Nelson Mandela Class 10 English Extra Questions: The lesson pays tribute to those black heroes and patriots for their relentless struggle against the apartheid or the racist regime of South Africa. Here we find a description of the inaugural ceremony held in the Union Buildings attended by politicians and dignitaries from more than 140 countries. Nelson Mandela gives a message of peace and unity of mankind through his inaugural address as the first black President of democratically elected government in South Africa. He foresees a new regime which will be based on the equality of men and women. He hopes that in the new regime there will be no exploitation of man by man. Racialism and segregation in the new order. ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ is a wonderful piece of literature that touches the heart of the reader and at the same time it inspires for a world based on equality of human beings.
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Previous Years’ CBSE Board Questions
Short Answer Type Questions
Q. Who, according to Nelson Mandela, is a courageous man? [Board SQP 2020-21]
Ans. [CBSE Marking Scheme, 2020]
- not someone who doesn’t experience fear
- someone who doesn’t give in to it
- one who wins over fear
Detailed Answer: According to Nelson Mandela, a Courageous man is one who doesn’t experience fear. Instead, he triumphs over it and doesn’t give in to fear.
Q. Mandela feels that courage is triumph over fear. How would you define courage in this context? [CBSE QB 2021]
Ans. According to Mandela, courage did not mean the absence of fear but victory over it. I would define courage as the ability of getting rid of your insecurities and fight for our rights.
Q. Create a questionnaire of two most important questions that you would have liked to ask Nelson Mandela
during an interview. Give your reasons for choosing those questions. [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Ans. I would like to ask the following two questions to Nelson Mandela during an interview:
(i) How did your education help you in contributing to the removal of Apartheid?
(ii) At which age, did you decide to study law? Because it is said that Education is key to Freedom.
Q. Your teacher organised a mini-debate competition in class on the topic: Courage, Wisdom and Generosity are the ONLY attributes of a remarkable leader.
Write the debate script with two points to supplement your stand, either as a proposition speaker or as an opposition one. [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Ans. As a proposition speaker:
It is rightly said that Courage, Wisdom and Generosity are the only attributes of a remarkable leader. A leader
should be ready to face any problem. It may be internal or external. To solve the matter, he should analyse before passing the judgment where he has to use his wisdom. He should not be partial in his decision, here he needs courage when necessary. He should be generous in helping others without hesitation.
Q. You recently read a blog by your teen friend, on ‘Freedom-My Perception’. You feel that your perception of freedom has seen a transformation after having read ‘The Long walk to Freedom’.
Complete the dialogue in 50 words, with your friend, explaining your new understanding of freedom. You may begin like this:
Friend: I think the freedom to watch T.V. for extended hours or choose the kind of programmes I’d like to view is important.
You: (a) ________________________________________________________.
Friend: Hmmm. I still feel that the restrictions are not required. I want my freedom. I’m human too, am I not?
You: (b) ________________________________________________________ . [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Ans. (a) I believe that freedom isn’t selfish individually. It is the generosity of self with the world.
(b) My friend, true freedom isn’t realized by the lack of physical boundaries but is born through the revelations of the society people around us, our understanding of others and the outward expression of our heart and soul.
Q. What did Nelson Mandela remember on the day of the inaugural ceremony? (2020)
Ans. On the day of the inaugural ceremony, Nelson Mandela was overwhelmed with a sense of history. He remembered the birth of their Apartheid, its effect on his people and their long fight for freedom, the racial discrimination dark-skinned people suffered on their own land. He also remembered Answer of Previous Years’ CBSE Board Question the freedom fighters who suffered and sacrificed their lives for freedom. Then he remembered how the system had been over-turned forever and ever and replaced by one that recognised the right and freedom of all people, regardless of the colour of their skin.
Q. Nelson Mandela speaks of ‘Twin Obligations’. Elucidate. [Board SQP 2020]
Ans. According to Nelson Mandela, every man has two obligations—one is towards his family and the other is towards his people and his country. But in the reign of apartheid, if one tried to fulfil his duty towards his people, he was ripped off with his family and home.
Long answer type questions
Q. Freedom is inconsequential if it is behind bars of prejudice and narrow mindedness. How would you explain this statement? Support your answer with suitable examples from the real world. [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Ans. Nelson Mandela believed that freedom is indivisible. His hunger for his own freedom became the greater hunger for the people. He couldn’t live his life with dignity and self-respect if his own people were bound in chains. The chains on any one of his people were the chains on all of them. Mandela realised that the oppressor must be liberated as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred prejudice and narrow mindedness. He is not truly free if he is taking away someone else freedom. Surely, he is not free when his freedom is taken away from him. A person’s freedom is of no use if he doesn’t expand the horizons of his thoughts and think like a narrow-minded person. A person’s freedom is insignificant if he takes the freedom of another man, thus, the oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
Q. After having read the lesson on the oppression that communities faced in South Africa, you were deeply hurt.
You could also relate to the struggles and hardships of millions of Indians who fought against the oppressive British rule.
Write a diary entry expressing your feelings about oppression faced by people in their homeland. You may begin like this:
24 August 20XX, Monday 9:00 pm
My heart is filled with sadness as I think of the oppressed who had to tolerate the inhuman attitude of the oppressors in their own land…………………………. [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Answer:
28 February, 20XX,
Saturday 10:00 pm
My heart is filled with sadness as I think of the oppressed who had to tolerate the inhuman attitude of the oppressors in their own land. The oppression that the communities faced in South Africa under the apartheid regime reminds me the struggles and hardships of millions of Indians who fought against the oppressive British rule. The white regime in South Africa was based on racial discrimination. It symbolised explioitation and extraordinary human disaster. The blacks were deprived of their rights equality and human dignity. In the same way, the Indians were exploited by the British. They worked in the lands like animals who were only supposed to obey. Their lands, resources and approaches were captured by the British. The struggle of Indian under British rule resembles with the struggles of the people of South Africa under the apartheid regime. The struggle created a deep and lasting wound on them. But they never gave up their cause, ultimately, their sacrifices led to their victory- common victory of humanity for peace, for justice and for human dignity.
Q. Prejudice based on race and colour or any other reason causes profound hurt.
Write about any one character from the chapters in First Flight who was subjected to such prejudice?
Discuss the consequence of this prejudice for the character. [CBSE-QB, 2021]
Ans. Prejudging a person on the basis of race, colour or his & appearance or any other reason is wrong if so we treat the person the same as we think of them in our mind without knowing the right intensions of that person.
The character subjected to this prejudice in ‘First Flight’ was Wanda Petronski from the chapter. ‘The Hundred Dresses’. She belonged to a very poor family. She was a polish girl. She came to school in a same faded blue dress daily. It was clean but not properly ironed. Her classmates made fun of her as they found her name funny. They would ask her how many dresses she had in her closet. The girls would suppress their laugh when Wanda replied that she had a hundred dresses and sixty pairs of shoes. Although her claim was not justified. But it is not at all right to judge people on the basis of their social status. Later on, Wanda proud herself by submitting a hundred drawings of dresses. People who judge other with their social economic background need to understand chat such attitude is not the parameter to judge a person’s capabilities.
When people are undervalued by others, their self-esteem suffers and they stop trying to improve themselves. Prejudice can often lead to bullying and other forms of discrimination.
Q. Why was Nelson Mandela overwhelmed with a sense of history? How did he succeed in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa? [Delhi Board Set- II 2020]
Ans. Mandela was overwhelmed with a sense of history because in the first decade of the twentieth century a, few years after the bitter Anglo-Bear War which was even before his own birth, the white- skinned people of South Africa patched up their differences and erected a system of racial domination against the dark-skinned people of their own land. But now in the last decade of the twentieth century, and his own eighth decade as a man, that system had been overturned forever and replaced by the one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all people, regardless of the colour of their skin. This marked the victory of democracy. Nelson Mandela set the ideals of liberating people from the bondage of poverty, deprivation and suffering. He had also set the ideal for a society where there would be no discrimination based on the gender or racial origin of the person.
