Indian History Previous Year Questions (PYQ) with Answers

The correct answer is B, Dhammapada. The Dhammapada gathers the Buddha's teaching into 423 short verses arranged in 26 chapters, and because it holds the heart of the doctrine in verses anyone can remember, it is often called the Gita of Buddhism. It is written in Pali and belongs to the Khuddaka Nikaya, one of the five nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka. Its chapters deal with the mind, anger, craving, the wise and the fool, and the path to nirvana. A is wrong because Mahayana Sutra is not one book but a whole class of later Sanskrit texts. C is wrong because the Vamsatthappakasini is a Sri Lankan commentary on the Mahavamsa chronicle, a work of history rather than teaching. D is wrong because the Saddharmapundarika, the Lotus Sutra, is a major Mahayana work on the one vehicle and is much later than the Pali canon. Exam tip: Tripitaka = Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka; the Dhammapada sits inside the Sutta Pitaka.

The correct answer is B, Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq. He was the Delhi Sultan when Timur invaded India in 1398. Timur, the Turko-Mongol ruler of Samarkand, crossed the Indus, defeated Mahmud Shah's army near Delhi in December 1398 and sacked the city for several days. The Sultan fled to Gujarat, and the Tughluq state never recovered. Timur left his supporter Khizr Khan in charge of Multan, and this link later helped Khizr Khan found the Sayyid dynasty in 1414. Option A is wrong because Nusrat Shah was a rival Tughluq claimant who held Firozabad for a few years; he was not the recognised Sultan at Delhi. Option C is wrong because Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad Shah III, a son of Firuz Shah, ruled earlier, from 1390 to 1394. Option D is wrong because Khizr Khan became the ruler of Delhi only in 1414. Exam tip: Timur's raid of 1398 ended Tughluq power in practice; the Sayyid dynasty began in 1414.

The correct answer is C, the statement about Madhvacharya. It is the wrong statement, because Madhvacharya worshipped a personal god, Vishnu, with form and qualities, so his path was saguna bhakti, not nirguna. Madhva, a 13th-century teacher from Udupi in Karnataka, taught Dvaita, or dualism: God and the soul are always separate, and the soul is freed only through devotion and God's grace. He set up the Krishna temple at Udupi, still the centre of his tradition. Nirguna bhakti, devotion to a formless god, is linked with saints such as Kabir, Nanak and Dadu. Option A is a correct statement because Vallabhacharya founded the Pushtimarga, the 'path of grace', centred on Krishna worshipped as Shrinathji. Option B is correct because Nimbarka taught Dvaitadvaita, dualism with non-dualism. Option D is correct because Ramananda spread Rama bhakti in north India and took disciples from all castes, Kabir and Raidas among them. Exam tip: Shankara Advaita, Ramanuja Vishishtadvaita, Madhva Dvaita, Nimbarka Dvaitadvaita, Vallabha Shuddhadvaita.

The correct answer is D, The Dandi March by Mahatma Gandhi. On the morning of 6 April 1930 Gandhi picked up a lump of natural salt on the beach at Dandi and broke the salt law, and with that the Civil Disobedience Movement began. He had set out from Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930 with 78 chosen followers and walked about 240 miles in 24 days, reaching Dandi on the Gujarat coast on 5 April. Salt was chosen because the salt tax hit every Indian, rich or poor, so one small act turned into a protest across the whole country. Option A is wrong because the Quit India Movement began in August 1942, after the Congress resolution of 8 August. Option B is wrong because Lord Curzon’s Partition of Bengal took effect on 16 October 1905. Option C is wrong because the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar on 13 April 1919. Exam tip: Dandi March from 12 March to 5 April 1930, salt law broken on 6 April 1930.

The correct answer is A, Nahar Singh. Raja Nahar Singh was the last ruler of Ballabhgarh, a small Jat state in what is now Faridabad district of Haryana, just south of Delhi. During the revolt of 1857 he sided with the rebels and with the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. After the British recaptured Delhi, he was arrested and tried, and he was hanged at Chandni Chowk in Delhi on 9 January 1858; his state was then annexed. Faridabad still remembers him, as its cricket stadium and the Delhi Metro station at Ballabhgarh carry his name. Option B is wrong because Balram Singh, also called Balu, was the 18th-century founder of the Ballabhgarh state, long before 1857. Option C is wrong because Ajit Singh was not the ruler of Ballabhgarh at the time of the revolt. Option D is wrong because Gopal Singh was not its last ruler either; the throne in 1857 was held by Nahar Singh. Exam tip: Haryana's 1857 leaders include Rao Tula Ram of Rewari, Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabhgarh and Nawab Abdur Rahman Khan of Jhajjar.

The correct answer is C, A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1. Taken in order, each Act adds one step in the Crown's control over the Company. Pitt's India Act, 1784 created the Board of Control to oversee the Company's civil, military and revenue affairs. The Charter Act, 1813 ended the Company's monopoly of Indian trade, leaving it only the trade in tea and with China. The Charter Act, 1833 made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India and declared that no Indian would be barred from any office because of religion, birth or colour. The Charter Act, 1853 separated law-making from executive work and enlarged the Governor-General's council for legislation, a small legislature in the making. Option A is wrong because 1784 is the Board of Control, not the enlarged council. Option B is wrong because it gives 1813 the employment clause and 1833 the end of the trade monopoly. Option D is wrong because it repeats that same swap of 1813 and 1833. Exam tip: 1784 Board of Control, 1813 monopoly ends, 1833 no bar on Indians, 1853 bigger legislative council.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. The Act split subjects between the Centre and the provinces, but the reserved and transferred split applied only to provincial subjects. The Government of India Act, 1919 put the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms into law. Through the Devolution Rules it separated central and provincial subjects, and for the first time it separated provincial budgets from the central budget, giving provinces their own sources of revenue and the right to pass their own budgets. In the provinces it brought in dyarchy: transferred subjects such as education and local self-government went to ministers answerable to the legislature, while reserved subjects such as police and land revenue stayed with the Governor and his executive council. Statement 2 is wrong because the central subjects were never divided this way; dyarchy at the Centre was proposed only by the 1935 Act and was never brought into force. That rules out options A, B and D, which all contain statement 2. Exam tip: 1919 Act, dyarchy in the provinces; 1935 Act, dyarchy proposed at the Centre.

The correct answer is A, Ajatashatru. He was Bimbisara's son and took the throne of Magadha after him in the Haryanka dynasty. Bimbisara, a contemporary of the Buddha, built Magadha's power through marriage alliances and the conquest of Anga, with Rajagriha as his capital. Ajatashatru pushed it further: he fought Kosala, defeated the Vajji confederacy of the Licchavis, and built a fort at the village of Pataligrama on the Ganga. The First Buddhist Council was held at Rajagriha in his reign, soon after the Buddha's death. B is wrong because Udayin was Ajatashatru's son, who came later and made Pataliputra the capital. C is wrong because Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya dynasty around 322 BCE, nearly two centuries later. D is wrong because Ashoka was Chandragupta Maurya's grandson. Exam tip: Haryanka order, Bimbisara, then Ajatashatru, then Udayin; Rajagriha first, Pataliputra later.

The correct answer is C, Prakrit and Brahmi. Most of Ashoka's edicts were written in Prakrit, the language people spoke, in the Brahmi script, so that ordinary subjects could understand his message of Dhamma. Brahmi was first deciphered by James Prinsep in 1837, and the edicts call the king 'Devanampiya Piyadasi', beloved of the gods. In the north-west, near today's Pakistan, the same Prakrit was written in the Kharosthi script, and at Kandahar in Afghanistan edicts were written in Greek and Aramaic. A is wrong because Ashoka did not use Sanskrit for his edicts, and the Devanagari script developed many centuries later. B is wrong because Kharosthi was used only in a few north-western edicts such as Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra, and Pali is the language of the Buddhist canon, not of the edicts. D is wrong because Greek appears only at Kandahar and Latin was never used. Exam tip: Ashoka's edicts, Prakrit language in Brahmi script; Prinsep read them in 1837.

The correct answer is B, because pattvaya was the guild of silk weavers, not of washermen. The washermen had their own body, known as the rajaka guild. The famous Mandasor stone inscription of the time of Kumaragupta records a guild of silk weavers who migrated from Lata in Gujarat to Dasapura and built a temple of the Sun there, and it is the best known reference to this craft group. Option A is correctly matched, since a shreshthi, the word behind today's seth, was the rich merchant banker who headed a guild. Option C is correctly matched, because a puga was a corporation whose members followed different callings, unlike a shreni, which brought together the workers of one craft. Option D is correctly matched, as a sartha was a body of traders travelling together, and its leader was called a sarthavaha. Exam tip: shreni is one craft, puga is many trades together, sarthavaha leads the caravan, and rajaka means washerman.

The correct answer is A, Chahamana. The Bijolia rock inscription, at Bijolia in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, is dated to 1170 CE, in the reign of Someshvara, and it sets out the family line of the Chahamanas, the Chauhans of Shakambhari. Written in Sanskrit, it was engraved near a Parshvanatha temple by the Jain merchant Lolaka, and it names the rulers from Samantaraja down to Someshvara, the father of Prithviraj Chauhan. Historians value it because it calls the Chahamanas Brahmins of the Vatsa gotra and gives the old names of places such as Ajayameru for Ajmer. Option B is wrong because the Chandelas of Bundelkhand, builders of Khajuraho, are known from the Khajuraho and Mau inscriptions. Option C is wrong because the Paramaras of Malwa appear in the Udaipur Prashasti. Option D is wrong because the Gahadavalas of Kannauj are known from the Chandrawati and other copper plates. Exam tip: Bijolia - Chahamanas; Khajuraho - Chandelas; Udaipur Prashasti - Paramaras.

The correct answer is A, Richard Wellesley. Lord Richard Wellesley was Governor-General from 1798 to 1805, and in 1801 he forced Nawab Saadat Ali Khan of Awadh to hand over about half of his kingdom to the Company. The Nawab had failed to pay the rising cost of the British troops kept in his state, and Wellesley took rich lands such as Rohilkhand and the lower Doab in payment. This was a classic use of Wellesley's Subsidiary Alliance, under which an Indian ruler paid for British troops, accepted a British Resident and could make no treaty without the Company's approval. Hyderabad was the first state to accept it, in 1798. Option B is wrong because Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal, had left India in 1785. Option C is wrong because Cornwallis, known for the Permanent Settlement of 1793, had left by then; he returned only briefly in 1805. Option D is wrong because Robert Clive, the victor of Plassey, died in 1774. Exam tip: Subsidiary Alliance means Wellesley; Awadh lost half its land in 1801 and was annexed by Dalhousie in 1856.

The correct answer is C, Cher. The Cheras ruled in Kerala and took no part in the fight over Kannauj. The Tripartite Struggle was a long contest in the 8th to 10th centuries among three powers for control of Kannauj, the old capital of Harshavardhana in the Ganga valley. Whoever held Kannauj was seen as the master of north India, so the three kept attacking it for nearly two centuries. In the end the Gurjara-Pratiharas held Kannauj the longest, and the fight wore out all three powers. Option A is wrong because the Palas of Bengal, founded by Gopala, were one of the three sides; Dharmapala even placed his own nominee on the Kannauj throne. Option B is wrong because the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, under kings like Dhruva and Govinda III, raided the north and joined the struggle. Option D is wrong because the Gurjara-Pratiharas of western India, with rulers like Nagabhata II and Mihira Bhoja, were the third side. Exam tip: Pala (east), Pratihara (west) and Rashtrakuta (south) fought for Kannauj.

The correct answer is B, 1565. The Battle of Talikota, also called Rakshasi-Tangadi, was fought in January 1565 and broke the power of Vijayanagara. Rama Raya was the real ruler behind the throne of Sadashiva Raya. He had played the Deccan Sultanates against one another, so Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda finally joined hands against him. Rama Raya was captured and killed, and the winning armies plundered the capital Vijayanagara (Hampi) for months. The ruins of Hampi, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, date from this sack. The empire lived on under the Aravidu dynasty but never regained its glory. Option A is wrong because 1585 is twenty years after the battle. Option C is wrong because in 1545 Rama Raya's long control of the empire had only just begun; the decisive battle came twenty years later. Option D is wrong because 1525 was the reign of Krishnadeva Raya, the empire's golden age. Exam tip: Vijayanagara founded 1336, peak under Krishnadeva Raya (1509–1529), fall at Talikota 1565.

The correct answer is C, Atharvaveda. The Atharvaveda calls the Sabha and the Samiti the two daughters of Prajapati, which shows that they were seen as two separate popular bodies. The Sabha was a smaller council of elders and nobles that also did judicial work, while the Samiti was a larger assembly of the common people that discussed policy and could even have a say in choosing the king. Both are first named in the Rigveda, but it is the Atharvaveda that sets them apart and says the king needs their support to rule well. Together with the Vidatha and the Gana, they were the tribal assemblies of the Vedic age. Option A is wrong because the Rigveda mentions both bodies but does not present them as twin institutions. Option B is wrong because the Samaveda is a book of chants set to music for rituals. Option D is wrong because the Yajurveda deals with the rules and formulas of sacrifice. Exam tip: Sabha and Samiti, the two daughters of Prajapati, in the Atharvaveda.

The correct answer is D, a-iii, b-iv, c-i, d-ii. These are names found in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts for the lands that traded with the Harappans. Meluha is generally identified with the Indus region, including Sindh; the texts speak of its ships bringing carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold and fine wood. Dilmun is identified with Bahrain island in the Persian Gulf, which served as a halfway station, and Harappan-style seals and weights have been found there. Magan, or Makan, is placed on the Makran coast and nearby Oman, a source of copper. Ur was a Sumerian port city in Mesopotamia where Indus seals and carnelian beads have been dug up. Option A is wrong because it makes Dilmun a Mesopotamian port and puts Meluha on the Makran coast. Option B is wrong because it places Dilmun on the Makran coast and Magan in Sindh. Option C is wrong because it places Dilmun in Mesopotamia and Ur on the Makran coast. Exam tip: Meluha = Indus land, Dilmun = Bahrain, Magan = Makran or Oman; the dockyard at Lothal shows the Harappans traded by sea.

The correct answer is D, Mahad Satyagraha. On 20 March 1927 Dr B.R. Ambedkar led thousands of people to the Chavdar Tank at Mahad, in today's Raigad district of Maharashtra, and drank its water to assert the right of Dalits to use public water sources. The Bombay Legislative Council had already resolved in 1923 that such public places be open to all, but upper-caste residents still kept Dalits away. The campaign continued at a second conference in December 1927, where copies of the Manusmriti were publicly burnt. Ambedkar followed it with the Kalaram Temple entry satyagraha at Nashik in 1930. A is wrong because the Shahada Movement was a movement of Bhil tribals in Dhule district in the 1970s. B is wrong because peasant uprisings in the Bombay region, such as the Deccan Riots of 1875, were aimed at moneylenders, not caste barriers. C is wrong because the Kheda Satyagraha of 1918 was Gandhi's campaign in Gujarat for remission of land revenue. Exam tip: Mahad 1927 = water (Chavdar Tank); Kalaram 1930 = temple entry; both led by Ambedkar.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. The Moplah (Mappila) Rebellion of 1921 broke out in the Malabar region of present-day Kerala, which was then a district of the Madras Presidency. The Mappilas were Muslim tenant farmers who had long resented the heavy rents of the mostly Hindu landlords (janmis) and the British officials who backed them. In 1921 the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements spread into Malabar, and the unrest turned into an armed revolt led by men such as Variyamkunnath Kunhahammed Haji and Ali Musliyar. The British crushed it with martial law. The most tragic event was the Wagon Tragedy of November 1921, when dozens of Mappila prisoners died of suffocation inside a closed railway goods wagon. A is wrong because the uprising had nothing to do with Assam. C is wrong because Punjab's best-known event of that period is the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. D is wrong because Bengal is linked to revolts such as the Indigo Revolt of 1859–60. Exam tip: Moplah 1921 = Malabar, Kerala = Khilafat link = Wagon Tragedy.

The correct answer is B, Bombay. The Indian National Congress held its first session in Bombay from 28 to 31 December 1885, at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College. Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee presided, 72 delegates from across India attended, and the retired British official A.O. Hume played the key role in organising it. The session had first been planned for Poona but was shifted to Bombay because of a cholera outbreak there. Paper setters also ask about the next few sessions, so link each place with its president. A is wrong because Lahore hosted the famous 1929 session under Jawaharlal Nehru, which adopted the Purna Swaraj resolution. C is wrong because Calcutta hosted the second session in 1886, presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji. D is wrong because Allahabad hosted the fourth session in 1888 under George Yule, the first British president of the Congress. Exam tip: 1885 Bombay, W.C. Bonnerjee, 72 delegates; 1886 Calcutta, Dadabhai Naoroji; 1929 Lahore, Purna Swaraj.

The correct answer is B, The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1880, to support the Government. This statement is wrong on both counts: the Act was passed in 1878, and it was meant to silence newspapers that criticised the Government, not to support it. The Act, passed under Viceroy Lord Lytton, allowed the Government to confiscate the assets of newspapers, including their printing presses, if they published anything found 'objectionable'. It angered educated Indians so much that Lord Ripon later repealed it. NCERT lists it among the measures of the 1870s and 1880s that turned Indians against British rule. A is a correct statement, since the Arms Act of 1878 disallowed Indians from possessing arms. C is correct, because the Ilbert Bill of 1883, which allowed Indian judges to try British persons, caused a furore among the British in India. D is correct, since dissatisfaction with British rule grew sharply in these two decades and led to the founding of the Congress in 1885. Exam tip: Arms Act and Vernacular Press Act, both 1878 under Lytton; Ilbert Bill, 1883 under Ripon.