NCERT Class 8 Social Science Book Our Pasts III: Chapters, PDFs and What’s Inside

The NCERT Class 8 Social Science book Our Pasts III is the History textbook of Class 8 — 8 chapters across 112 printed pages — and the official chapter PDFs are all linked on this page. It is one of three NCERT volumes that make up Class 8 Social Science; Geography and Civics are separate books, on separate pages.

Downloading the PDF is the easy part. The file alone does not tell you what each chapter teaches, where the activities sit, or which chapter answers the question you were asked. This page maps every chapter of Our Pasts III — its named topic headings, activity count and length — so you can find the right chapter before you open the file.

NCERT Class 8 Social Science Book Our Pasts III: chapters and official PDFs

All 8 chapter files below are NCERT’s own PDFs, hosted on the official NCERT textbook portal at ncert.nic.in — open the chapter you need to read, annotate or search a single unit instead of the whole book.

Class 8 SST book PDF: what this directory covers

Here is what this page’s directory holds for the book, straight from the textbook.

• 8 chapters, all listed in order in the table above
• 8 verified PDFs — every link above is the official ncert.nic.in file for that chapter
• 112 printed pages across the whole book
• 27 in-text activities across the 8 chapters
• Chapter 8 is the longest chapter at 20 pages; Chapter 1 is the shortest at 8 pages
• Chapters 7 and 8 carry the most activities, with 5 each, while Chapters 4 and 6 carry the fewest, with 2 each
• Chapter study pages are listed below with their current build status

What is inside each chapter of Our Pasts III

The directory above counts what the book actually prints. A section means one of NCERT’s numbered section headings, and this book prints none: every chapter runs under named headings instead, of the kind listed below. An activity is an in-text Activity box in the chapter.

A question is a numbered end-of-chapter exercise question, and this book does not number its questions — Chapter 1 closes with the prompt blocks Let’s recall, Let’s discuss and Let’s do, which is why the question column reads zero.

Named headings such as The Battle of Plassey and the Munro system are the topic headings the book itself uses. The chapter lists below follow them in the book’s own order, each with the chapter’s page count and activity count.

Chapter 1: Introduction (pp. 1-8)

Chapter 1 opens the book with a question the rest of it keeps answering: how do we know what happened in the British period? The answer is the records, surveys, official reports that the colonial administration itself produced.

Read it first, because it defines what counts as evidence in every later chapter.

1. Administration produces records
2. Reports to the Home Department
3. Surveys become important
4. ‘Not fit for human consumption’ — a boxed source showing how official records had to be read carefully

The chapter closes with the prompt blocks Let’s recall, Let’s discuss and Let’s do — the book’s unnumbered question format. At 8 pages with 3 activities, it is the shortest chapter in the book.

Chapter 2: From Trade to Territory (17 pages)

Chapter 2 explains how the East India Company turned from trader to ruler: the Battle of Plassey, the nawabs‘ complaints and loss of power, and company officials growing rich as ‘nabobs’. It is the chapter a student needs for company rule‘s early expansion.

1. East India Company Comes East
2. East India Company begins trade in Bengal
3. The Battle of Plassey
4. The promise of riches
5. The Nawab complains
6. Company officials become ‘nabobs’ (nawabs)
7. Company Rule Expands

The chapter also carries vocabulary help in two word-meaning pairs: Injunction – Instruction and Subservience – Submissiveness. At 17 pages with 3 activities, it is the second-longest chapter in the book.

Chapter 3: The Company Becomes the Diwan (13 pages)

Chapter 3 covers what changed when the Company took over revenue collection as the Diwan: new systems of revenue settlement, the Munro system, and the pressure all this put on peasant cultivators, the ryots. Read it for land revenue in Bengal and South India.

1. Revenue for the Company
2. Colebrook on Bengal ryots
3. The need to improve agriculture
4. The problem
5. A new system is devised
6. The Munro system
7. All was not well
8. Crops for Europe
9. Britain turns to India

At 13 pages with 3 activities, it is one of the book’s mid-length chapters.

Chapter 4: Tribals, Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age (12 pages)

Chapter 4 follows the lives of tribal communities — jhum cultivation, hunting and gathering, herding — and shows how forest laws, traders and outsiders (the dikus) disrupted them. It is the chapter for how colonial rule changed tribal worlds.

1. Some were jhum cultivators
2. Some were hunters and gatherers
3. Some herded animals
4. Some took to settled cultivation
5. Forest laws and their impact
6. The problem with trade
7. The search for work
8. A Closer Look
9. ‘Blood trickles from my shoulders’ — a boxed song in the chapter

At 12 pages and 2 activities, it ties with Chapter 6 for the lightest activity load in the book.

Chapter 5: When People Revolt (14 pages)

Chapter 5 traces how the grievances of peasants, sepoys and dispossessed nawabs built into the revolt of 1857, and how a mutiny became a popular uprising that moved from Meerut to Delhi — the chapter for the rebellion against company rule.

1. Policies and the People
2. Nawabs lose their power
3. The peasants and the sepoys
4. Responses to reforms
5. Through the Eyes of the People
6. The list of eighty-four rules
7. ‘There was soon excitement in every regiment’
8. A Mutiny Becomes a Popular Uprising
9. From Meerut to Delhi

At 14 pages with 4 activities, it sits exactly at the book’s average chapter length.

Chapter 6: Civilising the ‘Native’, Educating the Nation (13 pages)

Chapter 6 covers the British debate over how India should be educated — the Orientalism tradition versus Western education and education for commerce — and the nationalist reply. It is the chapter for how modern schooling took shape and how it was criticised.

1. The tradition of Orientalism
2. ‘Grave errors of the East’
3. Education for commerce
4. The demand for moral education
5. The report of William Adam
6. New routines, new rules
7. The Agenda for a National Education
8. ‘English education has enslaved us’
9. ‘Literacy in itself is not education’

At 13 pages and 2 activities, it is one of the book’s lighter activity chapters.

Chapter 7: Women, Caste and Reform (15 pages)

Chapter 7 follows the social reform movements of the nineteenth century — agitation around sati, widow remarriage, girls’ schooling and child marriage — and shows women writing about their own lives. It is the chapter for caste and gender reform.

1. Working Towards Change
2. Changing the lives of widows
3. ‘We first tie them down to the pile’ — a source on the practice of sati
4. Advocate Of Sati
5. Opponent Of Sati
6. Girls begin going to school
7. Women write about women
8. Law against child marriage

At 15 pages and 5 activities, it ties with Chapter 8 for the heaviest activity load in the book.

Chapter 8: The Making of the National Movement: 1870s–1947 (20 pages)

Chapter 8 carries the story of the national movement from the 1870s to 1947: the emergence of nationalism, revolutionary violence, and the mass movements led by Mahatma Gandhi such as the Rowlatt Satyagraha and the Non-Cooperation Movement. It is the chapter that ties the book to independence.

1. The Emergence of Nationalism
2. A nation in the making
3. In pursuit of gold
4. ‘Freedom is our birthright’
5. Revolutionary violence
6. The Growth of Mass Nationalism
7. The advent of Mahatma Gandhi
8. The Rowlatt Satyagraha
9. Khilafat agitation and the Non-Cooperation Movement

At 20 pages with 5 activities, it is the longest chapter in the book.

Which Class 8 SST book are you looking for?

This page indexes the History volume of Class 8 Social Science, Our Pasts III, with all 8 chapters covered above. Class 8 Social Science is taught through separate NCERT textbooks — History, Geography and Civics — so if you landed here for Geography or Civics, those are different books on the Class 8 hub.

For a specific History topic, the chapter map is quick to scan:

• Battle of Plassey and the East India Company’s rise → Chapter 2
• Munro system and the new revenue settlements → Chapter 3
• Revolt of 1857 → Chapter 5
• National movement, 1870s to 1947 → Chapter 8

Geography and Civics topics are not covered on this page — check the Class 8 hub for those volumes.

Chapter study pages

Each chapter of Our Pasts III has, or will have, its own study page explaining the chapter’s topics, sources and activities. The list below shows the current state of each page.

How to use the Class 8 NCERT book Social Science (Our Pasts III)

This book is built as one continuous story, and the easiest way to read it is as three phases.

Within that three-phase arc, a practical reading order is:

1. Read Chapter 1 first — it defines the records and surveys that count as evidence in every later chapter.
2. Read Chapters 2 and 3 together — how the Company rose to rule and how it collected revenue is one continuous story.
3. Read Chapters 4 and 5 together — tribal resistance leads into the wider revolt of 1857.
4. Read Chapters 6 to 8 in order — education debates, social reform and nationalism build toward 1947.

Three study habits fit this particular book:

• The book teaches through boxed sources and quoted documents, such as the song ‘Blood trickles from my shoulders’ in Chapter 4 — so the practised skill is reading a source and answering from it, not memorising a summary.
• Activities concentrate in the later chapters: Chapters 7 and 8 carry 5 each.
• There are no numbered exercise sets. Questions come as unnumbered prompt blocks — Chapter 1’s closing prompts run Let’s recall, Let’s discuss and Let’s do — so answer them as you finish each chapter rather than leaving them for revision.

Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus for what is examinable this session.

Related NCERT book pages

Keep moving through the NCERT directory from here.

• NCERT books directory — every class and subject indexed on this site
• Class 8 hub — all Class 8 NCERT books, including the Geography and Civics volumes of Social Science
• Class 8 Social Science — the subject’s landing hub within this site

Sources and data verification

This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.

• The chapter facts on this page describe the NCERT Class 8 Social Science History textbook Our Pasts III, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
• This page indexes that History volume only. The remaining Class 8 Social Science volumes (Geography and Civics) are listed on the Class 8 hub, not indexed here.
• The listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
• NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles curriculum, syllabus and examinations. For a textbook edition, the authority is NCERT.

Reference: NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in. Section titles quoted from the textbook; page references are to the official PDF.

Frequently asked questions

How many chapters are in the NCERT Class 8 Social Science book Our Pasts III?

The book has 8 chapters, from Introduction to The Making of the National Movement: 1870s–1947, named in order above.

Is the Class 8 Social Science book PDF free and official?

Yes. Every PDF link on this page goes to ncert.nic.in, the official NCERT host, so the files are free and authoritative.

Which chapter covers the Battle of Plassey and the East India Company’s rise?

Chapter 2, From Trade to Territory, covers the Battle of Plassey and the Company’s turn from trader to ruler.

Where are the questions and activities in this book?

The book sets its questions as unnumbered prompt blocks — Chapter 1 ends with Let’s recall, Let’s discuss and Let’s do — alongside in-text Activity boxes. The official PDF carries no separate answer key.

Which chapter is the longest in Our Pasts III?

Chapter 8, The Making of the National Movement: 1870s–1947, is the longest at 20 pages. The shortest is Chapter 1 at 8 pages.