Indian History Quiz: Civil Uprisings and Military Mutinies before 1857

Anandamath, published in 1882, draws on the rebellion of wandering monks and fakirs in Bengal and Bihar that ran from about 1763 to 1800, and the song Vande Mataram first appeared in this novel.

The Vellore Mutiny broke out on 10 July 1806 when sepoys of the Madras army in Vellore fort turned on their officers.

The paikas were a hereditary militia who held rent-free jagir land for their military service; the Company took that land, raised the revenue demand and abolished the cowrie currency, forcing payment in silver.

The rising spread through the Damin-i-Koh in the Rajmahal hills against zamindars, mahajans and the Company's police, and the Santhals declared Company rule at an end.

The Kol Uprising of 1831-32 spread over Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamau, Manbhum and Singhbhum in the Chhotanagpur plateau, and was led by Buddho Bhagat.

When the Company refused to recognise her adopted son as heir and moved to annex the state, she took up arms in 1824, defeated the first British force sent against her and was captured in the second attack; her commander Sangolli Rayanna continued the struggle.

The subsidiary treaty with the Company had placed a crushing payment on Travancore and given its resident wide powers; Velu Thampi issued the Kundara Proclamation in 1809 asking the people of the state to take up arms.

The Company wanted a road joining the Brahmaputra valley with Sylhet through Khasi territory, and brought in outside labour and troops to build it.

The movement called on Muslims to give up practices it held un-Islamic, and it soon turned into an organised resistance by Muslim peasants to the illegal cesses of Hindu zamindars and to indigo planters.

The correct answer is A, Syed Ahmad Barelvi of Rae Bareli, who drew on the teachings of Shah Waliullah and organised the movement known in India as the Wahabi or Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya movement, with Patna as its Indian centre.

The poligars were military chiefs of the Tirunelveli and Madurai region who held land in return for keeping troops.

During the First Anglo-Burmese War the 47th Regiment of Native Infantry at Barrackpore was ordered to Burma. The sepoys objected because crossing the sea meant loss of caste, and because no allowance had been granted for the carriage of their baggage as service custom required.