Page 8 - SST Class 08

roughly and not after accurate measurements
according to scientific principles of map making.

Rennel collected together the geographical data
acquired by the British army columns on their
campaigns and began to map all of India in
1765, subdividing the country according to the
Mughal provinces (subahs) and six years after his
retirement from the Company’s service con-
structed the first approximately correct map of
the subcontinent in 1783. He called it the map of
Hindustan or the Mughal empire. Only a skeleton Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi
staff was placed at his disposal and the
equipments were often very crude. The anarchi-
cal conditions and the primitive state of commu-
nications made their travels hazardous. The
people were suspicious of the surveyors and
often resisted them by force. Once Rennel almost
got killed by the so-called sannyasis.

OTHER SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF
MODERN INDIA
There are a number of other historical sources
Gateway of India in Mumbai
which give us clear picture of this period.
of important buildings built during this
1. Archaeological Sources
period.
Archaeological sources include inscriptions
buildings, monuments, coins, etc. British, SOURCE A :
Portuguese, French and Dutch all had built From ‘Biographical Notes’, written by C.F.
various forts, palaces, residential, official or Andrews, a British missionary who lived in India
public buildings like railway station, educa- from 1904 to 1940. He was a supporter of
tional buildings, etc. Victoria Memorial in Gandhi.
Kolkata, Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, “When I was a child in England, I never heard
Gateway of India in Mumbai, etc. are some one single word of blame with regard to British

rule in India. The idea was always impressed on
me that it was the most glorious event in the
whole of British history. I hardly heard anything
really good about the people of India. They were
intellectually dull. They had no moral standards.
There were stories about the treatment of Indian
women and the treatment of the lower classes
and widows. Since then, I have found that all of
these stories were one-sided.”
Victoria Memorial in Kolkata

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