JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 Ruling the Countryside

JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 Ruling the Countryside

→ The Company Becomes the Diwan

  • On 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor appointed the East India Company as the Diwan of Bengal.
  • As Diwan, the Company became the chief financial administrator of the territory under its control. Now, it had to think of administering the land and organising its revenue resources.
  • Being an alien power, it needed to pacify those who in the past had ruled the countryside, and enjoyed authority and prestige.

→ Revenue for the Company

  • The Company had become the Diwan. but it still saw itself primarily as a trader.
  • Before 1865, the Company had purchased goods in India by importing gold and silver from Britain. Now the revenue collected in Bengal could finance the purchase of goods for export.
  • Artisans were deserting villages since they were being forced to sell their goods to the Company at low prices. Peasants were unable to pay the dues that were being demanded from them.
  • In 1770 a terrible famine killed ten million people in Bengal. About one-third of the population was wiped out.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 Ruling the Countryside

→ The need to improve agriculture

  • Most Company officials began to feel that investment in land had to be encouraged and agriculture had to be improved.
  • In 1793, the Company introduced the Permanent Settlement.
  • By the terms of the settlement, the rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars. They were asked to collect rent from the peasants and pay revenue to the Company.
  • The amount to be paid was fixed permanently. It was felt that this would ensure a regular flow of revenue into the Company’s coffers and at the same time encourage the zamindars to invest in improving the land.

→ The problem

  • The Permanent Settlement created problems. Company officials soon discovered that the zamindars were in fact not investing in the improvement of land. The revenue that had been fixed was so high that the zamindars found it difficult to pay. Anyone who failed to pay the revenue lost his zamindari.
  • The prices in the market rose and cultivation slowly expanded. Hence, there is an increment in the income of the zamindars but no gain for the Company since it could not increase a revenue demand that had been fixed permanently.
  • As long as the zamindars could give out the land to tenants and get rent, they were not interested in improving the land.
  • On the other hand, in the villages, the cultivator found the system extremely oppressive. The rent he paid to the zamindar was high and his right on the land was insecure.

→ A new system is devised

  • By the early nineteenth century many of the Company officials were convinced that the system of revenue had to be changed again.
  • An Englishman called Holt Mackenzie devised the new system which came into effect in 1822, in the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency (most of this area is now in Uttar Pradesh).
  • The estimated revenue of each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each village (mahal) had to pay. This demand was to be revised periodically, not permanently fixed.
  • The charge of collecting the revenue and paying it to the Company was given to the village headman, rather than the zamindar. This system came to be known as the mahalwari settlement.

→ The Munro system

  • Down in south, the similar idea of permanent settlement moved away. The new system that was devised came to be known as the ryotwar or ryotwari.
  • It was tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Read in some of the areas that were taken over by the Company after the wars with Tipu Sultan. Subsequently developed by Thomas Munro, this system was gradually extended all over south India.
  • Munro thought that the British should act as paternal father figures protecting the lyots under their charge.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 Ruling the Countryside

→ All was not well
Driven by the desire to increase the income from land, revenue officials fixed too high a revenue demands. Peasants were unable to pay, ryots fled the countryside, and villages became deserted in many regions.

→ Crops for Europe

  • The British also realised that the countryside could not only yield revenue, it could also grow the crops that Europe required.
  • The British persuaded or forced cultivators in various parts of India to produce other crops: jute in Bengal, tea in Assam, sugarcane in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), wheat in Punjab, cotton in Maharashtra and Punjab, rice in Madras.

→ Does colour have a history?

  • A kalamkari print was created by weavers of Andhra Pradesh in India. On the other hand, a floral cotton print was designed and produced by William Morris, a famous poet and artist of nineteenth-century Britain.
  • There is one thing common in the two prints: both used a rich blue colour commonly called indigo.
  • The blue prints was produced from a plant called indigo.

→ Why the demand for Indian indigo?

  • The indigo plant grows primarily in the tropics. By the thirteenth century, Indian indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth.
  • Only small amounts of Indian indigo reached the European market and its price was very high. European cloth manufacturers therefore had to depend on another plant called woad to make violet and blue dyes.
  • However, cloth dyers preferred indigo as a dye. Indigo produced a rich blue colour, whereas the dye from woad was pale and dull.
  • By the seventeenth century, European cloth producers persuaded their governments to relax the ban on indigo import.
  • Indigo plantations also came up in many parts of North America.
  • The French began cultivating indigo in St Domingue in the Caribbean Islands, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica, and the Spanish in Venezuela.
  • By the end of the eighteenth century, the demand for Indian indigo grew further.
  • While the demand for indigo increased, its existing supplies from the West Indies and America collapsed for a variety of reasons.
  • Between 1783 and 1789 the production of indigo in the world fell by half.

→ Britain turns to India

  • From the last decades of the eighteenth-century indigo cultivation in Bengal expanded rapidly and Bengal indigo came to dominate the world market.
  • As the indigo trade grew, commercial agents and officials of the Company began investing in indigo production.

→ How was indigo cultivated?

  • There were two main systems of indigo cultivation nij and ryoti.
  • Within the system of nij cultivation, the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 3 Ruling the Countryside

→ The problem with nij cultivation

  • The planters found it difficult to expand the area under nij cultivation.
  • Indigo could be cultivated only on fertile lands and these were all already densely populated.
  • They attempted to lease in the land around the indigo factory, and evict the peasants
    from the area. But this always led to conflicts and tension.
  • Nor was labour easy to mobilise and large numbers of labours required. And labour was needed precisely at a time when peasants were usually busy with their rice cultivation.
  • Nij cultivation on a large scale also required many ploughs and bullocks.
  • One bigha of indigo cultivation required two ploughs.
  • Till the late nineteenth century, planters were therefore reluctant to expand the area under nij cultivation.
  • Less than 25 per cent of the land producing indigo was under this system.
  • The rest was under an alternative mode of cultivation i.e.; the ryoti system.

→ Indigo on the land of ryots

  • Under the ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement (satta).
  • At times they pressurised the village headmen to sign the contract on behalf of the ryots.
  • The planter provided the seed and the drill, while the cultivators prepared the soil, sowed the seed and looked after the crop.
  • When the crop was delivered to the planter after the harvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cycle started all over again.
  • The price peasants got for the indigo they produced was very low and the cycle of loans never ended.
  • The planters usually insisted that indigo be cultivated on the best soils in which peasants preferred to cultivate rice because indigo had deep roots and it exhausted the soil rapidly. After an indigo harvest the land could not be sown with rice.

→ The “Blue Rebellion” and After

  • In March 1859, thousands of ryots in Bengal refused to grow indigo.
  • As the rebellion spread, ryots refused to pay rents to the planters and attacked indigo factories armed with swords and spears, bows and arrows. Women turned up to fight with pots, pans and kitchen implements.
  • In many villages, headmen who had been forced to sign indigo contracts, mobilised the indigo peasants and fought pitched battles with the lathiyals.
  • In other places even the zamindars went around villages urging the ryots to resist the planters.
  • After the Revolt of 1857 the British government was particularly worried about the possibility of another popular rebellion.
  • When in Barasat, the magistrate Ashley Eden issued a notice stating that ryots would not be compelled to accept indigo contracts, word went around that Queen Victoria had declared that indigo need not be sown.
  • The intellectuals from Calcutta wrote about the misery of the ryots, the tyranny of the planters, and the horrors of the indigo system.
  • Worried by the rebellion, the government brought in the military to protect the planters from assault, and set up the Indigo Commission to enquire into the system of indigo production.
  • After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal. But the planters now shifted their operation to Bihar.
  • Mahatma Gandhi’s visit in 1917 marked the beginning of the Champaran movement against the indigo planters.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Civics Chapter 9 Public Facilities

JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes Civics Chapter 9 Public Facilities

→ Water and the People of Chennai:
Different situations are mentioned about the water supply and the people of Chennai.

→ Water as Part of the Fundamental Right to Life:

  • Water is essential for life and for good health.
  • India has one of the largest number of cases of diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera.
  • The Constitution of India recognises the right to water as being a part of the Right to Life under Article 21.
  • There should be universal access to water.
  • There have been several court cases in which both the High Courts and the Supreme Court have held that the right to safe drinking water is a Fundamental Right.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Civics Chapter 9 Public Facilities

→ Public Facilities:

  • There are things like electricity, public transport, schools and colleges that are also necessary. These are known as public facilities.
  • The important characteristic of a public facility is that once it is provided, its benefits can be shared by many people.

→ The Government’s Role:

  • One of the most important functions of the government is to ensure that these public facilities are made available to everyone.
  • In most of the public facilities, there is no profit to be had.
  • Private companies provide public facilities but at a price that only some people can afford.
  • This facility is not available to all at an affordable rate.
  • Public facilities relate to people’s basic needs.
  • The Right to Life that the Constitution guarantees is for all persons living in this country. The responsibility to provide public facilities, therefore, must be that of the government.

→ Water Supply to Chennai: Is it Available to All?

  • While there is no doubt that public facilities should be made available to all, in reality we see that there is a great shortage of such facilities.
  • Water supply in Chennai is marked by shortages.
  • The burden of shortfalls in water supply falls mostly on the poor.
  • The middle class when faced with water shortages are able to cope through a variety
    of private means such as digging borewells, buying water from tankers and using bottled water for drinking.
  • Apart from the availability of water, access to ‘safe’ drinking water is also available to some and this depends on what one can afford.
  • In reality, therefore, it seems that it is only people with money who have the right to water – a far cry from the goal of universal access to ‘sufficient and safe’ water.

→ In Search of Alternatives:

  • A similar scenario of shortages and acute crisis during the summer months is common to other cities of India.
  • The supply of water per person in an urban area in India should be about 135 litres per day (about seven buckets) – a standard set by the Urban Water Commission.
  • Whereas people in slums have to make do with less than 20 litres a day per person (one bucket), people living in luxury hotels may consume as much as 1,600 litres (80 buckets) of water per day.
  • A shortage of municipal water is often taken as a sign of failure of the government.
  • Within India, there are cases of success in government water departments, though these are few in number and limited to certain areas of their work.
  • It has also used the services of private companies for transporting and distributing water but the government water supply department decides the rate for water tankers and gives them permission to operate. Hence, they are called ‘on contract’.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Civics Chapter 9 Public Facilities

→ Conclusion:

  • Public facilities relate to our basic needs and the Indian Constitution recognises the right to water, heath, education, etc., as being a part of the Right to Life.
  • One of the major roles of the government is to ensure adequate public facilities for everyone.
  • There is a shortage in supply and there are inequalities in distribution.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 2 From Trade to Territory: The Company Establishes Power

JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes History Chapter 2 From Trade to Territory: The Company Establishes Power

→ Aurangzeb was the last of the powerful Mughal rulers. He established control over a very large part of the territory that is now known as India.

  • After his death in 1707, many Mughal subadars (governors) and big zamindars began asserting their authority and establishing regional kingdoms.
  • By the second half of the eighteenth century, however, a new power was emerging on the political horizon – the British.

→ East India Company Comes East

  • The East India Company in 1600, acquired a charter from the ruler of England, Queen Elizabeth I, granting it the sole right to trade with the East.
  • Mercantile trading companies in those days made profit primarily by excluding competition, so that they could buy cheap and sell dear.
  • The royal charter, however, could not prevent other European powers from entering the Eastern markets.
  • The Portuguese had already established their presence in the western coast of India and had their base in Goa. It was Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, who had discovered this sea route to India in 1498.
  • In the early, seventeenth century, the Dutch arrived and soon after them the French came.
  • The problem was that all the companies were interested in buying the same things. The fine qualities of cotton and silk produced in India had a big market in Europe. Pepper, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon too were in great demand.
  • The only way the trading companies could flourish was by eliminating rival competitors. The urge to secure markets led to fierce battles between the trading companies.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 2 From Trade to Territory: The Company Establishes Power

→ East India Company begins trade in Bengal

  • The first English factory was set up on the banks of the river Hugh in 1651.
  • This was the base from which the Company’s traders known at that time as “factors” operated.
  • By 1696 it began building a fort around the settlement. Two years later it bribed Mughal officials into giving the Company zamindari rights over three villages.
  • It also persuaded the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to issue a farman granting the Company the right to trade duty free.
  • One of the cities were Kalikata, presently known as Kolkata or Calcutta)earlier).

→ How trade led to battles

  • Through the early eighteenth century the conflict between the Company and the nawabs of Bengal intensified.
  • Murshid Quli Khan was followed by Alivardi Khan and then Sirajuddaulah as the Nawab of Bengal. Each one of them was a strong ruler. They refused to grant the Company concessions, demanded large tributes for the Company’s right to trade, denied it any right to mint coins and stopped it from extending its fortifications.
  • The Company on its part declared that the unjust demands of the local officials were ruining the trade of the Company, and trade could flourish only if the duties were removed.
  • The conflicts led to confrontations and finally culminated in the famous Battle of Plassey.

→ The Battle of Plassey

  • The Company was worried about the power of Sirajuddaulah became the nawab of Bengal and keen on a puppet ruler who would willingly give trade concessions and other privileges.
  • After negotiations failed, the Nawab marched with 30,000 soldiers to the English factory at Kassimbazar, captured the Company officials, locked the warehouse, disarmed all Englishmen, and blockaded English ships. Then he marched to Calcutta to establish control over the Company’s fort there.
  • In 1757, Robert Clive led the Company’s army against Sirajuddaulah at Plassey.
  • One of the main reasons for the defeat of the Nawab was that the forces led by Mir
    Jafar who was one of Sirajuddaulah’s commanders, never fought the battle.
  • Clive had managed to secure his support by promising to make him nawab after crushing Sirajuddaulah.
  • The Battle of Plassey became famous because it was the first major victory the Company won in India.
  • After the defeat at Plassey, Sirajuddaulah was assassinated and Mir Jafar made the nawab. The Company was still unwilling to take over the responsibility of administration. Its prime objective was the expansion of trade.
  • When Mir Jafar protested, the Company deposed him and installed Mir Qasim in his place. When Mir Qasim complained, he in turn was defeated in a battle fought at Buxar in 1764 and driven out of Bengal, and Mir Jafar was reinstalled.
  • They wanted more territories and more revenue. By the time Mir Jafar died in 1765, the mood of the Company had changed. Having failed to work with puppet nawabs, Clive declared: “We must indeed become nawabs ourselves.”
  • Finally, in 1765 the Mughal emperor appointed the Company as the Diwan of the provinces of Bengal.
  • From the early eighteenth century its trade with India had expanded. But it had to buy most of the goods in India with gold and silver imported from Britain.
  • Revenues from India could finance Company expenses. These revenues could be used to purchase cotton and silk textiles in India, maintain Company troops, and meet the cost of building the Company fort and offices at Calcutta.

→ Company officials become ‘nabobs’

  • Each company servant began to have visions of living like nawabs.
  • After the Battle of Plassey the actual nawabs of Bengal were forced to give land and vast sums of money as personal gifts to Company officials.
  • Robert Clive was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1764, he was asked to remove corruption in Company administration but he was himself cross-examined in 1772 by the British Parliament.
  • The Company officials who managed to return with wealth led flashy lives and flaunted their riches. They were called “nabobs” means an anglicised version of the Indian word nawab.

→ Company Rule Expands

  • The Company used a variety of political, economic and diplomatic methods to extend its influence before annexing an Indian kingdom.
  • After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the Company appointed Residents in Indian states. They were political or commercial agents and their job was to serve and Anther the interests of the Company.
  • When Richard Wellesley was Governor-General (1798-1805), the Nawab of Awadh was forced to give over half of his territory to the Company in 1801 as he failed to pay for the “subsidiary forces”.
  • Hyderabad was also forced to cede territories on similar grounds.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 2 From Trade to Territory: The Company Establishes Power

→ Tipu Sultan – ‘The Tiger of Mysore’

  • Mysore had grown in strength under the leadership of powerful rulers like Haidar Ali (ruled from 1761 to 1782) and his famous son Tipu Sultan (ruled from 1782 to 1799).
  • In 1785, Tipu Sultan stopped the export of sandalwood, pepper and cardamom through the ports of his kingdom, and disallowed local merchants from trading with the Company.
  • He also established a close relationship with the French in India, and modernized his army with their help.
  • Four wars were fought with Mysore (1767¬69, 1780-84, 1790-92 and 1799). Only in the last, the Battle of Seringapatam did the Company ultimately win a victory.

→ War with the Marathas

  • With the defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the Marathas’ dream of ruling from Delhi was shattered.
  • They were divided into many states under different chiefs (sardars) belonging to dynasties such as Sindhia, Holkar, Gaikwad and Bhonsle.
  • These chiefs were held together in a confederacy under a Peshwa (Principal Minister) who became its effective military and administrative head based in Pune.
  • Mahadji Sindhia and Nana Phadnis were two famous Maratha soldiers and statesmen of the late eighteenth century.
  • In the first war that ended in 1782 with the Treaty of Salbai, there was no clear victor. The Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-05) was fought on different fronts, resulting in the British gaining Orissa and the territories north of the Yamuna river including Agra and Delhi. Finally, the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-19 crushed Maratha power.

→ The claim to paramountcy

  • Under Lord Hastings (Governor-General from 1813 to 1823), a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated. Now the Company claimed that its authority was paramount or supreme, hence its power was greater than that of Indian states.
  • When the British tried to annex the small state of Kitoor (in Karnataka today), Rani Channamma took to arms and led an anti- British resistance movement. She was arrested in 1824 and died in prison in 1829.
  • But Rayanna, a poor chowkidar of Sangoli in Kitoor, carried on the resistance. With popular support he destroyed many British camps and records. He was caught and hanged by the British in 1830.
  • British fought a prolonged war with Afghanistan between 1838 and 1842 and established indirect Company rule there. Sind was taken over in 1843.
  • But the presence of Maharaja Ranjit Singh held back the Company. After his death in 1839, two prolonged wars were fought with the Sikh kingdom. Ultimately, in 1849, Punjab was annexed.

→ The Doctrine of Lapse

  • Lord Dalhousie was the Governor-General from 1848 to 1856. He devised a policy that came to be known as the Doctrine of Lapse.
  • The doctrine declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir his kingdom would “lapse”, and become part of Company territory. One kingdom after another was annexed simply by applying this doctrine – Satara (1848), Sambalpur (1850), Udaipur (1852), Nagpur (1853) and Jhansi (1854).
  • Enraged by the humiliating way in which the Nawab of Awadh was deposed, the people of Awadh joined the great revolt that broke out in 1857.

→ Setting up a New Administration

  • Warren Hastings (Governor-General from 1773 to 1785) was one of the many important figures who played a significant role in the expansion of Company power.
  • British territories were broadly divided into administrative units called Presidencies. There were three Presidencies: Bengal, Madras and Bombay.
  • Each was ruled by a Governor. The supreme head of the administration was the Governor-General.
  • Each district was to have two courts – a criminal court (faujdari adalat) and a civil court (diwani adalat).
  • The criminal courts were still under a qazi and a mufti but under the supervision of the collectors.
  • A major problem was that the Brahman pandits gave different interpretations of local laws based on different schools of the dharmashastra.
  • In 1775, eleven pandits were asked to compile a digest of Hindu laws. N.B. Halhed translated this digest into English.
  • By 1778, a code of Muslim laws was also compiled for the benefit of European judges.
  • The principal figure in an Indian district was the Collector. As the title suggests, his main job was to collect revenue and taxes and maintain law and order in his district with the help of judges, police officers and darogas.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes History Chapter 2 From Trade to Territory: The Company Establishes Power

→ The Company army

  • The Mughal army was mainly composed of cavalry (sawars – trained soldiers on horseback) and infantry, paidal (foot) soldiers. They were given training in archery (teer-andazi) and the use of the sword.
  • The East India Company adopted the method of recruiting peasants when it began recruitment for its own army, which came to be known as the sepoy army.
  • As warfare technology changed from the 1820s, the cavalry requirements of the Company’s army declined because the British empire was fighting in Burma, Afghanistan and Egypt where soldiers were armed with muskets and matchlocks.
  • In the early nineteenth century the British began to develop a uniform military culture.

→ Conclusion

  • Thus, the East India Company was transformed from a trading company to a territorial colonial power.
  • Steamships reduced the journey time to three weeks enabling more Britishers and their families to come to a far-off country like India.
  • By 1857, the Company came to exercise direct rule over about 63 per cent of the territory and 78 per cent of the population of the Indian subcontinent.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 6 Human Resource

JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 6 Human Resource

→ Human resource is the ultimate resource. Healthy, educated and motivated people develop resources as per their requirements.

→ Distribution of Population:

  • The pattern of population distribution is the way in which people are spread across the earth surface.
  • The distribution of population in the world is extremely uneven.
  • Almost three-quarters of the world’s people live in two continents Asia and Africa.
  • In just 10 countries, sixty per cent of the world’s people stay. All of them have more than a 100 million people.

→ Density of Population:
The number of people living in a unit area of the earth’s surface is called population density. It is normally expressed as per square km.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 6 Human Resource

→ Factors Affecting Distribution of Population Geographical factors:

  • Topography: People always prefer to live on plains rather than mountains and plateaus because these areas are suitable for farming, manufacturing and service activities.
  • Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold such as Sahara desert, polar regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica.
  • Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture. Fertile plains are densely populated.
  • Water: The river valleys of the world are densely populated while deserts have spare population.
  • Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated.
  • Social Cultural and Economic Factors
  • Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated.
  • Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people.
  • Economic: Industrial areas provide employment opportunities.

→ Population Change:

  • Population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time.
  • The world population has not been stable. This is actually due to changes in the number of births and deaths.
  • The main reason for the growth of population was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births still remained fairly high.
  • Births are usually measured using the birth rate, i.e., the number of live births per 1,000 people.
  • Deaths are usually measured using the death rate, i.e., the number of deaths per 1,000 people.
  • Migrations is the movement of people in and out of an area.
  • The difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a country is called the natural growth rate. It is one of the reasons for population increase.
  • Migration is another way by which population size changes.
  • The general trend of international migrations is from the less developed nations to the more developed nations in search of better employment opportunities.

→ Patterns of Population Change:
Rates of population growth vary across the world. Although, the world’s total population is rising rapidly, not all countries are experiencing this growth.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 6 Human Resource

→ Population Composition:

  • Population composition refers to the structure of the population.
  • The composition of population helps us to know how many are males or females, which age group they belong to, how educated they are and what type of occupations they are employed in, what their income levels and health conditions are and many more things.
  • The shape of the population pyramid tells the story of the people living in that particular country.
  • The population pyramid also tells us how many dependents there are in a country.
  • Skilled, spirited and hopeful young people endowed with a positive outlook are the future of any nation.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

→ Secondary activities or manufacturing change raw materials into products of more value to people. Industry is an economic activity that is concerned with production of goods, extraction of minerals or the provision of services.

→ Classification of Industries:
On the basis of raw materials, size and ownership, industries are classified.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

→ Raw Materials:

  • Depending upon the type of raw materials used, they are classified accordingly. Industries may be agro-based, mineral based, marine based and forest based.
  • Plant and animal based products are used as their raw materials in Agro-based industries.
  • The primary industries that use mineral ores as their raw materials in Mineral based industries.
  • Marine based industries use products from the sea and oceans as raw materials.
  • Forest based industries utilise forest produce as raw materials.

→ Size:

  • Size depicts the amount of capital invested, number of people employed and the volume of production.
  • Industries can be classified into small scale and large scale industries based on its size.
  • In a small scale industry, the products are manufactured by hand, by the artisans.
  • In large scale industries, investment of capital is higher and the technology used is superior.

→ Ownership:

  • Industries can be classified into private sector, public sector or state owned, joint sector and cooperative sector.
  • Private-sector industries are owned and operated by individuals or a group of individuals.
  • The public sector industries are owned and operated by the government.
  • Joint sector industries are owned and operated by the state and individuals or a group of individuals.
  • Co-operative sector industries are owned and operated by the producers or suppliers of raw materials, workers or both.

→ Factors Affecting Location of Industries:

  • The factors affecting the location of industries are the availability of raw material, land, water, labour, power, capital, transport and market.
  • Industrialisation often leads to development and growth of towns and cities.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

→ Industrial System:

  • An industrial system consists of inputs, processes and outputs.
  • The inputs are the raw materials, labour and costs of land, transport, power and other infrastructure.
  • The processes include a wide range of activities that convert the raw material into finished products.
  • The outputs are the end product and the income earned from it.

→ Industrial Regions:

  • Industrial regions emerge when a number of industries locate close to each other and share the benefits of their closeness.
  • Major industrial regions of the world are eastern North America, western and central Europe, eastern Europe and eastern Asia.
  • India has several industrial regions such as Mumbai-Pune cluster, Bangalore-Tamil Nadu region, Hugh region, Ahmedabad- Baroda region, Chhota Nagpur industrial belt, Vishakhapatnam-Guntur belt, Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut region and the Kollam-Thiruvananthapuram industrial cluster.

→ Distribution of Major Industries:

  • The world’s major industries are the iron and steel industry, the textile industry and the information technology industry.
  • The countries in which iron and steel industry is located are Germany, USA, China, Japan and Russia.
  • Textile industry is mainly concentrated in India, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
  • The major hubs of information technology industry is the Silicon Valley of Central California and the Bangalore region of India.

→ Iron and Steel Industry:

  • Iron and steel industry is a feeder industry whose products are used as raw material for other industries.
  • Steel is tough and it can easily be shaped, cut, or made into wire.
  • Alloys give steel unusual hardness, toughness, or ability to resist rust.
  • Steel is often called the backbone of modem industry.
  • Most of the things we use is either made of iron or steel or has been made with tools and machinery of these metals.
  • Before 1800 A.D. iron and steel industry was located where raw materials, power supply and running water were easily available. Later the ideal location for the industry was near coal fields and close to canals and railways. After 1950, iron and steel industry began to be located on large areas of flat land near sea ports.
  • In India, iron and steel industry has developed taking advantage of raw materials, cheap labour, transport and market.
  • All the important steel producing centres such as Bhilai, Durgapur, Bumpur, Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bokaro are situated in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Bhadravati and Vijay Nagar in Karnataka, Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Salem in Tamil Nadu.

→ Jamshedpur:

  • Before 1947, there was only one iron and steel plant in the country – Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO) and it was privately owned.
  • After independence, the government took the initiative and set up several iron and steel plants.
  • Jamshedpur is the most conveniently situated iron and steel centre in the country.
  • In Jamshedpur, several other industrial plants were set up after TISCO. They produce chemicals, locomotive parts, agricultural equipment, machinery, tinplate, cable and wire.
  • Almost all sectors of the Indian industry depend heavily on the iron and steel industry for their basic infrastructure. It opened the doors to rapid industrial development in India.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

→ Pittsburgh:

  • It is an important steel city of the United States of America. The steel industry at Pittsburgh enjoys locational advantages.
  • The Pittsburgh area has many factories other than steel mills. These use steel as their raw material to make many different products such as railroad equipment, heavy machinery and rails.
  • Today, very few of the large steel mills are in Pittsburgh itself.

→ Cotton Textile Industry:

  • Cotton, wool, silk, jute, flax have been used for making cloth and weaving cloth from yam is an ancient art.
  • Fibres are the raw material of textile industry. Fibres can be natural or man-made.
  • Natural fibres are obtained from wool, silk, cotton, linen and jute. Man-made fibres include nylon, polyester, acrylic and rayon.
  • The cotton textile industry is one of the oldest industries in the world.
  • In 18th century power looms facilitated the development of cotton textile industry, first in Britain and later in other parts of the world.
  • The important producers of cotton textiles are India, China, Japan and the USA.
  • Before the British rule, Indian hand-spun and handwoven cloth already had a wide market.
  • The Muslins of Dhaka, Chintzes of Masulipatnam, Calicos of Calicut and Gold-wrought cotton of
  • Burhanpur, Surat and Vadodara were known worldwide for their quality and design.
  • The production of handwoven cotton textile was expensive and time consuming.
  • The first successful mechanised textile mill was established in Mumbai in 1854.
  • Initially this industry flourished in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat because of favourable humid climate.
  • Nowadays, it can be created artificially, and some of the other important centres are Coimbatore, Kanpur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Puducherry and Panipat.

→ Ahmedabad:

  • The first mill was established in 1859.
  • It soon became the second largest textile city of India, after Mumbai.
  • Ahmedabad was often referred to as the ‘Manchester of India’.
  • Ahmedabad is situated very close to cotton growing area.
  • The densely populated states of Gujarat and Maharashtra provide both skilled and semi-skilled labour.
  • In the recent years, Ahmedabad textile mills have been having facing some problems. This is due to the emergence of new textile centres in the country as well as non- upgradation of machines and technology in the mills of Ahmedabad.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 5 Industries

→ Osaka:

  • It is an important textile centre of Japan and also known as the ‘Manchester of Japan’.
  • The textile industry at Osaka depends completely upon imported raw materials.
  • Cotton is imported from Egypt, India, China and USA.
  • The finished product is mostly exported and has a good market due to good quality and low price.

JAC Class 8 Social Science Notes