Work, Life and Leisure Class 10 Questions and Answers Provided helps you to answer complex Questions too easily. You can use them while preparing for board exams and all of them are given by subject experts. Reading NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Social Science History Chapter 6 Work, Life and Leisure familiarizes you with the kind of questions appearing in the board exams. Students are advised to read these solutions on a regular basis to score well.
Work, Life and Leisure Class 10 Questions and Answers History Chapter 6
Make your learning experience enjoyable by preparing from the quick links available on this page. Use the Class 10 SST History Chapter 6 NCERT Solutions and get to know different concepts involved. All the Solutions are covered as per the latest syllabus guidelines. Knowing the NCERT Class 10 History Chapter 6 Questions and Answers helps students to attempt the exam with confidence.
Work, Life and Leisure NCERT Intext Questions and Answers
Question 1.
Read Source B on Textbook Page 140 carefully. What are the common features of city life that the authors note? What are the contradictory experiences they point to?
Answer:
Common features
- Both the cities are overcrowded and people’s life is rather fast.
- Colonial impacts are clearly visible on the people’s clothing, leisure activities and the manner of talking.
Contradictory experiences
(i) In Calcutta, there is distinction between private life and public life. Groups of young men enjoy the night in western style dress but they do not want to be recognised. We don’t find the same thing in Bombay.
(ii) In Calcutta, there is no difference between high and low because everyone wears the same western dress. But this is not visible in Bombay largely due to the work culture.
Question 2.
Read Source D on Textbook Page 146. What does the poem communicate about the opportunities and experience for each new generation?
Answer:
The poem communicates the hard labour that migrants do for their livelihood after coming to the city. They are ready to do even the hardest of the work. They live in very harsh conditions because they have no means. The poem talks about one such worker who worked hard as a labourer throughout his life and now his child is also working as a labourer. His condition is no better than his father. He knows that not only his child but also his grand child will work in the same conditions.
This is an endless process. He had not come to the city to lead such a difficult life. He had fine hopes that the city would give him everything that he wished for. But his experience has been otherwise. He does not know what comfort means. The verses of the poem are thus a stark contrast to the glittering world of films, pointing to the endless tool which poor migrants face in the city.
History Class 10 Chapter 6 NCERT Textbook Questions and Answers
Question 1.
Give two reasons why the population of London expanded from the middle of the eighteenth century.
Answer:
The two reasons for the expansion of the population of London from the middle of the eighteenth century are as follows:
(i) The city of London acted as a powerful magnet for migrant population. A large number of people from regions around London began pouring in the city to find jobs in dockyards and industries. The scope of job opportunities provided solid reason for the increase in the population of London.
(ii) During the First World War, London began manufacturing motor cars and electrical goods. As a result, the number of large factories increased which in turn increased the number of people coming to the city in search of work.
Question 2.
What were the changes in the kind of work available to women in London between the nineteenth and twentieth century? Explain the factors which led to this change.
Answer:
The factors which led to this change were-
(i) The nineteenth century witnessed technological developments. So, women gradually lost their industrial jobs, and were forced to work within households. The 1861 census recorded a quarter of a million domestic servants in London, of whom the vast majority were women.
(ii) A large number of women used their homes to increase family income by taking in lodgers or through such activities as tailoring, washing or matchbox making.
(iii) The situation changed when the First World War broke out. Women once again came out of their homes and got employement in war time industries and office
Question 3.
How does the existence of a targe urban population affect each of the following*! Illustrate with historical examples.
(a) A private landlord
(b) A police superintendent in charge of law and order
(c) A leader of a political party
Answer:
(a) A private landlord: With the increase in urban population, the problem of housing emerged. This opened opportunities for the private landlords to make money. They built cheap, and usually unsafe tenements and rented them to the poor migrants at very high rates. In this way, they accumulated huge wealth in due course.
(b) A Police Superintendent: As London grew, crime flourished. About 20,000 criminals were living in London in the 1870s. The rise in crime upset the police. They were worried about law and order and left no stone unturned in establishing peace in society.
(c) A leader of a political party: A large urban population created many social problems, such as housing problem, problems of food and water, etc. Political parties picked such issues for political gains. The leaders of different parties mobilised the common mass in their own way to support them. In the nineteenth century England, population grew very fast. So, political parties became active.
Question 4.
Give explanations for the following:
(a) Why well-off Londoners supported the need to build housing for the poor in the nineteenth century.
Answer:
The reasons for this increasing concern were:
- The vast mass of one-room houses occupied by the poor were seen as a serious threat to public health. They were overcrowded, badly ventilated, and lacked sanitation.
- There were worries about fire hazards created by poor housing.
- There was a widespread fear of social disorder, especially after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Workers’ mass housing schemes were planned to prevent the London poor from turning rebellions.
(b) Why a number of Bombay films were about the lives of migrants.
Answer:
Most of the people in the Bombay film industry were themselves migrants who came from cities like Lahore, Calcutta, Madras and contributed to the national character of the industry. Those who came from Lahore, then in Punjab, were especially important for the development of the Hindi film industry.
(c) What led to the major expansion of Bombay’s population in the mid-nineteenth century?
Answer:
There were several reasons behind this-
(i) Bombay became the capital of the Bombay presidency in 1819. After this, the city expanded quickly. With the growth of trade in cotton and opium, a large number of people came to settle in Bombay.
(ii) The establishment of textile mills led to a fresh surge in migration. Only about one-fourth of Bombay’s inhabitants between 1881 and 1931 were born in Bombay, the rest came from outside.
(iii) The railways encouraged an even higher scale of migration into the city. For instance, famine in the dry regions of Kutch drove large numbers of people into Bombay in 1888-89.
Discuss
Question 1.
What forms of entertainment came up in nineteenth-century England to provide leisure activities for the people?
Answer:
(i) There had long been an annual ‘London Season’ for wealthy Britishers. In the late eighteenth century, several cultural events, such as the opera, the theatre and classical music performances were organised for an elite group of 300-400 families.
(ii) There were pubs for the working classes. They came here to have a drink, exchange news and sometimes also to organise for political action.
(iii) Many new types of large-scale entertainment for the common people came into being with the establishment of libraries, art galleries and museums in the nineteenth century.
(iv) Music halls were popular among the lower classes, and by the early twentieth century, cinema became the great mass entertainment for mixed audiences.
(v) British industrial workers were interested in spending their holidays by the sea to derive the benefits of the sun and bracing winds.
Question 2.
Explain the social changes in London which led to the need for the Under-ground railway. Why was the development of the Underground criticised?
Answer:
(i) Industrialisation was the major factor responsible for urbanisation in London. The city expanded very fast. It acted as a powerful magnet for migrant population who got employment in the London dockyards and industries.
(ii) The city became increasingly overcrowded. The vast mass of one-room houses occupied by the poor began to be seen as a serious threat to public health.
(iii) The well-of Londoners demanded for decongestion of localities. With passage of time, such demands grew. Finally the responsibility for housing the working class was accepted by the British state, and a million houses were built by local authorities. Thus, the city extended beyond the range where people could walk to work.
(iv) The development of suburbs made new forms of mass transport absolutely necessary. Hence, London Underground railway came into being. It solved the housing crisis by carrying large masses of people to and from the city.
The development of the Underground railway was criticised because it led to the massive destruction in the process of construction. Houses were knocked down, streets broken through and stopped, deep pits and trenches dug in the ground and enormous heaps of earth and clay were thrown up. To make approximately two miles of railway, 900 houses had to be destroyed. The London poor were the worst affected. They were displaced on a large scale.
Question 3.
Explain what is meant by the Haussmanisation of Paris? To what extent would you support or oppose this form of development? Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, to either support or oppose this, giving reasons for your view.
Answer:
The Editor
The News Letter London
Subject: View in support of Haussmanisation of Paris Sir
Through your esteemed daily, I wish to share my views in support of Haussmanisation of Paris. In 1852, Louis Napoleon III crowned himself emperor. After taking over, he undertook the rebuilding of Paris. He appointed Baron Haussmann as the chief architect of the new Paris. Haussmann designed straight, broad avenues or boulevards and open spaces and transplanted full-grown trees. The poor were evicted from the centre of Paris to reduce the possibility of political rebellion and to beautify the city. Haussmann took 17 years in rebuilding Paris. By 1870, one-fifth of the streets of Paris were Haussmann’s creation. In addition, policemen were employed, night patrols were begun, and bus-shelters and tap water were introduced. This rebuilding of the city is referred to as the Haussmanisation of Paris.
In views of the above explanation I express my views in support of the Haussmanisation of Paris. Public works on this scale employed a large number of people. One in five working persons in Paris was in the building trade in the 1860s. Not only the poor who were displaced due to the reconstruction but the wealthy people too criticised Haussmann’s move. But soon the outcry against this great architect faded away. Paris came to be seen as a symbol of civic pride for the French. It became the hub of many new architectural, social and intellectual developments that were very influential right through the twentieth century, even in other parts of the globe.
Thanking you
Yours sincerely
ABC
Question 4
To what extent does government regulation and new laws solve problems of pollution? Discuss one example each of the success and failure of legislation to change the quality of
(a) public life
(b) private life.
Answer:
Government laws for controlling pollution can be effective only when they are strongly implemented. People often do not give much importance to such laws. They ignore them easily because of their short-sightedness. Hence, apart from government legislations, it is necessary to spread awareness among the common mass so that they understand the importance of pollution-free environment and give value to. it. Examples to show the success of legislation to change the quality of public life and private life:
(a) Public life: The Bengal Smoke Nuisance Commission successfully managed to control industrial smoke.
(b) Private life: The British government passed the Clean Air Act in 1956. This law controlled domestic sources of smoke pollution by introducing the concept of smokeless zone. In these areas, smokeless fuels had to be burnt.
Examples to show the failure of legislation to change the quality of public life and private life:
(a) Public life: By the 1840s, a few towns of Britain such as Derby, Leeds and Manchester had laws to control smoke in the city. However, these laws did not work as smoke was not easy to monitor or measure and owners got away with small adjustments to their machinery that did nothing to stop the smoke.
(b) Private life: Calcutta had a long history of pollution. Here, a huge population depended on dung and wood as fuel in their daily life. The Bengal Smoke Nuisance Commission controlled industrial smoke but did not get success in controlling domestic smoke.
Project
Make sure you watch any one of the Mumbai films discussed in this chapter. Compare and contrast the portrayal of the city in one film discussed in this chapter, with a film set in Mumbai, which you have recently seen.
Answer:
For self-attempt.
Class 10 History Chapter 6 NCERT Intext Activity Questions and Answers
Question 1.
Can you think of appropriate examples from Indian history for each of these categories: a religious centre, a market town, a regional capital, a metropolis? Find out about the history of any one of them.
Answer:
- Religious centre: Mathura
- Market town: Surat
- Regional capital: Vaishali
- Metropolis: Kolkata
History of Mathura: Mathura was a religious centre. There were Buddhist monasteries, Jaina shrines and it was also an important centre for the worship of Lord Krishna. Even today, it is regarded as one of the most important religious centres of India. People from far and wide come to visit this place.
Question 2.
Imagine you are a newspaper reporter writing a piece on the changes you see in London in 1811. What problems are you likely to write about? Who would have gained from the changes?
Answer:
At that time London was facing a variety of problems.
- Its population increased because migrants were flowing in the city in search of jobs. They worked as casual labourers in the London dockyards and led a very tough life.
- Growing crime in the city due to unemployment was another grave problem. The criminals were in fact poor people who lived by stealing.
- Many migrant women were employed as domestic servants at very low wages.
- There was shortage of housing. Factory or workshop owners did not house the migrant workers. Instead, individual landowners put up cheap, and usually unsafe tenements for the new arrivals.
Question 3.
In many cities of India today, there are moves to clear away the slums where poor people live. Discuss whether or not it is the responsibility of the government to make arrangements for houses for these people.
Answer:
It is definitely the responsiblity of the government to make arrangements for houses for these people. The government can do this by curtailing expenses on less important things. It can end the system of providing high facilities to the MLAs, MPs and ministers. It can stop misuse of money during elections and Parliament sessions. There are several other ways in which government can cut cost to spend it on building houses for the slum dwellers.
Question 4.
Imagine you are investigating the conditions in which the London poor lived. Write a note discussing all the dangers to public health which were created by these conditions.
Answer:
There were no proper housing facilities for the London poor. They lived in one-room houses in cluster. This vast mass of one-room houses were seen as a serious threat to public health. They were overcrowded, badly ventilated, and lacked sanitation. There were chances of fire due to poor housing. There were also dangers of breaking out epidemics and other diseases.
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