Revision summary
Early India mixed many sects; Ashoka, ahimsa, Bhakti, Sufi, and sulh-i-kul made tolerance a public teaching. Love in kirtan, langar, and khanqah opened the congregation beyond birth, without ending jati. The Constitution restates that ethic as equal citizenship and freedom of religion. Festivals, relief, and mixed cities still live by it. Riots and caste violence prove the spirit is contested and must be enforced, not assumed.
Model answer
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[Ashoka dhamma ahimsa] --> B[Bhakti Sufi langar] B --> C[Sulh-i-kul composite custom] C --> K[Constitution Arts 14 15 25-28] K --> P[Present mixed civic life] H[Riot caste majoritarianism] --> L[Limits on the ethic] P --> L
Conclusion
- Teach composite history without erasing conflict, enforce riot law equally, and keep mixed housing and schools so tolerance is a habit, not a slogan.
From Ashokan dhamma and Bhakti–Sufi love to constitutional secularism, Indian society has repeatedly made room for the neighbour. That spirit still holds public life together, but only if law and mixed living check communal and caste hate. Tolerance is a practised inheritance, not a finished fact.
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Students also ask
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Examine how the decline of traditional artisanal industry in colonial India crippled the rural economy. (250 words).
Next question in the 2017 paper (Q12). View answer →
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Was ancient India only tolerant?
No. Conquest, sect rivalry, and caste coexisted with ahimsa and debate. The point is a strong ethic, not a golden age.
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Does the Constitution copy Bhakti?
It translates pluralism into equal rights. Bhakti was devotion; citizenship is a legal status for all, including those outside Hindu paths.
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More from this paper
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How do you justify the view that the level of excellence of the Gupta numismatic art is not at all noticeable in later times?
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Gupta gold showed the king as archer, lyrist, or horseman with Lakshmi or ritual reverses and Brahmi verse. Metal was relatively pure and the die work was sculptural. Post-Gupta and early medieval coins often debased metal and used stiff stock types. Sultanate and Mughal art followed another visual language. The claim holds for Gupta-style numismatic art, not for all later mint skill.
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Clarify how mid-eighteenth century India was beset with the spectre of a fragmented polity.
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After 1707 the Mughal emperor lost the capacity to rule provinces in fact. Nadir Shah and Abdali exposed Delhi’s military hollowness. Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad, Marathas, Sikhs, and Mysore became separate armed powers. Panipat 1761 showed even the Marathas were not a single state. Company victories in the Carnatic and Bengal fitted into this broken order.
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Why did the 'Moderates' failed to carry conviction with the nation about their proclaimed ideology and political goals by the end of the nineteenth century?
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Moderate goals were council seats, ICS, and drain critique, not immediate independence. Methods were petitions and annual sessions that missed peasant and mill-hand life. The social base was presidency professionals speaking English public language. 1892 reforms were too small to prove the method worked. By the century’s end a hotter nationalist mood found them unconvincing.
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