do you think 18th century was a dark age ? justify your answer?
Answers
Answer:
When you speak of dark age I suppose you are talking in comparison to the European dark age which begins at the fall of Rome and ends when the Renaissance period began. So with respect to cultural development it was no dark age for India but scientifically a kind of stagnation was observed a number of reasons can be given for it-
1.)The Grand Mughals were losing their grip over the subcontinent and unifying force in the subcontinent was shattered but the cultural exchanges continued to a great extent so culturally it was actually a bright period.
With the defeat at Plassey India was slowly gripping in foreign hands.
2.)When the autonomous states grew so did regional loyalty to establish their control ruthless plunder took place greatly damaging the growth in every sense but the international trade was booming and Indian goods commanded a great demand and Indian economy contributed from 16 percent to 25 percent of international economy so traders both small and large were flourishing even though raids by armies incurred a loss but it was only minute.
3. The March of Nadir Shah in 1739 literally looted Indian wealth to exempt his own empire of taxes for 2–3 years . The weakness of India was visible to the whole world and we all know what were it consequences.
4.The biggest of the successor powers were the mighty and brave Marathas who under the peshwa Bajirao 1 and 2 overann most of the country but little attention was given to it's administration we all are aware without proper social order development is difficult let alone a revolution. Even though peshwas supported reforms such as removing dowry in the matrimonial process we can still see examples that Marathas still don't take dowry(as compared to others in India) but it had limited influence.
5. After the east India company took Bengal the darkest age in the history of India began.
Concluding it was not a dark age with respect to cultural stagnation unlike European dark ages, economy was at a boom but we know when a strong rule falls it is followed by chaos and transition was tough and it turned worse when the foreigners arrived I won't call it a dark age but a age if scientific stagnation as some progress did take place but compared to then Europea it was slow.
Bhai koi mistake ho kisi bhi tarah ki to please Bata Dena pehla answer hai .
(Please consider my mistakes, suggestions are always welcomed , positive criticism is more than welcomed ,it's my first answer and I wish to improve)
The "Dark Ages" is a historical periodization traditionally referring to the Early Middle Ages or Middle Ages, that asserts that a demographic, cultural, and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.[1][2]
Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age". From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargilla, c. 1450
The term employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era's "darkness" (lack of records) with earlier and later periods of "light" (abundance of records).[3] The concept of a "Dark Age" originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity.[3][4] The phrase "Dark Age" itself derives from the Latin saeculum obscurum, originally applied by Caesar Baronius in 1602 to a tumultuous period in the 10th and 11th centuries.[5][6] The concept thus came to characterize the entire Middle Ages as a time of intellectual darkness in Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance; this became especially popular during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment.[3]