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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 4 The Legacy of European Colonialism in India — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 112 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
In the sentence “It opened (or re-opened) India to the world and the world to India”, why do you think we added ‘re-opened’?
Answer

Because India had never been closed. The word ‘re-opened’ is a correction — it stops the sentence from accidentally repeating a colonial claim, namely that Europeans ‘discovered’ or ‘opened up’ India.

The evidence is in this very chapter, a few pages earlier:

  • India traded with the Greeks and the Romans over two millennia ago.
  • Indian goods — spices, cotton, ivory, gems, sandalwood, teakwood, wootz steel — were highly sought after in the Mediterranean world.
  • Before European ships arrived, India had extensive internal as well as external trading networks, and European travellers from the 16th century onward described her as ‘flourishing’.
  • Vasco da Gama did not find an unknown land in 1498; he arrived at a working port, Kappad near Kozhikode, and was well received until his own aggression spoiled it.

So the traffic in goods, people and ideas between India and the world is very old. What changed under colonial rule was not that contact began, but who controlled it and on what terms. Britain came to control the sea trade and even the exchange rates, so the connection that had once run both ways now ran mainly one way.

The deeper reason for the bracket: language carries assumptions. ‘Opened India to the world’ quietly makes Europe the active party and India the passive object — the same grammar as the ‘civilising mission’. Adding ‘(or re-opened)’ restores the fact that India had been an active partner in world trade and thought for two thousand years, and that the colonial period interrupted and redirected that exchange rather than starting it. The end of the chapter makes the same point in the other direction: political domination flowed one way, but cultural influence sometimes flowed the opposite way — Sanskrit texts reaching Europe were, in Hegel’s words, like the ‘discovery of a new continent’.
Q2.
Some argue that stolen cultural heritage has been better preserved abroad than it would have been in India. What is your view on its repatriation? Discuss in groups.
Answer

This is a genuine debate, so argue it, don’t just assert. Set out the strongest form of each case first — an argument you have not stated fairly is one you have not answered.

The case against returningThe case for returning
Preservation. Many objects have been kept in climate-controlled museums for a century and are in good conditionThe objects were stolen. The chapter is unambiguous: the colonial powers “stole thousands of statues, paintings, jewels, manuscripts and other cultural artefacts”. Careful storage does not create ownership
Access. A great world museum is seen by millions of visitors from everywhere, which spreads appreciation of Indian artAccess for whom? The people whose ancestors made these objects need a passport and an air ticket to see them. Indian museums receive very large numbers of visitors too
Scholarship. Collections gathered in one place let scholars compare objects from many regionsMeaning is lost. A temple image separated from its temple becomes an ornament. Many of these objects are not ‘art’ alone — some are still living objects of worship
Practicality. If every museum returned everything, world collections would emptyNobody asks for everything. Claims are usually specific and documented, and the chapter notes there are already “ongoing debates and efforts to repatriate”

Sample answer (a position you can defend):

The preservation argument answers the wrong question. It asks whether the objects have been looked after; the real question is whether they were rightfully acquired, and on the chapter’s own evidence they were not. Care taken with stolen property does not turn the taker into the owner — if it did, the better the thief, the stronger the claim. I would therefore support returning objects whose removal during the colonial period can be documented, while accepting three sensible conditions. First, claims should be case by case and evidence-based, not a blanket demand. Second, the receiving institution should be able to conserve and display the object properly, which India’s national museums and the Archaeological Survey — a discipline the chapter notes the colonial period itself began in India — are increasingly equipped to do. Third, where an object cannot safely travel, long-term loans, shared exhibitions and high-quality replicas are a fair interim step. The aim is not to punish present-day museums for what their predecessors did, but to correct a wrong that is still in force every day the object remains where it was taken to.

For your group discussion: pick one real object each — for example a manuscript, a temple sculpture and a jewel — and argue its case separately. You will find that the answer differs by object, which is exactly why blanket positions on either side are weak. Also decide, as a group, what evidence you would want before accepting a claim.
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