NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 17 The chapter in three points — Before we move on …

Book page 141 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

India has been a haven for people persecuted in their respective homelands, or simply looking for a new land with new opportunities.

Answer

The point has two halves, because people came for two different reasons — refuge and opportunity — and, in one case, for neither: the Siddis were brought by force.

Community	When they came	Why	Where they settled
Bene Israel Jews	Around 175 BCE, according to some scholars	Fleeing the ancient Kingdom of Israel; shipwrecked in a storm near the coast	The Konkan coast, just south of Mumbai; over 25,000 shortly after Independence
Cochin Jews	12th–19th centuries	Persecution “in their respective countries”	Near Cochin (Kochi); land granted free “as long as the world, sun, and moon endure”; they built a synagogue
Syriac Christians	From the 4th century CE	Treated as heretics under Rome; suspected of helping Rome, in Persia	The Malabar coast (Kerala); called ‘Syrian Christians’, “divided into several sects”
Parsis	8th–10th centuries	Persecution in Persia after the Arab conquest — forced conversions, jizya, fire temples destroyed	The Gujarat coast, at Sanjān; the sacred fire still burns at Udvada
Arab merchants	From the 7th century onward	Trade, not persecution — “peaceful traders, not as conquerors”	Kerala, Gujarat, Karnataka; part of the Mappila Muslim community; helped build the Cheraman Juma Masjid
Siddis	7th–19th centuries	Neither — “enslaved there, they were brought to India as slaves of Arab, Portuguese, and British traders”	Karnataka, Gujarat and elsewhere; some “briefly controlled parts of Bengal” in the 18th century
Armenians	A first settlement in the 8th century; many more from the 16th century	Trade in Indian spices and fine muslins, and later Mughal patronage	Agra first, then Surat, Kolkata and Chennai (Madras)
Baha’is	From the late 19th century	Branded heretics by the ruling religious leadership in Iran	Across India; “most Baha’is here today are Indians”
Polish orphans and refugees	1942–1946	The Second World War; families torn apart, children orphaned	Nawanagar (present-day Jamnagar), Gujarat; around a thousand orphans. They “returned home safely after the war ended”
Tibetans	From 1959	China’s takeover of Tibet and the uprising in Lhasa	Dharamshala and settlements elsewhere; many monasteries in Karnataka

The word ‘haven’ is the right one. A haven is a safe harbour. It is not a promise of wealth — the chapter is honest that the Siddis’ “overall economic condition remains poor”. It is a promise of safety, and of being left free to be yourself.

Q2.

India’s cultural values such as vasudhaiva kutumbakam, atithi devo bhava, or sarve bhavantu sukhinah are the basis for the sense of inclusion and acceptance that have enabled even small communities to find India a secure place and maintain here their traditions over centuries.

Answer

Start with what the three phrases mean.

Phrase	Meaning	What it asks of you
vasudhaiva kutumbakam	“The whole world is family”	Stop sorting people into ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’. The Hitopadeśha verse says that sorting is what “the narrow-minded” do
atithi devo bhava	“A guest is like God”	Receive the person who arrives — the duty is on the host, not on the guest to prove himself
sarve bhavantu sukhinah	“May all creatures be happy”	Wish well to everyone, not only to your own people

Now the second half of the point — “maintain here their traditions over centuries”. This is the test of whether the values were real, and the chapter supplies the evidence:

The Bene Israel lost their holy books but “remembered their prayer, which says there is only one God”.
The Cochin Jews built a synagogue, and Figs. 5.2 and 5.3 show it still standing and still in use.
The Parsis’ ancient sacred fire “continues to burn in Udvada”, close to where they first landed — an unbroken flame across a thousand years.
The Armenians’ 18th-century Armenian College and Mother Mary Church in Kolkata “continue to be active”, and St. Mary’s Armenian Church still stands in Chennai, kept up by “a handful of families and heritage groups” even though their numbers have dwindled.
The Tibetans built monasteries “patterned on the original ones in Tibet”, mainly in Karnataka, “created a space for Tibetan Buddhists to pursue their way of life and spiritual practices without fear or hindrance”.
Their system of medicine, Sowa Rigpa — codified in the 8th century CE near Lhasa, and itself a blend of Ayurveda with inputs from China, Central Asia, Persia and Greece — is practised at Men-Tsee-Khang in Dharamshala and has been taken into the Government of India’s AYUSH programme.

Why the values matter for small communities in particular: a large community can protect its own traditions by sheer numbers. A few hundred families cannot. They can only keep a language, a scripture or a fire alive if the society around them lets them — and, better still, honours them for it. That is what a gold crown for the Torah means, and what Akbar’s permission to build a church at Agra means. Sri Sarada Devi’s last message, quoted on the chapter’s first page, is the same idea in a sentence: “No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own.”

Q3.

These values have universal relevance at a time when there are multiple crises facing the world.

Answer

The chapter names the crises: “wars, climate change, increasing inequality and discrimination” — and says that “the idea of the fundamental unity of humankind is one of the core civilisational values of India, which can help the world resolve some of the crises we face today.”

Take the four crises one at a time and apply the idea.

Crisis	What changes if “the whole world is family”
Wars	A war stops being a fight against strangers and becomes a quarrel inside one household — something to be settled, not won. The Dalai Lama’s ‘Four Commitments’ put the same values first: compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and religious harmony
Climate change	The air and the sea are shared property. No country can protect its own share of the atmosphere alone. Sarve bhavantu sukhinah extends the circle beyond people — “may all creatures be happy”
Increasing inequality	Inside a family, you do not let one member go hungry while another has plenty. Hirabai Lobi’s work — banking services, organic farming, livelihood options for Siddi women — is this value in practice, and it earned her the Padma Shri in 2023
Discrimination	Discrimination begins exactly where the Hitopadeśha verse says it does: with “this is mine, that is not mine”. Every community in this chapter left a country that had made that judgement about them

Two pieces of evidence the chapter offers that this travels well.

Indians abroad. “Wherever there is a sizeable community of Indians living today, it has been perceived as a peaceful, law-abiding, progressive and prosperous minority that contributes to the economy and integrates well in the society of the respective country.” The same values, carried the other way.
Newcomers who came to conquer and stayed to belong. “There are also many cases where people came intending to conquer India but were conquered instead by our diverse culture, rich philosophy and knowledge traditions, unique geography and climate, and thriving economy” — the Indo-Greeks and the Kuṣhāṇas, from ‘The Age of Reorganisation’ in Part 1.

Worth remembering: the chapter is careful to say that “religious persecution has been experienced for centuries in many parts of the world”. It does not claim India is the only country that ever sheltered anyone. Its claim is narrower and better supported — that acceptance here grew out of a culture of peaceful coexistence, and that this culture is worth offering to a world that needs it.

Was this helpful?