Food Security in India - class 9th (Economics )

 

CHAPTER – FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

GLOSSARY

1.     Food Security : It means availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people at all times.

 

     2. Green Revolution : It refers to the tremendous increase in agricultural   output and productivity that came about with the introduction of new agricultural technology since late 1960’s and made the Indian economy self       sufficient in terms of food grains.

 

3.     Famine : Massive starvation deaths and daeths caused by epidemics due to forced use of contaminated water and decayed food is called famine.

 

4.      Public distribution System : It is the system in which the food procured by the FCI is distributed through the government regulated ration shops among the poor sections of the society. The items such as foodgrains, sugar, kerosene etc are sold to the people at a price lower than the market price.

 

5.     Minimum Support Price : It is the price which is paid by the government to the farmers for the purchase of foodgrains. It is a pre-announced and is declared by the government before the sowing season.

 

6.     Issue Price : It is the price at which the FCI distributes the foodgrains in the deficit areas and among the poor strata of the society. Issue price is lower than the market price. It is the subsidised price.

 

7. Fair Price Shops : Fair price shops are the ration shops. The food procured by the FCI is distributed through these government regulated shopsamong the poor strata of the society. Fair price shops are present in most localities, villages, towns and cities.

 

8. Seasonal Hunger : It is related to the cycles of food security and insecurity. Seasonal hunger exists when a person is unable to get work for the entire year. It is a type of hunger when a person doesn’t get proper food neither in terms of quantity nor in terms of quality for some time during the year.

 

9. Chronic Hunger : It is a consequence of diets persistently inadequate

in terms of quantity and/or quality. Poorer sections of the society suffer
from chronic hunger because of their very low income and in turn inability  to buy food even for their survival.

 

10. Buffer Stock : It is the stock of foodgrains, namely wheat and rice procured

by the government through the Food Corporation of India ( FCI ). The FCI
purchases foodgrains from the farmers in the states where there is surplus
production. The purchased foodgrains are stored in granaries.

 

Q1. What does food security mean ? On what factors does food security of a country depend ?

Ans. It means availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people at all times. Food security depends on :

1)     The public distribution system (PDS)

2)     Governemnt vigilance and action at times when this security is threatened.

 

Q2. What are the dimensions of food security ?

 Ans. Food security has following dimensions :-

(a) Availability of food means food production within the country, food

imports and the previous years stock stored in government granaries.

(b) Accessibility means food is within reach of every person.

(c) affordability implies that an individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one's dietary needs.

 

Q.3. when  is food security ensured ?

Ans. Food security is ensured under the following conditions :

(a) When food is available in adequate quantity as well as quality to meet nutritional requirements.

(b) When food is within the reach of every person.

(c) When an individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one’s dietary needs.

 

Q4. Why do we need food security ?

 Ans. 1) The poorest section of the society might be food insecure most of the times .

     2)     persons above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a national disaster/calamity like earthquake, drought, flood, tsunami,

    widespread failure of crops causing famine, etc.

 

Q5.  What happens to the food security when there is a natural calamity or a

disaster?

When there is a disaster or a calamity, total production of foodgrains

decreases. It creates a shortage of food in the affected areas. As a result, the supply of foodgrains falls in relation to demand which further results in price rise. In such a situation, majority of people cannot affoerd food and they begin to starve and die.

 

Q6.  Which are the people that are more prone to food insecurity?

1. Landless people with little or no land to depend upon.

2. Traditional artisans

3. Providers of traditional services

4. Petty self-employed workers

5. Destitutes including beggars

6. People employed in ill-paid occupations

7. Casual labourers

8. Labourers engaged in seasonal activities

9. Women, elderly, sick members and handicapped

10. SCs, STs and some sections of the OBCs who have either poor land

base or very low land productivity

11. People affected by the natural disasters and calamities   

 

Q.7. Which states are more food insecure in India?

 Ans. More food insecure states of India: The states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are more food-insecure in India.

 

Q8.  Differentiate between seasonal and chronic hunger.

Seasonal Hunger : It is related to the cycles of food security and insecurity. Seasonal hunger exists when a person is unable to get work for the entire year. It is a type of hunger when a person doesn’t get proper food neither in terms of quantity nor in terms of quality for some time during the year.

 

Chronic Hunger : It is a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality. Poorer sections of the society suffer from chronic hunger because of their very low income and in turn inability to buy food even for their survival.

 

Q9.  What is buffer stock and why is it created by the government?

 ·        Buffer Stock is the stock of food grains, namely wheat and rice procured by the

government through Food Corporation of India (FCI). The FCI purchases wheat

and rice from the farmers in states where there is surplus production.

   ·        The farmers are paid a pre-announced price for their crops. This price is called

              Minimum Support Price.

    ·        The MSP is declared by the government every year before the sowing season to provide incentives to the farmers for raising the production of these crops.

     ·        The purchased foodgrains are stored in granaries by the government.

This is done to distribute foodgrains in the deficit areas and among the poorer strata of society at a price lower than the market price also known as  Issue Price. This also helps resolve the problem of shortage of food during adverse weather conditions or during the periods of calamity.

 

Q10. Explain the current status of PDS.

PDS is one of the most important steps taken by the Governmnet of India towards ensuring food security.

In the begining the coverage of PDS was universal with no discrimination

between the poor and non-poor. Over the years, the policy related to PDS has

been revised to make it more more efficient and targeted.

In 1993, Revamped Public Distribution (RPDS) was introduced in 1700 blocks of the country. The aim was to provide the benefits of PDS to remote and backward areas.

From June 1997, a new policy Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)was introduced to adopt the principle of targeting the ‘poor in all areas’.

 Further in 2000, two special schemes were launched i.e. ANTYODYA ANNA YOJNA ( AAY ) and ANNAPURNA SCHEME (APS) with special target groups of ‘poorest of the poor ‘ and indignant senior citizens respectively. The functioning of these schemes was linked with the existing network of the PDS.

 

Q11. What are the problems associated with high minimum support price of the foodgrains?

 

1. MSP of wheat and rice has been continuously rising from year to year.

Higher MSP has caused a number of problems like :
higher MSP of wheat and rice has induced the farmers to divert the land from the
production of coarse grains to the production of wheat and rice only.  
Coarse grains are the staple diet of the poor. The poor tend to suffer.

2. The intensive utilization of water in the cultivation of rice has lead to

environmental degradation. It has also led to a fall in the water level.

 

Q12.  What problems are associated with the high levels of buffer stock?

The high levels of buffer stock of foodgrains is undesirable because :

1. It can be wasteful.

2. It results in the deterioration of quality of food grains.

3. It causes high carrying costs, storing costs and maintanance costs.

Q13. Mention the problems based in the functioning of ration shops.

Ration shop dealers are found resorting to malpractices like

1. Hoarding and black marketing i.e. Diverting the grains to the open market

to get better margin.

2. Selling poor quality grains through the ration shops.

3. Irregular opening time of shops.

4. Use of false weights.

5. Selling of adultrated grains and other essential commodities of consumption.

 

Q14. What are the different type of ration cards?

There are 3 types of ration cards.

1. Antyodya cards for the poorest of the poor.

2. BPL cards for those who lie below the povety line.

3. APL cards for all others who are above the poverty line.

Q.15. Do you believe that Green Revolution has made India self-sufficient in foodgrains? How?

Ans. After Independence, Indian policy-makers adopted all possible measures to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains. India adopted a new strategy in agriculture which resulted in the Green Revolution. Green Revolution took place especially in the production of wheat and rice. The core of this new strategy was the use of HYV seeds along with chemical fertilizer and assured water supplies. As a result, total production of foodgrains increased from 50.8 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 212.0 million tonnes in 2003-04. The largest contribution came from wheat, whose production rose from 6.4 million tonnes to 72.1 million tonnes.

 

Q.16. A section of people in India are still without food. Explain?

Ans. Despite large increase in foodgrain production we find people without food in India. Poor people suffer from chronic hunger. They find themselves unable to buy food. Over one-fifth of the country’s population still suffers from chronic hunger.

 

Q.17. What has our government done to provide food security for the poor? Discuss any two schemes launched by the government.

Ans. Our government has undertaken a number of measures to provide food security for the poor.

A brief account of these measures is given below :

1.     Maintenance of Buffer Stock.  Our government maintains buffer stock of foodgrains through Food Corporation of India. The FCI purchases wheat and rice from the farmers in surplus states and stores in granaries.

2.     Public Distribution System (PDS). The food procured by the FCI is distributed among the poor through ration shops. Presently, there are about 4.6 lakh ration shops in the country.

3. Nutritional Programmes.  In order to provide nutritional security, our government has launched various schemes. Mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren, scheme for supply of foodgrains to scheduled castes/scheduled tribes and special nutrition programmes for pregnant/nursing mothers are examples of such schemes. In 2000, two special schemes were launched. One, Antyodaya Anna Yojana and second, the Annapurna Schemes. The former relate to the poorest of the poor, while the latter targets indigent senior citizens.  The functioning of these two schemes was linked with the PDS.

Under AAY scheme, thirty-five kilograms of foodgrains are made available to each eligible family at a rate of Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 3 per kg for rice.

Under APS, 10 kilograms of food grains is made available to eligible persons free of cost.

 Q.18. Write notes on :

(a) Minimum Support Price

    (b) Issue Price

(c) Fair Price Shops

d) Antyodaya Anna Yozna

e)  Subsidy

f) PDS

 

Ans. (a) Minimum Support Price : With a view to provide incentives to the farmers for raising the production of their crops, the government announces price of some crops before the sowing season. The government remains ready to purchase their crops at these pre-announced prices. This price is called minimum support price (MSP).

(b) Issue Price : The purchased food grains are stored in granaries. This is done to distribute food grains among the poorer section of the society. The government makes food grains available to the poor at a price much lower than the market price. This is known as issue price.

(c) Fair Price Shops : The food procured by the government is distributed among the poor. This task is done through government regulated shops which are known as fair price shops.

 d) Antyodaya Anna Yozna -AAY was launched in December 2000.

Under the scheme one crore of the poorest among the BPL families covered under the targeted public distribution system were identified. Poor families were identified by the

respective state rural development departments through a Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey. Twenty five kilograms of foodgrains were made available to each eligible family at a

highly subsidized   rate of Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 3 per kg for rice.

This quantity has been enhanced from 25 to 35 kgs with effect from April 2002.

 

e) Subsidy -is a payment that a government makes to a producer to supplement the market price of a commodity. Subsidies can keep consumer prices low while maintaining  a higher income for domestic producers.

 

f) PDS - Public distribution System : It is the system in which the food procured by

   the FCI is distributed through the government regulated ration shops
  among the pooe sections of the society. The items such as foodgrains, sugar,
   kerosene etc are sold to the people at a price lower than the market price

 

Q.19. What are the problems of the functioning of ration shops?

Ans. There are various problem of the functioning of ration shops such as ;

1. Ration cards are issued only to those people who have their proper residential addresses. Hence a large number of homeless poor fail to get ration from these shops.

2. The owners of these shops sell ration in the open market at higher prices.

3. Sometimes shopkeepers make bogus entries in the ration cards.

 

Q.20. Write a note on the role of cooperatives in providing food and related items.

Ans. Role of Cooperatives in providing food and related items is as follows:-

The cooperatives are playing an important role in food security in India, especially in the southern and western parts of the country. The cooperative societies set up shops to sell goods to the poor people at lower prices. For example, out of all fair price shops operating in Tamil Nadu, nearly 94 percent are being run by the cooperatives. In Delhi, Mother Dairy is providing milk and vegetables to the consumers at controlled prices which are decided by the Delhi Government. Amul  is another example in this regard. It has brought about the White Revolution in the country. There are many more cooperatives and NGOs also working intensively towards this direction.

 

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CRICKET - CLASS 9 ( HISTORY )

Cricket  , class 9 (sst)

Q1.  What are the peculiarities of test Cricket?                              Or

Why cricket is called a unique game? Give reasons for these oddities?

Ans. one of the peculiarities of Test cricket is that a match can go on for five days and still end in a draw. No other modern team sport takes even half as much time to complete

2. Another curious characteristic of cricket is that the length of the pitch is specified ñ 22 yards ñ but the size or shape of the ground is not t. Most other team sports, such as hockey and football lay down .The dimensions of the playing area: cricket does not.

 3. There is a historical reason behind both these oddities. Cricket was the earliest modern team sport to be codified, which is another way of saying that cricket gave itself rules and regulations so that it could be played in a uniform and standardized   way  well before team games like soccer and hockey.

Q2. What were the first laws of cricket?

Ans.  1. The first written Law of Cricket was drawn up in 1744.

2.  They stated, the principals shall choose from amongst the gentlemen present two Umpires who shall absolutely decide all disputes.

3. The stumps must be 22 inches high and the bail across them six inches. The ball must be between

5 and 6 ounces the two sets of stumps 22 yards apart.  

4.  There were no limits on the shape or size of the bat. It appears that 40 notches or runs were viewed as a very big score, probably due to the bowlers bowling quickly at shins unprotected by pads.  

Q3.  Differentiate between amateurs and professionals.

             Armatures                                                                                          Professionals

1.   The rich who played cricket for                  1. The  poor who played cricket for a living called

 Pleasure was called armatures.                             Professionals.

2.     They were called Gentlemen.                    2. They were described as players.

3.      They were mostly batsmen.                       3. Fast bowling and fielding was done by professionals.

Q4. What important changes were introduced in cricket in the 19th century?

Ans.  Many important changes occurred during the nineteenth century:-

  1.              The rule about wide balls was applied.

  2.              The exact circumference of the ball was specified.

  3.              Protective equipment like pads and gloves became available, boundaries were introduced where Previously all shots had to be run and, most importantly over arm bowling became legal.

Q5.  “Cricket connection with a rural past can be seen in the length of a Test Match “How far is this statement true?

Ans. Cricket’s connection with a rural past can be seen in the length of a Test match.

1.     Originally, cricket matches had no time limit. The game went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice. 

2.    The rhythms of village life were slower and cricket’s rules were made before the Industrial Revolution.

3.    Modern factory work meant that people were paid by the hour or the day or the week: games that were codified after the industrial revolution, like football and hockey, were strictly time-limited to fit the routines of industrial city life.

Q6.  “Battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton “Justify the statement.

Ans.  This means that Britain’s military success was based on the values taught to schoolboys in its public schools.  Eton was the most famous of these schools. The English boarding school was the institution that trained English boys for careers in the military, the civil service and the church. Men like Thomas Arnold, headmaster of the famous Rugby School and founder of the modern public school system, saw team sport like cricket and rugby not just as outdoor play, but as an organized way of teaching English boys the discipline, the importance of hierarchy, the skills, the codes of honor and the leadership qualities that helped them build and run the British empire.  Cricket helped to confirm this self-image of the English elite by glorifying the amateur ideal, where cricket was played not for victory or profit, but for its own sake, in the spirit of fair play.

Q7. Give reasons why cricket remain a colonial game?

Ans. cricket remained a colonial game, limited to countries that had once been part of the

British Empire.

1.              The pre-industrial oddness of cricket made it a hard game to export.

2.               It took root only in countries that the British conquered and ruled.

3.              In these colonies, cricket was established as a popular sport either by white settlers (as in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and Kenya) or by local elites who wanted to copy the habits of their colonial masters, as in India.

Q8.  Who introduced cricket into the media? How were one-day Internationals introduced?

Ans. Kerry Packer, an Australian television tycoon who saw the moneymaking potential of cricket as a televised sport.

1.              In 1971 the first one-day international match was played between England and Australia in Melbourne.

2.              The popularity of this shortened version of the game led to the first World Cup being successfully staged in 1975.

3.              Then in 1977, Kerry signed up fifty-one of the world’s leading cricketers against the wishes of the national cricket boards and for about two years staged unofficial Tests and One-Day

Internationals under the name of World Series Cricket.

4.              While Packer’s  circus was  folded up after two years, the innovations he introduced during this time to make cricket more attractive to television audiences endured and changed the nature of

the game.

Q9.  What role did the television play in revolutionizing the game of cricket?

Ans. Colored dress, protective helmets, f field restrictions, cricket under

Lights became a standard part of the post-Packer game.

2. Cricket was a marketable game, which could generate huge revenues.

3.  Cricket boards became rich by selling television rights to television companies.

4. Television channels made money by Selling television spots to companies who were happy to pay large Sums of money to air commercials for their products to cricket’s captive

Television audience.

5.              Continuous television coverage made cricketers Celebrities who, besides being paid better by their cricket boards, now Made even larger sums of money by commercials for a wide

Range of products, from tiers to colas, on television.

6.              The technology of satellite television and the world wide reach of Multi-national television companies created a global market for cricket.

 Q10.  Who were the famous Indian cricketers during the British rule and when the pent angular teams were formed?

Ans.1. C.K. Naidu, an outstanding Indian batsman of his time.

2. Some of his great contemporaries like Palwankar Vithal and Palwankar Baloo have been

Forgotten as they did not play the Test cricket for India.

3.          Naidu was the first cricket captain of the Indian team and played against England in 1932.

Q11. How did decolonization affect the development of cricket?

Ans. Decolonization, or the process through which different parts of European empires became independent nations, began with the independence of India in 1947 and continued for the next half a century.

2.  This process led to the decline of British influence in trade, commerce, military affairs,

International politics and, inevitably, sporting matters.

3. This did not happen at once; it took a while for the relative unimportance of post imperial Britain to be reflected in the organization of world cricket.

Q12. The history of gymkhana cricket led to first-class cricket being organized on communal and racial lines.  Explain?

Ans. The teams that played colonial India’s greatest and most famous first-class cricket tournament

Did not represent regions, as teams in today’s Ranji Trophy currently do, but religious communities. The tournament was initially called the Quadrangular, because it was played by four teams: the

Europeans, the Parsis, the Hindus and the Muslims. It later became the Pent angular when a fifth team was added, namely, the Rest, which comprised all the communities left over, such as the Indian Christians. For example, Vijay Hazare, a Christian, played for the Rest.

Q13. The establishment of the Parsis Gymkhana became a precedent for other Indians. Justify?

Ans. The establishment of the Paris Gymkhana became a precedent for other Indians who in turn established clubs based on the idea of religious community. By the 1890s, Hindus and Muslims were busy Gathering funds and support for a Hindu Gymkhana and an Islam Gymkhana. 

Q14: Give an example to prove that Englishman gave too much importance to cricket in the 17^th century.

By the seventeenth century, cricket has evolved enough to be recognized as a distinct game and it was popular enough for it’s fans to be fined for playing it on Sunday instead of going to church.

 

Q15 : Why did the early cricketers in England use bats with the shape of a hockey stick?

Till the middle of the eighteenth century, bats were roughly the same shape as hockey sticks, curving outwards at the bottom. There was a simple reason for this: the ball was bowled underarm, along the ground and the curve at the end of the bat gave the batsman the best chance of making contact.

 

Q16  Why is sports very important?

 Sport is a large part of contemporary life- it is one way in which we amuse ourselves, compete with each other, stay fit, and express our social loyalties.

 

Q17: Trace the earliest rules of cricket. Who is the guardian of cricket regulations?

The first written ‘Laws of Cricket’ were drawn up in 1744. They stated, ‘the principals shall choose from amongst the gentlemen present two umpires who shall absolutely decide all disputes.

The stumps must be 22 inches high and the bail across them six inches. The ball must be between5 and 6 ounces, and the two sets of stumps 22yards apart’.

There were no limits on the shape or size of the bat. It appears that 40 notches or runs was viewed as a very big score, probably due to the bowlers bowling quickly at shins unprotected by pads.

The world’s first cricket club was formed in Hambledon in the 1760s and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787. In1788, the MCC published its first revision of the laws and became the guardian of cricket’s regulations.

Q18: What were the changes introduced by the MCC in the rules of cricket in the eighteenth  century?

                      i)During the 1760s and 1770s it became common to pitch the ball through the air, rather than roll it along the ground. This change gave bowlers the options of length, deception through the air, plus increased pace. It also opened new possibilities for spin and swing. In response, batsmen had to master timing and shot selection.

                    ii)One immediate result was the replacement of the curved bat with the straight one. All of this raised the premium on skill and reduced the influence of rough ground and brute force.

                  iii)The weight of the ball was limited to between 5½ to 5¾ ounces, and the width of the bat to four inches. The latter ruling followed an innings by a batsman who appeared with a bat as wide as the wicket!

                  iv)In 1774, the first leg-before law(LBW) was published. Also around this time, a third stump became common.

                    v)By 1780, three days had become the length of a major match, and this year also saw the creation of the first ‘six-seam’ cricket ball.

 

Q19: How has cricket become a game with characteristics of both the past and the present?

Cricket’s connection with a rural past can be seen in the length of a Test match. Originally, cricket matches had no time limit. The game went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice. The rhythms of village life were slower and cricket’s rules were made before the Industrial Revolution.

In the same way, cricket’s vagueness about the size of a cricket ground is a result of its village origins. Cricket was originally played on country commons, unfenced land that was public property. The size of the ‘commons’ varied from one village to another, so there were no designated boundaries or boundary hits. ….Continue next answer

Q20 : Cricket both changed with changing times and yet fundamentally remained true to it’s origins. Explain.

             i)Cricket’s most important tools are all made of natural, pre-industrial materials. The bat is made of wood, as are the stumps and the bails.

           ii)The ball is made with leather, twine and cork. Even today both bat and ball are handmade, not industrially manufactured.

         iii)The material of the bat changed slightly over time. Once it was cut out of a single piece of wood. Now it consists of two pieces, the blade, which is made out of the wood of the willow tree, and the handle, which is made out of cane that became available as European colonialists, and trading companies established themselves in Asia.

         iv)Unlike golf and tennis, cricket has refused to remake its tools with industrial or man-made materials: plastic, fibre glass and metal have been firmly rejected.

           v)But in the matter of protective equipment, cricket has been influenced by technological change. The invention of vulcanized rubber led to the introduction of pads in 1848 and protective gloves soon after wards, and the modern game would be unimaginable without helmets made out of metal and synthetic lightweight materials.

 

Q21:  ‘The social superiority of amateurs was built in to the customs of cricket’. Explain.

                      i)The social superiority of amateurs was built into the customs of cricket. Amateurs were called Gentlemen while professionals had to content with being described as Players.

                    ii)They even entered the ground from different entrances. Amateurs tended to be batsmen, leaving the energetic, hardworking aspects of the game, like fast bowling, to the professionals. That is partly why the laws of the game always give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to the batsman.

                  iii)Cricket is a batsman’s game because its rules were made to favour ‘Gentlemen’, who did most of the batting. The captain of a cricket team was traditionally a batsman.

                  iv)The social superiority of the amateur batsman was not because batsmen were naturally better captains but because they were generally Gentlemen. Captains of teams, whether Club teams or national sides, were always amateurs.

 

Q22: Why is it said that ‘The Battle of Waterloo’ was won on the playing fields of Eton? 

This means that Britain’s military success was based on the values taught to schoolboys in its public schools. Eton was the most famous of these schools. The English boarding school was the institution that trained English boys for careers in the military, the civil service and the church, the three great institutions of imperial England.

 They introduced team sport like cricket and rugby not just as outdoor play, but as an organized way of teaching English boys the discipline, the importance of hierarchy, the skills, the codes of  honor and the leadership qualities that helped them build and run the British empire.

Q23: Why did Thomas Arnold introduce cricket in his school?

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, men like Thomas Arnold, headmaster of the famous Rugby School and founder of the modern public school system, saw team sport like cricket and rugby not just as outdoor play, but as an organized way of teaching English boys the discipline, the importance of hierarchy, the skills, the codes of honor and the leadership qualities that helped them build and run the British empire.

Victorian empire builders justified the conquest of other countries as an act of unselfish social service, by which backward peoples were introduced to the civilizing influence of British law and Western knowledge.

Cricket helped to confirm this self-image of the English elite by glorifying the amateur ideal, where cricket was played not for victory or profit, but for its own sake, in the spirit of fair play.

 

Q24: What are the real factors that helped Britain to win Napoleonic wars?

          ( Battle of Waterloo)

             i)In actual fact the Napoleonic wars were won because of the economic contribution of the iron works of Scotland and Wales, the mills of Lancashire and the financial houses of the City of London.

           ii)It was the English lead in trade and industry that made Britain the world’s greatest power, but it suited the English ruling class to believe that it was the superior character of its young men, built in boarding schools, playing gentlemanly games like cricket, that helped them to come up.

Q25 : Why did cricket become popular in India and the West Indies?

             i)While some English team games like hockey and football became international games, played all over the world, cricket remained a colonial game, limited to countries that had once been part of the British Empire.

           ii)The pre-industrial oddness of cricket made it a hard game to export. It took root only in countries that the British conquered and ruled. In these colonies, white settlers (as in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand established cricket as a popular sport either the West Indies and Kenya) or by local elites who wanted to copy the habits of their colonial masters, as in India.

         iii)While British imperial officials brought the game to the colonies, they made little effort to spread the game, especially in colonial territories where the subjects of empire were mainly non-white, such as India and the West Indies. Here, playing cricket became a    sign of superior social and racial status, and the Afro-Caribbean population was discouraged from participating in organized club cricket, which remained dominated by white plantation owners and their servants.

         iv)The first non-white club in the West Indies was established towards the end of the

  nineteenth century, and even in this case its members were light-skinned mulattos.

 

Q26 : Why was the success in cricket considered a measure of racial equality and political progress in Caribbean countries?

Despite the exclusiveness of the white cricket elite in the West Indies, the game became hugely popular in the Caribbean. Success at cricket became a measure of racial equality and political progress.

At the time of their independence many of the political leaders of Caribbean countries like Forbes Burnham and Eric Williams saw in the game a chance for self respect and international standing.

When the West Indies won its first Test series against England in1950, it was celebrated as a national achievement, as a way of demonstrating that West Indians were the equals of white Englishmen.

 

Q27 : Why did West Indies celebrate the winning of the first test series as a national

  achievement ? What were the ironies in it?

When the West Indies won its first Test series against England in1950, it was celebrated as a national achievement, as a way of demonstrating that West Indians were the equals of white Englishmen.

   There were two ironies to this great victory.

One, the West Indian team that won was captained by a white player. The first time a black player led the West Indies Test team was in 1960 when Frank Worrell was named captain.

And two, the West Indies cricket team represented not one nation but several dominions that later became independent countries.

Q28 : On what grounds do cricket fans take sides?

             i)Cricket fans know that watching a match involves taking sides. In a Ranji Trophy match when Delhi plays Mumbai, the loyalty of spectators depends on which city they come from or support.

           ii)When India plays Australia, the spectators watching the match on television in Bhopal or Chennai feel involved as Indians – they are moved by nationalist loyalties.

Q29: Trace the history of cricket in India.

             i)Cricket in colonial India was organized on the principle of race and religion. The first record we have of cricket being played in India is from 1721, an account of recreational cricket played by English sailors in Cambay.

           ii)First Indian club, the Calcutta Cricket Club, was established in 1792. Through the eighteenth century, cricket in India was almost wholly a sport played by British military men and civil servants in all-white clubs and gymkhanas.

         iii)Playing cricket in the privacy of these clubs was more than just fun: it was also an escape from the strangeness, discomfort and danger of their stay in India. Indians were considered to have no talent for the game and certainly not meant to play it. But they did.

         iv)The origins of Indian cricket, that is, cricket played by Indians are to found in Bombay and the first Indian community to start playing the game was the small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsis. Brought into close contact with the British because of their interest in trade and the first Indian community to westernize, the Parsis founded the first Indian cricket club, the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay in 1848. Parsi clubs were funded and sponsored by Parsi businessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias.

           v)By the 1890s, Hindus and Muslims were busy gathering funds and support for a Hindu Gymkhana and an Islam Gymkhana.

         vi)In the late nineteenth century, many Indian institutions and movements were organised around the idea of religious community because the colonial state encouraged these divisions and was quick to recognise communal institutions.

       vii)The teams that played India’s greatest and most famous first-class cricket tournament did not represent regions, as teams in today’s Ranji Trophy currently do, but religious communities.  It later became the Pentangular when a fifth team was added, namely, the Rest, which  comprised all the communities left over, such as the Indian Christians..

 Q30 : What was the quarrel between the Bombay Gymkhana and the Parsi cricket club?  How did the rivalry end?

There was a quarrel between the Bombay Gymkhana, a whites-only club, and Parsi cricketers over the use of a public park. The Parsis complained that the park was left unfit for cricket because the polo ponies of the Bombay Gymkhana dug up the surface.

The rivalry between the Parsis and the racist Bombay Gymkhana had a happy ending for these pioneers of Indian cricket. A Parsi team beat the Bombay Gymkhana at cricket in 1889.

Q31 : Why did Mahatma Gandhi condemn pentagular tournament?

Mahatma Gandhi , condemned the Pentangular as a communally divisive competition that was out of place in a time when nationalists were trying to unite India’s diverse population.

The colonial state and its divisive conception of India was the rock on which the Pentangular was built.

 

Q32: Why was India able to play Test cricket even before Independence?

India entered the world of Test cricket in 1932, a decade and a half before it became an independent nation. This was possible because Test cricket from its origins in 1877 was organized as a contest between different parts of the British Empire, not sovereign nations.

The first Test was played between England and Australia when Australia was still a white settler colony, not even a self-governing dominion. Similarly, the small countries of the Caribbean that together make up the West Indies team were British colonies till well after the Second World War.

Q33 : ‘The name of ICC was changed from the Imperial Cricket Conference to

          International Cricket Conference’. Explain.

After Indian independence kick-started the disappearance of the British Empire. The  supremacy of Britain on Cricket ended later.    The regulation of international cricket remained the business of the Imperial Cricket Conference ICC.

The ICC, renamed the International Cricket Conference as late as 1965, which was dominated by its foundation members, England and Australia, which retained the right of veto over its proceedings. But in 1989 there was a demand for equal membership in ICC.

Q34 : Prove by giving examples that the colonial flavour of cricket was seen during 1950

          to 1960?

The colonial flavour of world cricket during the 1950s and 1960s can be seen from the fact that England and the other white commonwealth countries, Australia and New Zealand, continued to play Test cricket with South Africa, a racist state that practiced a policy of racial segregation  which, among other things, barred non-whites (who made up the majority of South Africa’s population) from representing that country in Test matches.

Test-playing nations like India, Pakistan and the West Indies boycotted South Africa, but they did not have the necessary power in the ICC to debar that country from Test cricket.  That only came to pass when the political pressure to isolate South Africa applied by the newly decolonized nations of Asia and Africa combined with liberal feeling in Britain and forced the English cricket authorities to cancel a tour by South Africa in 1970.

 

Q35 : How have advances especially television technology affected the development of

          contemporary cricket?

Kerry Packer, an Australian television tycoon who saw the moneymaking potential of cricket as a televised sport, signed up fifty-one of the world’s leading cricketers.

Packer drove home the lesson that cricket was a marketable game, which could generate huge revenues. Television channels made money by selling television spots to companies who were happy to pay large sums of money to telecast commercials for their products to cricket’s captive television audience.

Television coverage changed cricket. It expanded the audience for the game by beaming cricket into small towns and villages. It also broadened cricket’s social base. Children who had never previously had the chance to watch international cricket because they lived outside the big cities, where top-level cricket was played, could now watch and learn by imitating their heroes.

The technology of satellite television and the world wide reach of multi-national television companies created a global market for cricket.

Coloured dress, protective helmets, field restrictions, cricket under lights, became a standard part of the post-Packer game

Q36 : Why was the ICC headquarters shifted from London to Dubai?

Since India had the largest viewership for the game amongst the cricket-playing nations and the largest market in the cricketing world, the game’s centre of gravity shifted to South Asia. This shift was symbolized by the shifting of the ICC headquarters from London to tax-free Dubai.

A more important sign that the centre of gravity in cricket has shifted away from the old, Anglo-Australian axis is that innovations in cricket technique in recent years have mainly come from the practice of sub continental teams in countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan has pioneered two great advances in bowling: the doosra and the ‘reverse swing’. Both skills were developed in response to sub continental conditions: the doosra to counter aggressive batsmen with heavy modern bats who were threatening to make finger-spin obsolete and ‘reverse swing’ to move the ball in on dusty, unresponsive wickets under clear skies.

In time, it came to be accepted that the laws of cricket could not continue to be framed for British or Australian conditions of play, and they became part of the technique of all bowlers, everywhere in the world.

Q37 : Why were the Indian institutions and movements organized around the idea of

          religion  Communities  in the Nineteenth century?   OR  How was cricket 

          organized  on communal lines in India?

The origins of Indian cricket, that is, cricket played by Indians are to found in Bombay and the first Indian community to start playing the game was the small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsis. Parsi clubs were funded and sponsored by Parsi businessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias.

By the 1890s, Hindus and Muslims were busy gathering funds and support for a Hindu Gymkhana and an Islam Gymkhana.

   In the late nineteenth century, many Indian institutions and movements were organised around the idea of religious community because the colonial state encouraged these divisions and was quick to recognize communal institutions.