Chapter 3 — Glimpses of the Past

The chapter covers Indian history from 1757 to 1857, the hundred years leading up to the First War of Independence, presented through pictures and speech bubbles.

The Company used superior weapons and exploited the rivalries among Indian princes. Princes who were short-sighted called on the English merchants to help them defeat other rulers, which allowed the Company to subdue them one by one.

Tipu of Mysore is described as a far-seeing and brave ruler who fought the British till he died fighting, in contrast to the short-sighted princes who sought British help against their rivals.

According to the chapter, religious leaders preached ideas like untouchability and child marriage, and one voice claimed that all the misery in the world was due to women.

Heavy British taxes forced farmers to abandon their fields and led to famines in which fifteen lakh Indians died of starvation between 1822 and 1836. The East India Company's laws crippled Indian industries by exempting British manufactured goods from import duty, ruining expert artisans and their business.

Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833), a learned man from Bengal, believed India's ancient culture was great but that superstitions were ruining the country. He advocated practical and scientific knowledge, crossed the seas to England to understand the source of British power, told the British they owed responsibility to their subjects, and started newspapers which the suspicious British stopped in 1823.

Under Regulation III, passed in 1818, an Indian could be jailed without trial in a court.

In 1835 an Englishman named Macaulay suggested that Indians should be taught through the English language. English education produced clerks to whom the British gave petty jobs, but it also produced a new generation of intellectuals who wanted to improve the material conditions of Indians and convey their grievances to the British Parliament.

In Bengal, the Santhals had lost their lands under new land rules. Made desperate by this, they rose in rebellion in 1855 and massacred Europeans and their supporters alike.

Few Englishmen had cared to understand Indian customs. When soldiers learned that the grease on the bullet cartridges they had to bite was made from the fat of cows and pigs, Hindu and Muslim sepoys alike felt deceived and their religious sentiments were outraged, fuelling their resolve to drive out the British.

The chapter names Begum Hazrat Mahal of Lucknow, Maulvi Ahmedulla of Faizabad, Tatya Tope, Azimulla Khan, Peshwa Nana Saheb, and eighty-year-old Kunwar Singh of Bihar, who received a bullet in his wrist during the fighting.

Chapaties were sent from village to village to tell the people that the emperor would want their services. Similarly, lotus flowers were circulated among Indian soldiers as a covert signal, rallying support for the revolt.

Yes. The full NCERT Class 8 English Honeydew textbook, including Chapter 3 'Glimpses of the Past', is available for free on CBSE PrepMaster. No sign-up or payment is required.