Chapter Name: 18th Century Political Formations
Topic: Awadh
Class7, Tejasvi Vidyaranya, Habsiguda
PART ONE: Who was the weakest? The Mughal king or the farmers?
Einstein asks: Who do you think was the weakest person in Awadh during the rule of Burhan ul-Mulk Saadat Khan? You'll have to answer this question based on the information in the passage.
Answer1: The Rajput zamindars and Afghans of Rohilkhand as their lands were taken away.
Answer2: The Mughal appointee jagirs as they were removed from their posts and Saadat Khan appointed his own people.
Answer3: The Mughal king as Saadat Khan was running the kingdom with his own people, although under Mughal kingdom, for name-sake.
We then do a role play to understand the dynamics, between Mughal King, Saadat Khan, jagirdars and the people of Awadh.
Einstein: Since the Mughal isn't aware of Saadat Khan's undercover moves, he isn't doing anything. How can you claim that he is the weakest?
Adith's rebuttal: But Mughal King was already fighting a war, thanks to Nadir Shah's invasion. Read the previous topic he says!
Einstein: But then the king needn't look after everything, his relatives can take care of the issue.
Adith: Some of his relatives were already killed by the jagirdars and that's why Mughal empire was weakening.
Einstein then presents his answer that he thinks that farmers were the weakest under Saadat Khan's rule as they were forced to pay the taxes. The students then debate between the four possible answers- 1) Mughal King 2) fired jagirdars 3) rajput/afghan landlords 4) farmers
Adith then asks - I read this phrase- "revenue farmers". If the farmers are generating revenue for the state how can they be called weak?
Einstein responds- The revenue farmers are jagirdars who only collect the taxes from the farmers. I am stating that the farmers are the weakest and not the revenue farmers.
One of the students tells that farmers couldn't protest against the taxes as they were dependent on the state for money as the money lenders and mahajans would lend money to the state and only the jagirdars could take loans from the money lenders.
PART-TWO COMMERCE
My question: Why did the revenue farmers pay a fixed amount?
Chandrahaasa: If the farmer earnt less than a fixed amount, he'd get a loss, if he earn't more he'd get a profit. The fixed amount might have been an average.
Vrithika: If he is getting a loss, why would he agree for a fixed amount?
My question: The jagirdars were confident of a profit, why do you think they were confident, you have a few hints in the passage!
Vrithika: The jagirdars had the freedom to collect taxes.
Aashana: The jagirdars could assess and then collect taxes.
Einstein: Awadh had fertile lands with rich alluvial soil.
My next question: If you are confident of earning a high amount why would you want to pay a fixed amount? Let us say you are confident of earning Rs5 everyday, would you prefer paying Rs1 as tax everyday or 20% of the money.
Students: Rs1 and we may have to pay Rs2 if we earn Rs10, in case we agree to pay 20%.
My question: Why would the king agree to this?
Students: He is getting Rs1 everyday.
My question: Why do the jagirdars assess the revenue? Students faced a difficulty in understanding, we then took example of districts of Telangana and looked at ficitious figures of earnings.
Students: The jagirdars could look at earnings of other farmers to compare if the revenue figures are accurate.
My question: The jagirdar would want to find out if the farmers made a profit, he'd probably want to tax them well but wouldn't kill them, why do you think so?
Students: He would earn only if they live and continue to earn.
My question: Why is it hard to find out if they made profits, how did Saadat Khan find out?
We then did a role play with Rs10,000 and Rs6000 being actual revenue/expenditure figures while Rs5000, Rs7000 were reported figures. Students observed that numbers could be cooked up.
Students: The accounts of the jagirdars were carefully checked to prevent cheating.
PART THREE: What can we learn
My question: If we have started a chain of chocolate shops and if we have appointed ten different people to manage them, why should we monitor their accounts?
Students: They could be cheating us.
My question: Why do you think Saadat Khan was monitoring them well?
Einstein: Saadat Khan himself cheated the Mughal Kingdom, so he was scared if people would cheat him.
My question: What can we learn from this lesson?
Students: Saadat Khan had a good administration system.
My question: Why do you study history?
Students: To learn from mistakes and positives of others, may be! To be able to travel to that time may be!
My question: How can we make history interesting?
Students: By asking cognitive questions or may be through role plays!
I concluded the discussion with a small remark about content appreciation. I had mentioned that the History textbook is prepared by some of the best intellectuals of the country, but we as a sytem have, for a variety of reasons, failed in explaining why each sentence is being explained. I had explained flip learning and the approach of bringing sensemaking into the classroom, besides information transfer. The students recalled examples of phrases which we tried to comprehend with the help of questions- let it be assessment of revenue, fertile lands or accounts being checked. The idea is to ask- why is this sentence being explained to me.
I had asked- if this book has 200 pages, how many pages do you think the author wants you to remember? The students reply with 50, I differed, I said may be 1000. I asked how many pages did we discuss today? They replied- One page. How many pages can you write now, I ask. They replied five to ten pages! I asked so how do you think understand and interpret why each sentence is being explained? The student said that they would ask questions and have discussions. If they can't think of questions, they'd ask their friends to ask questions.
We leave the discussion with a homework. The students had varied professional interests, there were aspiring engineers, designers, sportstars, bureucrats and little Einstein wanted to pursue a career in Cosmology. Their homework was to apply the learnings from this lesson into managing 20 people who would work with them , as a team, to manage 20 different projects.
I am excited to read what they'd write. We finished the class with students starting a voting process for another 'boring topic' for the next discussion.
PS: It was a two hour long class, with more than 70% of the class having loads of questions to ask, I have just described the highlights here!
Topic: Awadh
Class7, Tejasvi Vidyaranya, Habsiguda
PART ONE: Who was the weakest? The Mughal king or the farmers?
Einstein asks: Who do you think was the weakest person in Awadh during the rule of Burhan ul-Mulk Saadat Khan? You'll have to answer this question based on the information in the passage.
Answer1: The Rajput zamindars and Afghans of Rohilkhand as their lands were taken away.
Answer2: The Mughal appointee jagirs as they were removed from their posts and Saadat Khan appointed his own people.
Answer3: The Mughal king as Saadat Khan was running the kingdom with his own people, although under Mughal kingdom, for name-sake.
We then do a role play to understand the dynamics, between Mughal King, Saadat Khan, jagirdars and the people of Awadh.
Einstein: Since the Mughal isn't aware of Saadat Khan's undercover moves, he isn't doing anything. How can you claim that he is the weakest?
Adith's rebuttal: But Mughal King was already fighting a war, thanks to Nadir Shah's invasion. Read the previous topic he says!
Einstein: But then the king needn't look after everything, his relatives can take care of the issue.
Adith: Some of his relatives were already killed by the jagirdars and that's why Mughal empire was weakening.
Einstein then presents his answer that he thinks that farmers were the weakest under Saadat Khan's rule as they were forced to pay the taxes. The students then debate between the four possible answers- 1) Mughal King 2) fired jagirdars 3) rajput/afghan landlords 4) farmers
Adith then asks - I read this phrase- "revenue farmers". If the farmers are generating revenue for the state how can they be called weak?
Einstein responds- The revenue farmers are jagirdars who only collect the taxes from the farmers. I am stating that the farmers are the weakest and not the revenue farmers.
One of the students tells that farmers couldn't protest against the taxes as they were dependent on the state for money as the money lenders and mahajans would lend money to the state and only the jagirdars could take loans from the money lenders.
PART-TWO COMMERCE
My question: Why did the revenue farmers pay a fixed amount?
Chandrahaasa: If the farmer earnt less than a fixed amount, he'd get a loss, if he earn't more he'd get a profit. The fixed amount might have been an average.
Vrithika: If he is getting a loss, why would he agree for a fixed amount?
My question: The jagirdars were confident of a profit, why do you think they were confident, you have a few hints in the passage!
Vrithika: The jagirdars had the freedom to collect taxes.
Aashana: The jagirdars could assess and then collect taxes.
Einstein: Awadh had fertile lands with rich alluvial soil.
My next question: If you are confident of earning a high amount why would you want to pay a fixed amount? Let us say you are confident of earning Rs5 everyday, would you prefer paying Rs1 as tax everyday or 20% of the money.
Students: Rs1 and we may have to pay Rs2 if we earn Rs10, in case we agree to pay 20%.
My question: Why would the king agree to this?
Students: He is getting Rs1 everyday.
My question: Why do the jagirdars assess the revenue? Students faced a difficulty in understanding, we then took example of districts of Telangana and looked at ficitious figures of earnings.
Students: The jagirdars could look at earnings of other farmers to compare if the revenue figures are accurate.
My question: The jagirdar would want to find out if the farmers made a profit, he'd probably want to tax them well but wouldn't kill them, why do you think so?
Students: He would earn only if they live and continue to earn.
My question: Why is it hard to find out if they made profits, how did Saadat Khan find out?
We then did a role play with Rs10,000 and Rs6000 being actual revenue/expenditure figures while Rs5000, Rs7000 were reported figures. Students observed that numbers could be cooked up.
Students: The accounts of the jagirdars were carefully checked to prevent cheating.
PART THREE: What can we learn
My question: If we have started a chain of chocolate shops and if we have appointed ten different people to manage them, why should we monitor their accounts?
Students: They could be cheating us.
My question: Why do you think Saadat Khan was monitoring them well?
Einstein: Saadat Khan himself cheated the Mughal Kingdom, so he was scared if people would cheat him.
My question: What can we learn from this lesson?
Students: Saadat Khan had a good administration system.
My question: Why do you study history?
Students: To learn from mistakes and positives of others, may be! To be able to travel to that time may be!
My question: How can we make history interesting?
Students: By asking cognitive questions or may be through role plays!
I concluded the discussion with a small remark about content appreciation. I had mentioned that the History textbook is prepared by some of the best intellectuals of the country, but we as a sytem have, for a variety of reasons, failed in explaining why each sentence is being explained. I had explained flip learning and the approach of bringing sensemaking into the classroom, besides information transfer. The students recalled examples of phrases which we tried to comprehend with the help of questions- let it be assessment of revenue, fertile lands or accounts being checked. The idea is to ask- why is this sentence being explained to me.
I had asked- if this book has 200 pages, how many pages do you think the author wants you to remember? The students reply with 50, I differed, I said may be 1000. I asked how many pages did we discuss today? They replied- One page. How many pages can you write now, I ask. They replied five to ten pages! I asked so how do you think understand and interpret why each sentence is being explained? The student said that they would ask questions and have discussions. If they can't think of questions, they'd ask their friends to ask questions.
We leave the discussion with a homework. The students had varied professional interests, there were aspiring engineers, designers, sportstars, bureucrats and little Einstein wanted to pursue a career in Cosmology. Their homework was to apply the learnings from this lesson into managing 20 people who would work with them , as a team, to manage 20 different projects.
I am excited to read what they'd write. We finished the class with students starting a voting process for another 'boring topic' for the next discussion.
PS: It was a two hour long class, with more than 70% of the class having loads of questions to ask, I have just described the highlights here!
