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under one ruler for the first time since the Mauryan Empire. The chapter is careful to
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add that this
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How did Indian society respond to invasions? How did India's economy adapt during
.
Q2

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times of political instability?

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ANSWER

Society responded in three ways at once — by fighting, by negotiating, and by holding on
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to its own traditions. The economy adapted by becoming, in effect, independent of whoever
em.
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happened to be ruling.
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1. Armed resistance. The chapter gives example after example, from every region:
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Narasimhadeva I also defeated the Sultanate's governor of Bengal, and built the Sūrya

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temple at Konark partly to commemorate these victories.

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The Hoysalas fended off several attacks
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south — until internal conflictgand
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The Musunuri Nayakas rallied over 75 chieftains and expelled Muhammad bin Tughlaq's
army from Warangal around 1330–1336.
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Rana Kumbha held Mewar against Delhi and the later sultanates; Maharana Pratap refused

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. as archers and contributed their knowledge of the terrain.
Mughal suzerainty and fought a guerrilla war from the Aravallis, supported by the Bhils, who

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joined
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Rani Durgavati of the Garha kingdom led her outnumbered troops against Akbar's general
in 1564; the Jat peasantry put 20,000 men in the field; the Bhils, Gonds, Santhals and

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Kochs fought annexation and taxation.
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The Ahoms defeated a Mughal force

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Sikhs formed the Khalsa in 1699.
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2. Alliance and accommodation.

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with the Mughals through diplomacy and marriage alliances; Rajput and regional leaders

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entered Akbar's court and Hindu officials were appointed to high positions. The chapter treats

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this as a real strategy, not a surrender — “Mughal authority thus remained limited in Rajasthan”,
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even

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of which adapted to changing circumstances” — and the interaction between traditions

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produced a shared heritage.

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The economy adapted by decentralising. Its strength lay in institutions that did not depend
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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

INSTITUTION HOW IT WORKED WHY IT SURVIVED POLITICAL
CHANGE

śhreṇis (guilds) and jātis Production and skills organised by A weaver's guild does not stop weaving
community, not by the state when a sultan is deposed

The hundi A written instruction to make Money crossed political borders without
payment to an individual currency being carried, so it could not
be plundered on the road

Trader communities such Parallel systems of credit and trust They “functioned independently of
as the Marwaris official structures” and worked across
different regimes

Temple economies Land and wealth (dāna) held in trust; Temples provided merchants with credit
markets, irrigation tanks, and funded internal and maritime trade
dharmaśhālās and chhatrams

Overseas trade Exports through Calicut, Mangalore, India imported much less than it
Surat, Masulipatnam, Hooghly exported, so wealth kept flowing in

Why it happens: the state in this period taxed the economy but did not run it. Land
revenue was typically one-fifth of the produce (some sultans raised it to one-half),
and infrastructure — roads, bridges, canals, new cities — did expand. But credit,
skills, guilds and trust networks were built and maintained by communities. That is
why the Subcontinent “remained one of the wealthiest regions in the world” through
centuries in which the political map was being torn up and redrawn.

Keep in mind: the chapter does not let this become a happy ending. Plunder
“affected trade networks and agricultural production”; the peasantry suffered several
severe famines, with relief depending on the ruler's benevolence; and by the late
1600s many peasants lost their land and became bonded labourers.

Q3 What impact did this period have on the lives of the people?

ANSWER

For most people the period was hard, and unevenly hard. India as a whole stayed rich; the
people in it mostly did not get richer. The chapter states both halves plainly, and a good answer
has to keep both.
What weighed on people:

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Warfare on top of ordinary life. Military campaigns “raided villages and cities, and
plundered and destroyed temples and seats of learning”. Frequent warfare “caused forced
displacement of population”. Timur's attack left Delhi — “then a thriving city” — in ruins, with
large numbers killed or enslaved. Vijayanagara city was sacked over several months after
1565, with much of its civilian population massacred.
Taxes. Land revenue was typically one-fifth of the produce and sometimes one-half. Taxes
were levied on trade at every stage, but “the burden fell most heavily on the peasantry”, and
some accounts report considerable cruelty in collecting it.
The jizya, imposed by some sultans and again by Aurangzeb, was “a source of economic
burden and public humiliation” for non-Muslim subjects, and an incentive to convert.
Aurangzeb also reimposed a pilgrimage tax on Hindus.
Slavery. Enslaved people “provided free labour or were sent away to distant Central Asia to
be sold”.
Attacks on sacred places. The period “witnessed numerous attacks on sacred or revered
images in Buddhist, Jain and Hindu temples”, motivated by plunder and by iconoclasm. Later,
temples at Banaras, Mathura and Somnath, and Jain temples and Sikh gurudwaras, were
destroyed under Aurangzeb's 1669 order.
Famine and debt. By the late 1600s, after taxes and payments to intermediaries, peasants
were often left with a small share of their produce; many lost their land and became bonded
labourers.

What held up, and even grew:

Agriculture and irrigation expanded, allowing multiple crops — rice, wheat, barley, pulses,
sugarcane and spices, and cotton, silk, wool, dyes, timber and jute.
Craftspeople made everything from weapons to jewellery; ship-building developed
considerably; merchants from Arabia, Persia and Central Asia settled in Indian ports.
Art flourished under most rulers — the Taj Mahal, Humayun's tomb, the Red Forts, Mughal
miniature painting and calligraphy, and in the south the Vitthala temple with its musical
pillars.
Traditions were preserved and blended: “a fair degree of interaction resulted in the creation
of a shared heritage”.

Why it happens: wealth was created widely but held narrowly. The chapter says it
directly — India was still a land of abundance, “but the wealth was largely
concentrated in the hands of the rulers, courtiers, high officials and the merchant
class”. That gap, not the total, is what decided how ordinary life felt.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The chapter's own conclusion: “Through it all, India endured, economically
prosperous on the whole but often politically unstable… It is a tale not only of
hardship but also of resilience.” On relations between communities it is equally
careful: there were clashes, “especially over sacred sites that had been desecrated or
destroyed under the rulers' sanction”, but “by and large, people of different faiths
and communities lived peacefully side by side, economically dependent on each
other”.

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 26
Rise and Fall of the Delhi Sultanate

LET'S EXPLORE

Q1 Looking at Fig. 2.6, why do you think Ala-ud-din Khilji called himself ‘the second
Alexander’?

What Fig. 2.6 shows. A photograph of two silver coins lying side by
side on dark maroon velvet — the two faces of one thick round tanka.
Each face is filled edge to edge with writing and nothing else: four or
five lines of raised Arabic-Persian script across the middle of the flan,
and a further line of script running round the rim inside a plain
circular border. There is no portrait, no animal and no symbol on
either side — only words. White lettering printed on the photograph
itself gives the ruler’s name at the top left, “Ala-ud-din Khilji”, and the
metal and weight at the top right, “Ag – 10.7 g / Tanka”.

Fig. 2.6, page 26 — described here; see the textbook for the photograph of the coins.

ANSWER

Because he was claiming to be a world-conqueror — and he was making that claim on the
one object that reaches everybody: money.
Look carefully at what Fig. 2.6 actually shows. It is a silver coin — a tanka of about 10.7 grams,
photographed from both sides. Both faces are filled edge to edge with writing in the Persian
script inside a plain border. There is no portrait, no crown, no picture of a battle — only
words. One of those words is the title the caption translates: Sikander Sani, ‘the second
Alexander’.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Three things follow from that:

1. Who Alexander was, to him. Alexander came from the west, conquered the Persian empire
and reached the Indus. For a ruler in Delhi whose court language was Persian, Alexander
was the standard measure of conquest. To call yourself the second Alexander is not to claim
to be like him — it is to claim to be his successor in world conquest.
2. What he had just done. The title fits his record. At the turn of the 14th century he
campaigned over large areas of north and central India, sacked and plundered many cities,
and repelled several invasions by Mongol forces who were trying to add India to the Mongol
Empire — which then covered most of Asia. Meanwhile his slave-general Malik Kafur carried
the Sultanate's reach southward.
3. Why on a coin. A coin is the cheapest and widest advertisement a medieval ruler had. It
passes from hand to hand in every market, is kept, hoarded and carried across borders, and
it outlives the ruler. A title struck into silver announces itself thousands of times a day
without a single herald.

Why it happens: a ruler who takes power by force needs to explain why he should
be obeyed. Ala-ud-din Khilji could not claim an ancient royal line — the Khiljis had
themselves displaced the Mamluks. So he claimed something a lineage cannot give:
the standing of the greatest conqueror the Persian world remembered. Titles like
this were arguments about legitimacy, not descriptions.

How to read a source like this: the coin is strong evidence for what Ala-ud-din
wanted people to believe, and weak evidence for what he actually achieved. Compare
it with the title Gajapati, Narapati or Ashwapati on page 32 — every dynasty of the
period advertised itself through a name.

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 26

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Rise and Fall of the Delhi Sultanate
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LET'S EXPLORE GROUP WORK

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a s em kind of resources do you think were needed to maintain an army and wage
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What
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Q1
war in those days? Discuss in groups the various types of expenditure involved,
from weapons or food for soldiers to animals used in warfare, road construction,

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etc.
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ANSWER
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An army in this period cost far more to keep than to use. Most of the money went not on

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weapons but on food, animals and pay — and it had to be spent every single day, whether or

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not there was a war.
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TYPE OF WHAT IT COVERED EVIDENCE IN THE CHAPTER

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People Soldiers' pay, rations, tents, Aurangzeb kept “large armies for those

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clothing; camp followers —
smiths, carpenters,ewater-carriers,
campaigns” for 25 years in the Deccan

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Animals War horses, elephants, camels, and Mansabdars had to maintain “a precise
oxen to pull carts and guns; and
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number of elephants, horses, camels as well as

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their fodder, grooms and veterinary troops”; Rani Durgavati

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care

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Swords, bows, armour; from the Babur's victory at Panipat in 1526 “relied
16th century, field artillery and heavily on gunpowder, field artillery, and
matchlock guns, plus powder, shot matchlock guns”
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and gun-founders

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Forts and sieges Building and garrisoning forts; Kumbhalgarh's 36-kilometre wall; Akbar
siege equipment and the months besieged Chittor for more than five months
of supplies a siege consumes

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Movement Roads, bridges, river boats, The Sultanate saw “progress in

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baggage trains, halting places
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north India, bridges”; the Mughals had a

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Inspection and record Officials to check that troops “Regular inspections were carried out to

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Where the money came from — the chapter names three sources: plunder from military
campaigns, taxes levied on common people and conquered regions, and engagement in the
slave trade. Under the Sultanate the machinery for the first two was the iqta: territories
assigned to nobles who collected taxes and, minus expenses, sent the rest to the Sultan's
treasury, “needed, in particular, to maintain the army”.

Why it matters: because this cost explains a great deal of the politics in this chapter.
Malik Kafur's southern conquests are described as financing “the Sultanate's
enormous military apparatus”, which means the army had to keep conquering in
order to keep being paid. And at the other end of the period, maintaining large
armies in the Deccan “depleted the empire's treasury and put a great strain on the
administration” — often considered one of the key factors in the rapid decline of
Mughal power after 1707. The army was both the source of power and the thing that
consumed it.

For your group discussion: divide the six rows above between group members, and
let each person hunt through the chapter for one more example. Then ask the
harder question together — which of these costs disappears in peacetime? You will find
that almost none of them do, which is exactly why two very different states in this
chapter invented ways to avoid a permanent standing army: the Mughal
mansabdari system (page 54) and the Ahom paik system (page 48).

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 28
Rise and Fall of the Delhi Sultanate

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Why do we use the term ‘image’ rather than common terms like ‘idol’ or ‘icon’?

ANSWER

Because ‘idol’ and ‘icon’ are not neutral words — they already carry a judgement, and
‘image’ does not.
The chapter gives the reason exactly: those two terms “are considered pejorative in the context
of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, whose orthodox sects condemn ‘idolatry’ or the worship of
‘idols’ or ‘icons’.” In English, the word idol almost never appears without the shadow of idolatry
attached to it — a practice those traditions condemn. So to call a temple sculpture an ‘idol’ is to
describe it in the vocabulary of people who disapprove of it.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

India's own classical texts never used such a word. They used mūrti, vigraha, pratimā, rūpa and
others to designate images — often statues — used for worship in temples or homes. None of
these implies falseness. ‘Image’ is the English word that matches them: it says what the
object is, without saying what you should think of it.

Why it matters here: this box sits in the middle of the paragraph on iconoclasm —
“the rejection or destruction of icons or religious images considered idolatrous”. If a
history book were to call the destroyed sculptures ‘idols’, it would be quietly agreeing
with the reason given for destroying them. Choosing ‘image’ keeps the historian's
job separate from the participants' opinions: describe what happened, in words
that do not take a side.

Try this: notice how often a choice of word settles an argument before it starts.
‘Rebel’ or ‘freedom fighter’; ‘invasion’ or ‘expedition’; ‘riot’ or ‘uprising’. In each pair
the facts can be identical and the word does the judging. Reading history well means
noticing that.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 29
Resistance to the Delhi Sultanate

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Do you think it would have been an easy task to bring together 75 leaders in those
days?

ANSWER

No — and the difficulty is exactly what makes the achievement worth recording. Bringing
75 chieftains into one confederacy in the 14th century meant solving at least four problems,
none of them military.

1. Reaching them at all. There was no way to send a message faster than a rider could travel,
through forest, hill and river country in what is now Telangana. A single round of
consultation among 75 chiefs would have taken weeks, and every message could be
intercepted.
2. Persuading rivals to stand together. Each chieftain had his own territory, his own armed
men and his own revenue — and, very often, an old quarrel with the chieftain next door.
Every one of them had to be convinced that the Tughlaq threat was more dangerous than his
neighbour.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

3. Agreeing who leads. A confederacy needs one commander in the field. That means 74
leaders accepting a place below one of their equals — which in a warrior society costs
prestige, and prestige was the basis of a chief's authority at home.
4. Risking everything on it. Joining an alliance against the Sultanate meant being marked for
retaliation. Anyone who joined and then saw the confederacy collapse would face Delhi's
army alone.

Why it worked anyway: the Musunuri Nayakas, Telugu chieftains themselves, had
the standing to call others together, and they built the alliance in stages — the
confederacy first “defeated smaller provinces”, and each success made the next chief
easier to persuade. Nothing recruits like winning. The result was that they defeated
the Delhi Sultanate forces and expelled Muhammad bin Tughlaq's army from
Warangal around 1330–1336.

Connect it up: compare this with what happened on the other side in 1565. The
Deccan Sultanates were five separate states that normally fought each other —
Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar and Bidar — and Vijayanagara had survived
largely because they stayed divided. The moment they “formed a coalition”,
Vijayanagara lost at Talikota. In this period, the ability to combine was often
worth more than the size of any single army.

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 31
Resistance to the Delhi Sultanate

LET'S EXPLORE

Q1 Why do you think such locations were chosen for many of the medieval forts?
Discuss pros and cons. (Hint: think of issues of strategy, security, vulnerability, etc.)

ANSWER

Because height and difficult ground do for a defender what extra soldiers do — and they
do it permanently, without pay. Kumbhalgarh (Fig. 2.10) is the chapter's example: built by
Rana Kumbha in the 15th century in the Aravalli hills, “surrounded by forests and steep slopes”,
with a massive 36-kilometre wall.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

IN FAVOUR OF A HILL-AND-FOREST SITE AGAINST IT

You see the enemy first. From a height you can watch an Supply is the weak point. Food, and above all
approaching army for a day or more, and send warning to the water, must be stored inside or carried up. A
villages below. siege does not have to breach the wall; it only
has to wait.

Steep slopes multiply your men. Attackers must climb in single A long wall needs many men. Thirty-six
file along narrow paths, so a small garrison can hold a gate that a kilometres of rampart cannot all be manned; a
large army cannot rush. determined enemy probes until he finds the thin
stretch.

Forests hide and slow. They conceal the defenders' movements It is off the main road. The very isolation that
and make it very hard to drag siege engines and, later, heavy guns protects the fort keeps it away from the trade
into position. routes and farmland where revenue is actually
collected.

Stone and springs on site. Hills provide building material and Enormous cost. Building and garrisoning such a
often water, so the fort can be built where it stands. fort ties up money and men for generations.

A refuge of last resort. The ruler, the treasury and the families of If it falls, everything falls with it. Putting the
the kingdom have somewhere to go when the plains are overrun ruler, treasury and families in one place makes a
— which is why Kumbhalgarh “served as a stronghold for the single defeat catastrophic — as at Chittorgarh.
rulers of Mewar”.

Why it happens: a medieval kingdom could not defend a border the way a modern
state does, with a continuous line of troops. It defended points — and then made the
ground between those points expensive to cross. A hill fort turns geography into a
permanent part of the army. That is the same reasoning the chapter shows working
on a larger scale for Maharana Pratap in the Aravallis and for the Ahoms in the
forests and rivers of Assam.

Check it yourself: find your nearest fort on a map — Gwalior, Daulatabad, Golconda,
Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Junagadh, or a local one. Ask two questions: what could
its garrison see? and where did its water come from? Those two answers explain most
of why it was built where it was.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 32

Page 13 of 47

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Vijayanagara Empire
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THINK ABOUT IT

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a s emyou guess what these three terms might mean?
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Q1

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ANSWER
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Each title is made of pati, ‘lord’ or ‘master’,
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TITLE WORD MEANING WHO USED IT, AND WHY IT FITS
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SPLIT

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The Vijayanagara kings. Their strength lay in great
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a Ashwapati ashwa (horse) Lord of The Bahmani Sultanate rulers. Cavalry was the

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+ pati horses Deccan sultanates' arm — and good war horses had to

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be imported, which is why the Vijayanagara king took

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Gajapati gaja a
Lord of The rulers of Odisha, whose war elephants were
(elephant) + elephants famous. Fig. 2.12 marks the Gajapati kingdom (1458)

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pati along the east coast.

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Chhatrapati chhatra (royal Lord of the The Maratha rulers. The parasol was the ancient

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umbrella) + umbrella Indian mark of an independent sovereign — so the

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pati title claims not an army but a status.

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com by the arm of war they commanded —
Why it happens: a title is a short argument about what makes a king a king. Three
of these four dynasties measured.kingship g l a
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agl the chhatra says ‘I answer to nobody’, not ‘I command
men, horses, elephants — because
Marathas chose differently:

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the most soldiers’. As the chapter puts it, “each title reflecting different aspects of

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kingship and power.”

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sem Did you know? The same building block turns up all around you — Ganapati (lord of
g l a
a the gaṇas), Pashupati (lord of the animals), Rashtrapati (head of the nation, the Hindi
c
m .
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word for President), Lokpati, Bhūpati (lord of the earth). Once you can see pati in a
m a s
co agl
word, a long title becomes readable.
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LET'S EXPLORE — Page 35
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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Krishnadevaraya

LET'S EXPLORE

Q1 In Fig. 2.14, what elements do you observe? What do they tell you about life then?
(Hint: observe the weapons, the animals, the activities.)

What Fig. 2.14 shows. A photograph of a carved granite wall of the
Vitthala temple at Hampi. The blocks are pale honey-coloured and the
carving is shallow relief, running in five continuous horizontal bands,
one above the other, each several blocks long.
Top band. Elephants walking one behind the other, trunks curled
down; at the right end a horse with a man beside it.
Second band. Camels and horses being led along by men on foot
— one man pulls a camel by a rope, others walk between the
animals carrying sticks.
Third band. Mounted horsemen, several horses rearing up on
their hind legs; one rider is drawing a bow, another carries a
long weapon.
Fourth band. Hunting scenes — hounds running down deer, a
man drawing a bow, a man striking an animal at close quarters.
Bottom band. Ranks of foot-soldiers in step, each with a round
shield and a short sword, with more camels and riders among
them.
The book’s own caption reads: “A panel from the Vitthala temple.”

Fig. 2.14, page 35 — described here; see the textbook for the photograph of the carved
panel.

ANSWER

The panel is carved in horizontal bands, one above the other, and each band carries a
different part of the kingdom's life. Looking at the stone from the top down:

Top band — elephants. A file of elephants walking one behind the other, with small human
figures beside them.
Second band — camels and their drivers. Camels led on foot by men who carry sticks or
goads, with other figures walking alongside carrying loads.

Page 15 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Third band — horses. Some horses are being led by grooms holding the bridle; others carry
riders, and one or two riders hold a long weapon — a lance or a bow — as their mounts rear
up.
Fourth band — a hunt. Men on foot with bows and staffs, dogs running ahead, and animals
in flight before them.
Bottom band — files of small figures on foot, in rows, some carrying round shields and
weapons.

What this tells you about life then:

WHAT IS CARVED WHAT IT TELLS YOU

Elephants, horses and camels — Animals were the measure of a kingdom's power. They carried the army, the
carved at the same scale and goods and the king. Rani Durgavati's strength is described the same way:
importance as people 20,000 soldiers and 1,000 elephants.

Grooms leading horses, not Horses were traded and delivered, not just used. The chapter tells you on this
riding them very page that the Portuguese came to Vijayanagara to sell horses, and that the
king treated them well so they would not sell to enemy kingdoms.

Lances, bows, shields; riders and Cavalry and infantry fought as one force, and the temple wall was a fit place to
foot-soldiers together record it — war was part of public, even sacred, display.

A hunt with dogs Hunting was a royal activity — training for war and a demonstration of skill
— and worth carving in stone.

Rows and rows of ordinary This is a procession: the everyday movement of a great city. It matches
figures walking, leading, Domingo Paes on the same page — “the streets and markets are full of laden
carrying oxen… you could find in great abundance everything that you wanted.”

Why it happens: a temple in Vijayanagara was not only a place of worship. As the
chapter explains later (page 57), temples “created ecosystems with bustling
markets”, held land and wealth in trust, built irrigation works and lodgings, and gave
merchants credit. A building at the centre of the city's economy naturally carried the
city's economy on its walls — soldiers, traders, animals and hunters, not only gods.

Check it yourself: open your book at Fig. 2.14 and count the bands. Then count how
many different animals you can find in a single band. The carvers repeated a form
and varied it — which is how a wall of small figures can be read from a distance.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 37

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Mughals — Babur and India

THINK ABOUT IT GROUP WORK

Q1 What strikes you in Babur's impressions of India? Discuss in groups.

ANSWER

Two things strike you at once: how mixed his opinion of India is, and how mixed the man
himself is.
1. He dislikes the country and admires its wealth in the same breath. He was nostalgic
about Central Asia and found India “a country of few charms”. Yet he also wrote: “Hindustan is a
large country and has masses of gold and silver. … Through the rainy season, the air is
remarkably fine, not to be surpassed for healthiness and charm. … There are countless artisans
and workmen of every sort in Hindustan.” The chapter draws the obvious conclusion —
“perhaps for the last reasons, especially India's wealth, he decided to stay and build his empire
in India rather than return to Central Asia.” He stayed for what India had, not for what he felt
about it.
2. What he notices tells you what kind of mind he had. Not fortresses and revenue alone, but
birds — many of which he lists in some detail — fruit trees, architecture and poetry. That is an
observant, curious writer. The Baburnama is valuable to historians precisely because he wrote
down what interested him rather than only what flattered him.
3. And the same book records terrible things without apology. He was “a brutal and ruthless
conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities, enslaving women and children, and taking
pride in erecting ‘towers of skulls’ made from the slaughtered people of plundered cities.” The
word to hold on to is pride. He is not confessing; he is recording an achievement.

Why this matters for reading history: it is tempting to sort people in the past into
good and bad. Babur will not sort. The cultured man who counts birds and the
conqueror who counts skulls are one person, writing one book. A history that keeps
only the first is flattery; one that keeps only the second is a caricature. The honest
account keeps both, and says so.

For your group: the chapter calls the Baburnama “a candid autobiography of great
historical value”. Discuss what candid buys us and what it still does not. An
autobiography is a first-hand source, but it is also written by someone who chose
what to include, and who expected to be read. Ask: what would the people of the
cities he plundered have written, and why do we not have it?

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 40

Page 17 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Akbar

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Why do you think Akbar employed different strategies to expand his empire, while
the earlier rulers of Delhi relied mostly on military might?

ANSWER

Because Akbar wanted to keep what he took, and force alone is very good at taking and
very bad at keeping.
The evidence that force worked — and was not enough. At Chittor he showed “no mercy”: he
besieged the fort for more than five months, the Rajputs “inflicted heavy losses on the Mughal
army”, and when the fort was breached he ordered the massacre of some 30,000 civilians. He
was 25. That is conquest at its most complete, and it left behind a Rajasthan that had to be held
down by garrisons for ever after. As his empire grew (Fig. 2.16), there were more such places
than there were soldiers.
What he did instead, as the empire grew:

Marriage alliances with princesses of neighbouring kingdoms — turning rivals into relatives.
Welcoming Rajput and regional leaders into his court, and appointing Hindu officials to high
positions — giving other elites a stake in the empire's success.
Abolishing the jizya — removing a standing grievance that cost his subjects money and
dignity.
Promoting sulh-i-kul, ‘peace with all’, and holding interfaith dialogues.
Building a ‘house of translation’ at Fatehpur Sikri, where the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa,
Bhagavad Gītā and Pañchatantra were translated into Persian — making the traditions of his
subjects legible at his own court.

The result was that he “expanded and stabilised his empire, even gaining the support of many
Rajput rulers”, and reigned almost 50 years — against a Delhi Sultanate average of hardly more
than nine.

Why the earlier sultans did not do this: partly because most of them did not last
long enough to try. A sultan who is likely to be overthrown within a decade — and
two in three seized power by eliminating a predecessor — has no reason to invest in
alliances that pay off in twenty years. Partly, too, because the earlier Sultanate's
economy was built on plunder and tribute, which requires campaigning; Akbar's was
built on a surveyed, settled land revenue under Todar Mal, which requires peace.
Different ways of paying for the state produce different ways of running it.

Page 18 of 47

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a g
Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Keep the picture honest. The chapter does not present Akbar's change as

m l a se
complete. It notes that non-Muslim officials “rarely exceeded one-third of the total
o
.c much less”, that Muslim officials of foreign originawereg generally
m
and was often

l a se over those of Indian origin, and that his final 15 years involved fresh
g
favoured
acampaigns in Kashmir, Sindh, the Deccan and Afghanistan. Tolerance and conquest
ran side by side.
com
e m . ag
g l as
LET'S EXPLORE — Page 41
a

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Akbar

LET'S EXPLORE MAP WORK

Q1 Compare the maps in Figs. 2.3, 2.12 and 2.16. What differences do you notice? What
is the ‘reshaping’ that has occurred?

40°N

N

Peshawar

30°N
Delhi

Gwalior
Jaunpur

Junagadh Jajnagar
Daulatabad
20°N
Konark
BAY OF
ARABIAN BENGAL
SEA

Halebidu LEGEND
Eastern Ganga Territory
Belur under Narasimhadeva (1264)
Hoysala Territories (1300)
Madurai Extent of Tughlaq Dynasty (1335)
10°N
Extent of Lodi Dynasty (1479)
Important cities
INDIAN
OCEAN

70°E 80°E 90°E

Fig. 2.3, page 24 — a comparison of the territories under the Tughlaqs and the Lodis
(13th to 15th centuries), and regional powers in the south and east. Redrawn at true
latitude and longitude; the book prints it over a relief background.

Page 20 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

N

25°N

Berar
(Achalpur)
(Achalpur)
Jajnagar
20°N
Ahmednagar
Bidar
Bijapur
Bijapur Golconda
(Vijayapura)
(Vijayapura)

15°N
Vijayanagara
Vijayanagara
(Hampi)
(Hampi)

Calicut
(Kozhikode)
(Kozhikode)
LEGEND
10°N Gajapati Kingdom (1458)
Bahmani Sultanate (1477)
Vijayanagara Empire (1509)
Vijayanagara Empire under
Krishnadevaraya (1529)
Important cities

75°E 80°E 85°E

Fig. 2.12, page 33 — kingdoms in the Deccan and the Vijayanagara Empire, redrawn at
true latitude and longitude. The legend is reproduced exactly as printed: in the book no
pattern is shown against “Bahmani Sultanate (1477)” or “Vijayanagara Empire (1509)”.

Page 21 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

N

PATHAN
TRIBES Lahore
Multan
30°N
Delhi
Jaipur
Agra Guwahati
Patna
MEWAR
Dhaka
Surat
20°N Mumbai Cuttack
BAY OF
Pune Golconda BENGAL
ARABIAN
SEA Machilipatnam
Bijapur
(Vijayapura)
LEGEND
Mughal Empire under
Akbar (1605)
Kanchipuram
Mughal expansion under
Aurangzeb (1700)
10°N Rajput Territories (1751)
Ahom Kingdom (1826)
INDIAN Sikh Empire (1839)
OCEAN Important cities

70°E 80°E 90°E

Fig. 2.16, page 39 — the Mughals and the rise of regional powers at different periods,
redrawn at true latitude and longitude. The legend is reproduced exactly as printed: in
the book no pattern is shown against “Rajput Territories (1751)”, “Ahom Kingdom (1826)”
or “Sikh Empire (1839)”.

ANSWER

Read the three maps as three photographs of the same land taken about a century apart.
Here is what each one actually shows, taken from the legends and the shading.

Page 22 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

FIG. 2.3 (PAGE 24) FIG. 2.12 (PAGE 33) FIG. 2.16 (PAGE 39)

Area The whole Subcontinent The Deccan and the south The whole Subcontinent
covered only

Biggest Tughlaq dynasty, 1335 — Vijayanagara under Mughal Empire under
block from Peshawar in the Krishnadevaraya, 1529 — the Akbar (1605), extended by
northwest to Madurai in the peninsula from roughly 15°N Aurangzeb (1700) into the
far south, and east into Bengal southward Deccan and the east coast
to Kanchipuram

Who is Eastern Ganga territory Gajapati kingdom, 1458, Pathan tribes in the
left out under Narasimhadeva, along the east coast; Bahmani northwest; Mewar
1264 (Jajnagar, Konark); Sultanate, 1477, in the shown as a separate
Hoysala territories, 1300 northern Deccan pocket; Guwahati and
(Belur, Halebidu) the Ahom country
outside to the east

The Lodi dynasty, 1479 — only the The Bahmani Sultanate The legend already lists the
shrinking Ganga plains around Delhi, fragments into five states — successors: Rajput
Gwalior and Jaunpur. It does Bijapur, Golconda, Berar territories (1751), Ahom
not reach Peshawar, Gujarat (Achalpur), Ahmednagar and kingdom (1826), Sikh
or the Deccan. Bidar, all marked as cities on Empire (1839)
this map

So what is the ‘reshaping’? Three patterns, and each one is visible on the maps rather than
merely asserted:

1. Expansion is followed quickly by fragmentation. Tughlaq 1335 to Lodi 1479 is the clearest
case: the same dynasty's territory collapses to a fraction in under 150 years. The Bahmani
Sultanate does the same thing in the Deccan, splitting into five.
2. The land does not stay empty. Where Delhi loses control, a new regional power appears —
Vijayanagara after the Hoysalas, the Gajapatis on the coast, the Deccan Sultanates, and later
the Rajputs, Ahoms, Marathas and Sikhs.
3. Power keeps swinging between one big centre and many regional ones. Fig. 2.3 shows
one giant block, then a small one; Fig. 2.12 shows several medium powers; Fig. 2.16 shows a
giant block again — with its replacements already drawn in.

Why it happens: because holding territory was harder than taking it. Conquest gave
a ruler tax and plunder, but governing distant provinces meant trusting governors —
and governors on the far side of the empire could and did declare independence.
Harihara and Bukka Raya had “initially served as governors under Muhammad bin
Tughlaq”; the five Deccan Sultanates were founded by “former governors or
tarafdars who declared autonomy”. The very officers who extended an empire were
the ones best placed to break it up.

Page 23 of 47

as e
a g
Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Try this: take a blank outline map of India and shade the three biggest extents in

m l a se
three colours — Tughlaq 1335, Vijayanagara 1529 and Aurangzeb 1700. Now mark
o
m .c that appear on more than one of the chapter's mapsag(look for Delhi,
the six cities

l a se Golconda, Bijapur/Vijayapura, Konark, Madurai). Cities outlast empires, and
g is worth seeing on paper.
Jajnagar,
athat

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THINK ABOUT IT — Page 43 gla
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a
Aurangzeb

co m
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THINK ABOUT IT

o m l a se
Q1 m a g nine years. This figure
.csaw above that Delhi sultans’ average reign lasted about
se becomes 27 years in the case of Mughal emperors up to Aurangzeb; and 16 years if
We
l a
ag we consider all Mughal rulers, up to the end of the empire in the 19th century. What
do you make of these numbers of years of reign?
m a s
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g
ANSWER

a
Start by putting the three figures side by side.

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Delhi sultans — average reign about 9 years
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Mughal emperors up to Aurangzeb — average reign 27 years
a g
a s eAll
gl
Mughal rulers, to the end of the empire in the 19th century — 16 years
a So the Mughals up to Aurangzeb lasted, on average, about three times as long as a Delhi
se m
com g l a
sultan.
m . a
ase
agl
You can check the middle figure yourself from dates in the chapter. Babur to Aurangzeb is six
rulers, and 1526 to 1707 is 181 years. But Humayun lost the throne for about 15 of those years

co m
.
to Sher Shah Suri's Sur Empire, so the Mughals actually held Delhi for roughly 166 years — and

em
as
166 ÷ 6 ≈ 27, which is exactly the book's figure.

. comthe numbers tell you: a g l
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What

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1. A nine-year average means the Sultanate had no settled rule of succession. The chapter
says why: almost two sultans out of three seized power by eliminating their predecessor.
.c
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m a
Nine years is roughly how long a man could hold a throne he had taken by force before

. co a gl
m
someone else took it the same way.
2. Twenty-seven years buyssaedifferent kind of government. Long reigns are what make
a
agl land survey, the twelve subahs, the mansabdari cadre with its
Todar Mal's empire-wide
regular inspections and the translation of Sanskrit texts possible at all. None of these pays

co m
m .
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.co


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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

off in nine years. Length of reign is not just luck; it is a precondition for administration.
3. The drop from 27 to 16 is the shape of decline. Adding the rulers after 1707 pulls the
average down by eleven years, which means the later Mughals were short-lived. That fits
what the chapter says about the “rapid decline of Mughal power after Aurangzeb's death in
1707”.

But do not read too much virtue into the averages. A long reign is not a peaceful
one. Aurangzeb's own 49 years began by defeating his elder brother Dara Shikoh in
a series of battles, executing him and presenting his severed head to their father; he
had one other brother executed, drove the third into exile, and imprisoned Shah
Jahan in the Agra Fort until his death. The Mughal succession was as violent as the
Sultanate's — the difference is that the winner then stayed.

Tip for using averages: an average hides the spread. Akbar reigned almost 50 years
and Aurangzeb almost 49; if two rulers out of six account for a hundred years, the
‘typical’ Mughal reign was shorter than 27. Whenever you meet an average in
history, ask what the largest and smallest values were.

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 45
Aurangzeb

LET'S EXPLORE

Q1 In his last letters to two of his sons, Aurangzeb wrote, “I came alone and am going
away alone. I know not who I am and what I have been doing. … I have not done
well for the country and the people, and of the future there is no hope. I was
helpless [in life] and I am departing helpless.” What do these words tell us about
Aurangzeb? How do you feel about them?

ANSWER

They tell us that at the end of the longest and most powerful reign in the chapter, the man
who held it judged it a failure — by a measure that was not conquest.
Read what he actually says, phrase by phrase:

“I came alone and am going away alone.” An emperor who had removed three brothers and
imprisoned his father is describing himself as without company at the end.
“I know not who I am and what I have been doing.” This from a ruler who titled himself
Alamgir, ‘conqueror of the world’.

Page 25 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

“I have not done well for the country and the people.” Notice the standard he chooses. Not
territory — by that measure he had succeeded, since the empire reached its greatest extent
under him — but the country and the people.
“I was helpless… and I am departing helpless.” The word from the man who had spent 25 years
fighting war after war in the Deccan, draining the treasury.

How historians read a passage like this. There is more than one defensible
reading, and it is honest to give both:

Genuine remorse. A private letter to his sons is not a public proclamation; he
had nothing to gain from it. Read this way, it is a man measuring his life at the
end and finding that the empire did not answer for it.
Conventional humility. Aurangzeb was deeply religious and led an austere life.
In that tradition, a dying man is expected to declare his own worthlessness before
God. Read this way, the letter is sincere but formal — it tells us about his faith
more than about his faith than about his judgement of his policies.

The strongest position is not to pick one and hide the other. The letter is evidence of
what he felt; it is not evidence about what he did. For that, the chapter gives the
1669 farman ordering governors “to demolish schools and temples of the infidels”,
the destruction that followed at Banaras, Mathura and Somnath and of Jain temples
and Sikh gurudwaras, and the reimposed jizya and pilgrimage tax. Regret at the end
does not undo any of that, and the chapter does not suggest it does.

Sample answer for the second half, which asks how you feel — this is a personal
response, so write your own; here is one honestly-held version to compare with. “I
find the letter sad rather than moving. Sad, because a man with more power than anyone
else in the Subcontinent could not use it to do what he himself thought was good, and
knew it. But it does not change how I judge his reign. The people whose temples and
gurudwaras were destroyed, and Guru Tegh Bahadur, who was beheaded on his orders in
1675, are not helped by his regret. I think both things can be true at once: the letter
shows a real human being, and the record shows real harm.”

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 48

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Ahoms

LET'S EXPLORE CLASS DISCUSSION

Q1 Discuss in class how the paik system affected the daily lives of the people in the
Ahom kingdom, both in terms of challenges and benefits, and helped the king
manage both the army and the economy.

ANSWER

First, be exact about what the system was. Under the paik system, “every able-bodied man”
had to “provide service to the state through labour or military duty in exchange for land rights”.
So a paik was not a soldier by profession. He was a cultivator who owed the state work — and
the state paid him not in coin but in the right to hold land.

BENEFITS FOR THE PEOPLE CHALLENGES FOR THE PEOPLE

Land You held land without needing cash to pay The land right was tied to the service.
revenue. Your obligation was work you could Stop serving and the basis of your holding
actually perform. is gone.

Time Service was in rotation, so a household was not A call-up at sowing or harvest could cost
stripped of its men all at once. a family its year. Farming does not wait.

Work The labour built embankments, roads and tanks Your labour was not your own to sell.
done that the same villages used. You could see what What was built was decided by the state.
your work produced.

War You fought on your own ground, for your own Ordinary cultivators bore the risk of war
valley, alongside neighbours — which is a strong directly, and repeatedly.
reason to fight well.

How it solved the king's two hardest problems at once:

The army problem. The chapter states the outcome exactly: it “allowed the rulers to create
public infrastructure and maintain a large standing force without a permanent army.” A
permanent army must be paid in every month of peace. A paik force costs nothing until it is
called.
The economy problem. The same men, in the same rotation, dug the trenches, raised the
embankments and built the boats. The kingdom got its public works out of the same
arrangement that got it its soldiers — one obligation, two returns.

Page 27 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why it worked here in particular: in the Brahmaputra valley the skills a farmer
already had were the skills war demanded. Rowing, digging, archery, handling boats
— these were daily work before they were military duty. The Mughal general Ram
Singh noticed it: “Every Assamese soldier is expert in rowing boats, in shooting
arrows, in digging trenches, and in wielding guns and cannons.” That is not a
compliment about courage; it is a description of what the paik system produced. At
Saraighat in 1671, Lachit Borphukan and his 10,000 men defeated a Mughal force of
30,000.

For your class discussion — the comparison worth making: every state in this
chapter faced the same problem, and each solved it differently. The Delhi Sultanate
used the iqta: territory assigned to nobles who collected taxes to pay for troops.
Akbar used mansabdari: officers ranked by mansab, keeping fixed numbers of
elephants, horses, camels and troops, and paid in jagirs. The Ahoms used the paik:
labour owed by everyone, paid in land rights. Ask your class which of the three puts
the heaviest burden on the ordinary cultivator — and which gives him the most in
return.

LET'S EXPLORE — Page 49
The Ahoms

LET'S EXPLORE

Q1 How did the Ahoms use the rivers, hills and forests of Assam to their advantage?
Can you think of ways in which the geography helped them build defences and fight
wars?

ANSWER

They made the Mughals fight on ground where numbers stopped counting. The chapter is
precise about this: the Mughals “had more men and a larger fleet of river boats”, and lost
anyway.

Page 28 of 47

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
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FEATURE OF HOW THE AHOMS USED IT WHAT IT COST THE INVADER
ASSAM
m as e
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The
a s em On a river a large fleet cannot deploy all

ag l
Brahmaputra of Saraighat (1671) was fought on the
Brahmaputra near present-day Guwahati.
its boats at once; a bigger force is
squeezed into the same narrow front as a
smaller one.

com
m . ag
se
Dense forests Cover for “persistent guerrilla tactics” — An army that cannot see cannot use its

l a
agsurprise attacks and
small groups with knowledge of the size. Supply columns become targets.
terrain carrying out
ambushes.

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Hills Observation and ambush positions Every march is watched; nothing arrives

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overlooking the routes an invader must
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as a surprise.

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take.

a and
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They dug trenches and raised earthworks
— the skills Ram Singh listed — and used
Heavy guns and cavalry, the Mughals'
strengths, are of least use in wet, broken

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generally boats as fighting platforms. country.

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The pattern of the campaign shows the method. The Mughals under Aurangzeb did capture
the Ahom capital, Garhgaon — but only “briefly”. Taking a capital in that country did not end the
war, because the defenders had not staked everything on holding it. They withdrew into terrain

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.
they knew and kept fighting until the invader's position became impossible, and then met him

s
on the river at Saraighat: 10,000 Ahom soldiers under Lachit Borphukan
e magainst a Mughal
. com Ultimately the Ahoms preserved their independence.
force of 30,000.
a gla
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agl Why geography alone would not have been enough: terrain helps whoever knows
it and can raise men from it quickly. Both conditions were met here. The paik
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system meant every able-bodied man already owed service, so the kingdom could
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as digging, archery — were exactly what riverine forest
put a large force in the field at short notice; and because paiks were local cultivators,

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their ordinary skills — rowing,
warfare needed. Geography is an advantage only to an army that is made of the
people who live in it.
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Connect it up: the same principle appears twice more in this chapter. Maharana

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by forests and steep slopes”. Hills, forests and local knowledge beat numbers again
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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

DON'T MISS OUT — Page 51
The Rise of the Sikhs

DON'T MISS OUT

Q1 Do you know what the Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Chandni Chowk — the famous
shopping area in Delhi — signifies?

ANSWER

It marks the exact place where Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, was publicly
beheaded on Aurangzeb's orders in 1675. (A gurudwara, in Sikhism, is a place of worship.)
What happened there, in the chapter's own account. In 1675 a group of Kashmiri Pandits
approached Guru Tegh Bahadur seeking protection from religious persecution. He decided to
stand with them and court martyrdom. He was arrested, and Aurangzeb ordered him to convert
to Islam. He was tortured, and made to witness three of his disciples being tortured to death.
He refused. On Aurangzeb's orders he was publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk.
What followed. His son Guru Gobind Singh — the tenth and last Guru — established the
Khalsa in 1699, “a martial brotherhood committed to justice, equality and defence of the faith”.
How it is remembered today. The gurudwara is “uniquely honoured by the Sikh Regiment,
which has saluted it before the President in the Republic Day parade each year since 1979.” The
chapter calls it “a powerful symbol of faith and sacrifice in Indian history”.

Why the location matters: Chandni Chowk was, and is, a working market. The
execution was carried out in public, in the busiest place in the capital, so that
everyone would see what refusal cost. The gurudwara now stands on that same
spot, in the same market — so the memory is not shut away in a monument on the
edge of the city; it sits in the middle of ordinary life, where the event itself took place.

Did you know? The name says what the place is. Sis means ‘head’ and ganj means a
market or a treasury — so Sis Ganj reads as the place of the head. Delhi has a
second linked site, Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, associated with the Guru's body.
Names of places often carry their own history if you take them apart.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 52

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Rise of the Sikhs

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Why do you think Guru Tegh Bahadur endured torture rather than convert? Why did
he think his sacrifice would make a difference?

ANSWER

Because the question put to him was not really about his own belief. It was about whether
anyone at all could be compelled to change faith — and he had already answered that by
agreeing to stand with the Kashmiri Pandits.
Why he did not convert. Notice the sequence in the chapter. He was not arrested first and
asked to convert afterwards; he “decided to stand with them and court martyrdom”, and was
then arrested. He had gone into the situation knowing what it would demand. If he had
converted under torture, the demand made of the Pandits would have been shown to work —
the very principle he had come to defend would have been broken by the man defending it. A
refusal that gives way under pressure proves the opposite of what it set out to prove.
Why he thought it would make a difference. Three reasons, all visible in the chapter:

1. He was not the one under threat. He had no personal quarrel to settle; he was defending
other people's freedom of worship. That made the case impossible to dismiss as self-
interest.
2. It was public. A private death changes nothing. A public beheading in Chandni Chowk, of a
man everyone knew had come on someone else's behalf, made the demand visible to the
whole capital — and it was the executioners who had to explain themselves, not him.
3. It matched what he taught. The Guru Granth Sahib, which he himself contributed hymns
to, says: “Truth is high but higher still is truthful living.” A teacher who says that and then
yields has refuted himself.

Was he right about the effect? The chapter's own evidence says yes. “In response,
his son Guru Gobind Singh — the 10th and last Guru — established the Khalsa” in
1699, and the site of the execution is marked today by the Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib,
saluted by the Sikh Regiment before the President every Republic Day since 1979. An
act meant to end a movement helped to define it.

Q2 What values did the Sikh Gurus and the Khalsa embody?

ANSWER

The chapter names them in three places, and they build on one another.

Page 31 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHERE IT COMES THE VALUES WHAT IT MEANT IN PRACTICE
FROM

Guru Nanak, 15th-century Equality, compassion, and the One God for all means no one is born
Punjab oneness of God (Ik Onkār) closer to God than anyone else — so
equality is not a social reform tacked
on to the faith, it follows from the faith.

The Guru Granth Sahib, Truthfulness, compassion, humility The scripture puts conduct above
first compiled by Guru and self-control; “there is one God declaration: “Truth is high but higher
Arjan, with Guru Tegh for all”, who “established the earth still is truthful living.”
Bahadur's hymns added as a home for Dharma”
later

The Khalsa, founded by Justice, equality and defence of the Courage in the service of those values
Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 faith — the Khalsa “frequently clashed with
the Mughal forces, at great cost of life”.

Two more values are shown by what the Gurus did rather than stated as doctrine:

Standing for others. In 1675 the Kashmiri Pandits who came to Guru Tegh Bahadur were
not Sikhs. He stood with them anyway. Defending a freedom you do not personally need is
the strongest form of defending it.
Seva — selfless service, named in the end-of-chapter question on page 59 as one of early
Sikhism's central values.

How the movement changed without changing its values: the chapter is careful
here. “Sikhism began purely as a spiritual movement”; the later Gurus “had to
respond to the growing intolerance and persecution under some Mughal rulers”.
After Guru Arjan was tortured to death, Guru Hargobind introduced martial training
and formed a Sikh army. So the arms came second and were a response, not a
starting point — the values stayed what Guru Nanak had taught.

Q3 How are they relevant in today's world?

ANSWER

Take them one at a time, and ask what each would require of a person today rather than
admiring it in general.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

VALUE WHAT IT ASKS OF US NOW

Equality The Constitution of India guarantees equality before the law and forbids discrimination on
grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. A value becomes real when it decides who
you will sit beside, work with and speak up for — not when it is agreed to in principle. The
langar, where everyone eats sitting in the same row, is a daily rehearsal of exactly that.

Compassion Noticing distress that is not your own and acting on it. Most people can see a problem; the value
is in the acting.

Justice Defending someone's rights even when they are not from your community — which is precisely
what Guru Tegh Bahadur did in 1675. This is the hardest of the values, and the one that
matters most in a diverse country.

Seva (selfless Work done for others with no expectation of return or credit — from serving in a langar to
service) volunteering after a flood or earthquake. Service given without asking who is being served is a
rare and useful habit.

Truthful living “Truth is high but higher still is truthful living.” The test is not whether you can state what is
right, but whether your ordinary conduct — in an exam hall, in an argument, online —
matches what you say you believe.

Humility and The willingness to be corrected, and the ability to hold your temper when it would be satisfying
self-control not to. Both are in short supply in public argument today.

Why these values are not the property of one community: they are stated in the
Guru Granth Sahib in the language of one tradition, but each of them can be
recognised and lived by anyone. That is what makes them useful in a country of
many faiths — a value that only one group can hold is not a foundation a society can
be built on.

Try this: pick one of the six and keep it for a week. Write down at the end of each
day one occasion when it actually cost you something to hold to it. That short list is a
far better answer to this question than any paragraph — and it is the difference the
Guru Granth Sahib is pointing to between truth and truthful living.

Questions and activities — Page 59

Page 33 of 47

as e
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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

End of chapter
co m
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QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

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similarities and differences existed between them?

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ANSWER
m . ag
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Both were dynasties of Central Asian origin ruling from Delhi and paying for themselves
out of Indian land revenue. Where
government.

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Conquest as the basis of the state. Both expanded by campaigning. Akbar himself followed
his m a
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predecessors in the view that “a monarch should be ever intent

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Absolute authority at the centre. The Sultanate's system was “centred on the sultan, who

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ministers; the Mughal system was centred on the emperor, assisted by ministers.

l a se
Land revenue paid for the army. Both taxed the peasantry to keep troops in the field, and
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both created a class of intermediaries — iqtadars, then jagirdars — to do it.
Violent succession. The chapter links the two directly: “We mentioned earlier the frequent

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were destroyed; Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya and a pilgrimage tax and, in 1669, ordered

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

DELHI SULTANATE MUGHALS (FROM AKBAR)

Assigning The iqta — territory assigned to The mansabdari — officers ranked by mansab,
revenue nobles who collected taxes and sent required to maintain set numbers of elephants,
the balance to the treasury; posts horses, camels and troops, with regular inspections,
were not hereditary and paid in jagirs

Departments A council of ministers in charge of Named offices with divided responsibility — Diwan
departments (finance), Mir Bakhshi (military), Khan-i-Saman
(public works, trade, industry, agriculture,
household), Sadr (justice, religious and educational
matters)

Provinces Territories held through iqtadars Twelve subahs, further subdivided, with “effective
checks and balances enforced between the
government officials”

Revenue Taxes levied at every stage of trade; Todar Mal's detailed surveys of crop yields and
assessment the burden fell most heavily on the prices, and a systematic land survey of the whole
peasantry, with “considerable cruelty empire
in extracting revenue”

Handling Mainly military might Marriage alliances, Rajput and regional leaders in
rivals court, Hindu officials in high posts, sulh-i-kul,
abolition of the jizya

Stability Average reign hardly more than Average reign 27 years up to Aurangzeb
nine years

The one difference that produces the rest: the Sultanate financed itself
substantially by plunder and tribute, which requires constant campaigning; Akbar
financed himself by surveyed, settled land revenue, which requires peace and record-
keeping. Once you tax a countryside year after year, you need it prosperous, quiet
and willing — and that is where marriage alliances, sulh-i-kul and Rajputs at court
come from. The method of paying for the state shapes the politics of the state.

Keep it honest: ‘Mughal policy' was not one thing. Akbar abolished the jizya;
Aurangzeb reimposed it. Akbar promoted sulh-i-kul; Aurangzeb banned music and
dance at court and persecuted Sufis and Zoroastrians as well as non-Muslims. Any
comparison that treats the Mughals as a single policy will get the second half of the
dynasty wrong.

Page 35 of 47

Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 Why did kingdoms like the Vijayanagara Empire and the Ahom Kingdom manage to
resist conquest for a longer time compared to others? What geographical, military,
and social factors contributed to their success?

ANSWER

Both were far from Delhi, both fought on ground that punished a large invading army,
and — most important — both had a way of raising soldiers that did not bankrupt the
state.

FACTOR VIJAYANAGARA THE AHOMS

Geographical Deep in the peninsula, far beyond the The Brahmaputra valley, closed in by
Vindhyas — Fig. 2.12 shows its heartland dense forests, hills and rivers. The
south of the Krishna–Tungabhadra. Every Mughals took the capital Garhgaon only
northern army arrived at the end of a very “briefly”; holding the country was
long supply line. Hampi itself sits among rocky another matter.
hills and a river.

Military Wealth bought war horses — imported, and The paik system gave a large force at
the reason Portuguese traders were so short notice with no permanent army,
carefully treated. Strong rulers, above all and “persistent guerrilla tactics”. At
Krishnadevaraya, who “expanded and secured Saraighat (1671) 10,000 men under
the empire's dominance over the Deccan”. Lachit Borphukan defeated 30,000.

Social Patronage in Sanskrit, Telugu and Kannada, The Ahoms “assimilated the local
and grants to temples from Tirupati to the culture, promoted agriculture,
Vitthala temple — binding elites of several encouraged diverse faiths, and
language regions to one court. Temple contributed to the rich traditions of
economies funded trade and credit. Assam” — so the kingdom was not a
foreign layer on top of the valley but part
of it.

Political Founded by Harihara and Bukka Raya, former A migrating group from present-day
origin governors under Muhammad bin Tughlaq Myanmar (13th century) that built its
who rejected Delhi's authority — they knew own institutions in the valley from the
exactly how the Sultanate worked. start.

The common thread is worth stating on its own: distance and difficult terrain made an invasion
expensive, and a locally-raised force made defence cheap. A power that can be defended
cheaply and attacked expensively survives — for a long time.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

But the two stories end differently, and that is the real lesson. The Ahoms “were
able to preserve their independence”. Vijayanagara did not: in 1565 the Deccan
Sultanates — Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar and Bidar, who normally fought
each other — “formed a coalition” and destroyed the Vijayanagara army at Talikota.
Vijayanagara's defence had always depended on its neighbours staying divided. The
moment that condition failed, distance and wealth could not save it. Resistance that
rests on the enemy's disunity is strong until it suddenly isn't.

Compare with a third case: Mewar under Maharana Pratap used the same
ingredients on a smaller scale — the Aravalli hills, guerrilla warfare, and Bhil archers
who “contributed their knowledge of the terrain”. Mughal authority “remained
limited in Rajasthan” as a result. Terrain plus local support is the recurring formula in
this chapter.

Q3 Imagine you are a scholar in the court of Akbar or Krishnadevaraya. Write a letter
to a friend describing the politics, trade, culture, and society you are witnessing.

ANSWER

What a good answer needs. This is an imaginative task built on real material, so it is marked
on the accuracy underneath the imagination:

1. Choose one court and stay in it. Do not mix Akbar's Fatehpur Sikri with Krishnadevaraya's
Hampi.
2. Cover all four things the question asks: politics, trade, culture, society.
3. Use at least six specific details from the chapter — names, places, offices, books,
buildings. This is what separates a good answer from a vague one.
4. Write in a letter's voice: first person, dated, addressed to someone, ending with a sign-off.
5. Do not make your scholar a modern person in fancy dress. He should be impressed,
uncertain and partial — as an eyewitness actually is.

Sample answer:

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Fatehpur Sikri, the tenth month of the thirty-first year of His Majesty's reign
My dear Ramdas,
You asked what a man sees here. I will tell you, though I fear you will not believe half of it.
The politics first. The Emperor rules through four great officers whose work never
overlaps: the Diwan for the treasury, the Mir Bakhshi for the army, the Khan-i-Saman for
public works and the royal household, and the Sadr for justice and religious and
educational matters. The same offices exist in each of the twelve subahs, and the officers
are set to watch one another. Below them are the mansabdars, each holding a rank that
fixes how many horses, elephants, camels and troops he must keep ready — and
inspectors come without warning to count them. Todar Mal has had the crops and prices
of the whole empire surveyed, so that revenue is fixed by measurement and not by a
collector's temper. I am told the difference from earlier times is very great.
The trade. Goods come up from Surat that were on a ship a month ago. Merchants from
Arabia and Persia keep houses in the ports and send their business inland by hundi — a
slip of paper that becomes money in another city, so that a man may carry a fortune
through bandit country in his sleeve. The Marwaris work this system across every border,
whoever is ruling. Cotton cloth goes out of this country in quantities that would fill a
town; silk, horses and metals come in, and even so we sell more than we buy.
The culture. His Majesty cannot read — he has never hidden it — and yet there is
nowhere in the world with a greater appetite for books. He has set up a house of
translation here, and I have seen the Mahābhārata rendered into Persian as the
Razmnama, and a Rāmāyaṇa illustrated with a hundred and seventy-six paintings so fine
that men fall silent looking at them. The Bhagavad Gītā and the Pañchatantra are being
done. At the assemblies I have sat among Brahmins, Jain teachers, Sufis and two Jesuits in
black robes, all arguing, and the Emperor listening more than he speaks.
The society. He calls his policy sulh-i-kul, peace with all. He has abolished the jizya, and
Rajput chiefs sit in this court as officers and as kin, for he has married into their houses.
Do not imagine, though, that all is even. Of the high officers, scarcely one in three is not a
Muslim, and among the Muslims those born abroad are preferred to those born here. And
I am old enough to remember what was done at Chittor. The man who built this house of
translation also ordered that massacre. I have not worked out how to hold both, and I do
not think anyone here has.
Come in the cold season. The Panch Mahal has five storeys and each is open to the wind,
and from the top you can see the whole plain.
Your friend,
Devidas

Page 38 of 47

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co m
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If you choose Krishnadevaraya instead, build your letter on these: Hampi and the

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ruins we now see in Fig. 2.11; the Virūpākṣha and Vitthala temples with their
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saint with its Rājanīti section on good governance; grants to Tirupati; poets
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horses and were treated well so they would not sell to the enemy; and Domingo
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Q4

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benevolent after some years? What could have led to such a change?

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ANSWER

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the chapter.

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women and children enslaved. His victory message:
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over Hindustan.” shame.”

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What could have led to it — four causes, none of them sufficient alone:
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1. The arithmetic of empire. An empire the size of Fig. 2.16 cannot be garrisoned. Every

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simply cheaper than armies, and Akbar had fifty years in which to learn it.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Where historians genuinely disagree: was this conviction or calculation? One case
says the record is of a shrewd ruler doing what kept a huge empire quiet, and points
out that non-Muslim officials “rarely exceeded one-third” of his administration, that
officials of foreign origin were favoured, and that his last 15 years were again years
of campaigning in Kashmir, Sindh, the Deccan and Afghanistan. The other case says
a purely calculating ruler need not have translated the Mahābhārata, need not have
sat through interfaith debates, and would certainly not have recorded his own
shame to his biographer. The strongest position is that the two reinforced each
other: a policy that was useful was also one he came to believe in, and belief made
him carry it further than usefulness required. What the chapter will not let you say is
that he simply became a good man — the Chittor massacre is on the same page as
sulh-i-kul.

Q5 What might have happened if the Vijayanagara Empire had won the Battle of
Talikota? Imagine and describe how it could have changed the political and cultural
history of south India.

ANSWER

This is a ‘what if', so say so first: nobody can know. But a good answer is not a free
invention — it reasons forward from what the chapter actually establishes. Here are the
four facts to build on.

Vijayanagara's opponents at Talikota were five states that normally fought each other and
had come together only for this campaign.
Vijayanagara city was, on Domingo Paes's evidence, enormous and rich — “as large as
Rome”, “the best provided city in the world”.
After the defeat “the empire got fragmented into smaller regions ruled by Nayakas, who
were former military governors”, and ended in the mid-17th century.
A century later, Aurangzeb spent 25 years fighting in the Deccan, which drained the Mughal
treasury.

Politically, a coalition that lost would probably have broken apart at once — such alliances are
held together by the prospect of winning. Vijayanagara might then have pushed north of the
Krishna–Tungabhadra against Bijapur and Golconda one at a time. The Nayakas would have
stayed what they were, military governors, instead of becoming independent successor states.
And when the Mughals came south under Aurangzeb, they would have met one large southern
power instead of several weak ones — which could have made the Deccan wars even longer and
more ruinous for Delhi, or, if the Mughals still won, have ended southern independence in one
campaign rather than many.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Culturally, the loss we can measure most clearly is the city. It was sacked over several months:
“houses, shops, buildings, palaces and most of its temples were destroyed, and much of its
civilian population massacred.” Had it survived, Hampi would very likely be a living city today
rather than the ruins of Fig. 2.11, and the Vitthala temple's musical pillars would be part of a
working temple rather than a monument. The court's patronage of Sanskrit, Telugu and
Kannada together — the practice that produced Krishnadevaraya's own Āmuktamālyada —
would have continued under a single roof instead of scattering among the Nayaka courts.
Economically, the Portuguese horse trade would have kept flowing to Vijayanagara rather than
to its rivals, and with it the wealth that paid for cavalry — a self-reinforcing advantage.

The honest limits of this exercise. Single battles rarely decide everything by
themselves. Vijayanagara had internal strains of its own. Krishnadevaraya had died
in 1529, thirty-six years before Talikota, and the empire's military power was by then
spread among the Nayakas — the military governors who took over the fragments
after the defeat. An empire whose armies are held by regional governors can win a
battle and still come apart. So the safest conclusion is narrower than ‘south Indian
history would have been transformed': a victory at Talikota would almost
certainly have saved the city, and would have delayed rather than prevented
the empire's fragmentation. Say that, and you are reasoning like a historian rather
than telling a story.

Q6 Many values promoted by early Sikhism, including equality, seva, and justice,
remain relevant today. Select one of these values and discuss how it remains
relevant in contemporary society.

ANSWER

What a good answer needs: name one value; say where it comes from in the chapter; explain
what it meant then; then show — with a concrete present-day example — what it demands now.
One value, argued properly, beats three mentioned in passing.
Sample answer — the value chosen: equality.
Where it comes from. Guru Nanak, in 15th-century Punjab, spread the message of “equality,
compassion, and the oneness of God (Ik Onkār)”. The two ideas are one idea: if there is a single
God for all, then no person stands nearer to God by birth than any other. The Guru Granth Sahib
states it plainly — “there is one God for all” — and the Khalsa, founded in 1699, was “committed
to justice, equality and defence of the faith”.
What it meant then. In a society organised by birth, saying that all people stand equal before
God was not a comfortable sentiment; it was a challenge to how status was distributed. The
langar, where everyone sits in one row and eats the same food, put the idea into a form that
could be practised daily rather than merely agreed with.
Why it is still relevant.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

It is now the law, but not yet the habit. The Constitution of India guarantees equality
before the law and forbids discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of
birth. A guarantee on paper changes what a court will do; it does not by itself change who is
invited home, who is served last, or whose name is mispronounced without apology.
The test is ordinary, not dramatic. Equality is decided in classrooms, queues, hostels and
workplaces — in whether the same rules and the same courtesy apply to the person who
cannot make trouble for you.
It costs something, which is why it needs a reason. Treating everyone equally means
giving up an advantage you may have been getting for free. A rule is easier to keep when
you know why it exists — and “one God for all” is a reason that does not depend on who is
watching.

If you choose a different value: for seva, build on the langar and on volunteer
relief work, and argue that service which does not ask who is being served is what
makes it seva rather than charity. For justice, build on 1675 — Guru Tegh Bahadur
stood with the Kashmiri Pandits, who were not of his own community — and argue
that defending the rights of people unlike yourself is the only test of justice that
means anything. In each case: source in the chapter, meaning then, demand now,
one real example.

Q7 Imagine you are a trader in a port city (Surat, Calicut or Hooghly). Describe the
scenes you see as regards goods, people you trade with, movement of ships, etc.

ANSWER

What a good answer needs: the chapter's own facts about trade, placed inside a scene. Before
you write, collect these from pages 55–57:

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHAT THE CHAPTER TELLS YOU USE IT FOR

Exports went out through “coastal and riverside towns such as Calicut, Naming the ships' destinations and the
Mangalore, Surat, Masulipatnam or Hooghly” rival ports

Cotton “fed a thriving textile production”; also silk, wool, dyes, timber, What is stacked on your quay
jute, spices, sugarcane

Imports: silk, horses, metals, and all kinds of luxury goods — and What comes off the ships, and why your
“India imported much less than it exported” ledger stays in credit

Merchants from Arabia, Persia (now Iran) and Central Asia settled in Who you actually deal with, and in how
Indian ports many languages

“Ship-building, essential to river and overseas trade, developed The yards, the noise, the smell of pitch
considerably”

The hundi — a written instruction to make payment, carried across How you settle a large account without a
political borders single coin changing hands

Craftspeople made “weapons to utensils to ornaments and jewellery The workshops behind the port
items”

Sample answer:

Page 43 of 47

as e
a g
Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Mapl AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
I keep my accounts at the third gate in Surat, and I will tell you what a morning looks like.

m as e
.co
Before the sun is properly up the carts are already blocking the lane — bales of cotton
a g l
s em
cloth from the weaving villages inland, stacked higher than a man, each bale marked in
a
gl with the name of the guild that made it. Behind them come the indigo jars, and
atimber,
chalk
and jute, and sacks of pepper that you can smell from the far end of the street. My

co m
clerk counts, my broker argues, and the carters shout that they were promised the earlier
turn.
em . ag
g l as
a
On the water there are three kinds of movement. Small boats come down the river all day
with goods from upcountry. The big ships lie further out and are loaded by lighter — Arab
vessels bound west, and lately the Portuguese, who bring horses and want spices and
co m
cloth. Beyond them, in the yards, they are building: the hammering never stops, and the
e m.
m l as
.co g
pitch is boiling from dawn.

em a
a s
The people I deal with are from everywhere. There is a Persian merchant three doors

a gl down whose family has been here longer than mine; an Arab house that keeps its own
warehouse; agents of Central Asian traders who come for a season and go. We do

om a s
. c agl
business in a mixture of three languages and a great deal of pointing, and we understand
each other perfectly where money is m
a s e concerned.
What surprises visitors most isglthat so little coin is seen. Yesterday I settled a debt of a size
a
that would have needed an armed escort, and I did it with a hundi — a written

c om
instruction, which my correspondent will honour in another city, in another kingdom,
.
s e
under another ruler. That is the whole secret of our trade: goods travelmby ship, but money
. comby paper, and paper cannot be robbed on the road. agla
travels
m
aseAnd we sell far more than we buy. What comes in is silk, horses, metals and fine things for
agl great houses. What goes out is what this country makes in quantity. That is why the ships
keep coming back.
se m
com g l a
m . a
e
as spices and the Arabian Sea trade central and
Tip: if you choose Calicut,lmake
a g
remember the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498 (see the timeline). If you choose
Hooghly, make it a riverside port — boats, silk, jute, and the long journey downriver
co m
m .
e
to the Bay of Bengal.
m l as
m.co a g
l a se
ag
.c
s e m
co m gl a
.
Chapter at a glance
m
e part of the ‘medieval period’ — a European term the book a
a s
agl 11th to 17th centuries, warning that historians do not agree on
The chapter calls this the latter
uses only loosely, for the
which period it covers in India.

com
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Delhi Sultanate (from 1206) saw five successive dynasties of Turkic–Afghan origin —
Mamluks, Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids, Lodis. Almost two sultans out of three seized power by
eliminating their predecessor, so the average reign was hardly more than nine years.
Resistance came from many quarters: the Eastern Gangas under Narasimhadeva I, the
Hoysalas, the Musunuri Nayakas, Rana Kumbha and Maharana Pratap of Mewar, Rani
Durgavati, the Jat peasantry, tribal groups, the Ahoms and the Sikhs.
In the south, Vijayanagara (from 1336) peaked under Krishnadevaraya, then lost the
Battle of Talikota (1565) to a coalition of the Deccan Sultanates; the city was sacked and
left in ruins.
The Mughal Empire began with Babur's victory at Panipat in 1526. Akbar held it together by
marriage alliances, sulh-i-kul and the abolition of the jizya; Aurangzeb expanded it to its
greatest extent but reimposed the jizya and drained the treasury in 25 years of Deccan
warfare.
Administration ran on the iqta system under the Sultanate and on mansabdari, twelve
subahs and Todar Mal's revenue survey under the Mughals. Beneath the politics, India
stayed one of the wealthiest regions in the world — held up by agriculture, artisans,
śhreṇis, jātis, temple economies and the hundi.

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Quick revision

TERM WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT SHOWS UP IN THIS PAGE
CHAPTER

Sultanate A territory ruled by a ‘Sultan’ — a title that The Delhi Sultanate, formed after the Page 25
some Muslim rulers adopted defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan in 1192

Turkic Peoples, languages and cultures historically Many of the invaders of this period Page 23
associated with a region stretching across were Central Asian — Turkic or
Central Asia to Turkey and Siberia Afghan

Token Cheap copper coins declared to have the Muhammad bin Tughlaq's scheme; it Page 27
currency value of silver or gold coins encouraged counterfeiting and the
economy declined

Iconoclasm The rejection or destruction of icons or Attacks on images in Buddhist, Jain Page 28
religious images considered idolatrous and Hindu temples

Infidel Someone who does not share the faith of a Timur's stated aim: “war with the Page 28
given religion infidels and to gain something by
plundering”

Jizya A tax on non-Muslim subjects to grant them Imposed by some sultans; abolished Pages
protection and exemption from military by Akbar; reimposed by Aurangzeb 28, 38,
service 43

Rana A title often used for Rajput kings Rana Kumbha of Mewar, builder of Page 30
Kumbhalgarh; Rana Sanga

Jauhar Rajput women entering mass fires to avoid Hundreds of women at Chittorgarh Page 38
being captured and enslaved when Akbar breached the fort

Sulh-i-kul Literally ‘peace with all’ — tolerance of all The doctrine Akbar promoted along Page 38
faiths with abolishing the jizya

Guerrilla Small groups with knowledge of the terrain Maharana Pratap in the Aravallis; the Page 47
warfare carrying out surprise attacks and ambushes to Ahoms in Assam
defeat bigger armies

Paik system Every able-bodied man gave the state labour How the Ahom rulers kept a large Page 48
or military duty in exchange for land rights force without a permanent army

Iqta Territories assigned to nobles (iqtadars) to The Sultanate's main instrument for Page 53
collect taxes for the Sultan's treasury; the paying for its army
posts were not hereditary

Mansabdari Officers (mansabdars) kept a set number of Akbar's system, recorded by Abul Page 54
elephants, horses, camels and troops Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari; mansabdars

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Class 8 Social Science Chapter 2 Reshaping India's Political Map AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

TERM WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT SHOWS UP IN THIS PAGE
CHAPTER

according to their mansab (rank) were paid in jagirs

Hundi A written instruction to make payment to an Let merchants move money without Page 57
individual, which could be carried across carrying currency — a precursor to
political borders modern banking

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