Indian History Quiz: Important Battles of Indian History

The correct answer is B, Porus. Porus ruled the Paurava kingdom between the Jhelum and the Chenab and fought Alexander on the Hydaspes, the Greek name for the Jhelum. Alexander won, but he was impressed by the Indian king's courage, restored his kingdom to him and made him an ally. A is wrong because Ambhi, the king of Taxila, surrendered without a fight and helped Alexander against Porus; he is the opposite example. C is wrong because Chandragupta Maurya rose to power after Alexander's withdrawal and later defeated Seleucus, Alexander's general, not Alexander himself. D is wrong because Dhananand was the Nanda ruler of Magadha whose large army is said to have frightened Alexander's soldiers into refusing to march beyond the Beas; the two never met in battle. Remember the pair: Hydaspes equals Jhelum, and the Indian side is Porus.

The correct answer is B, Muhammad Ghori. Ghori had been defeated by Prithviraj Chauhan at the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 and returned the next year with a better organised army of mounted archers; the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192 ended in the defeat and death of Prithviraj and opened north India to Turkish rule. A is wrong because Prithviraj won the first battle of 1191, not the second, and this swap is the commonest trap in the topic. C is wrong because Mahmud of Ghazni raided India between 1000 and 1027 and never fought at Tarain; his seventeen raids ended with the sack of Somnath. D is wrong because Qutbuddin Aibak was Ghori's commander and later the founder of the Slave dynasty; he fought in the campaign but the victory is recorded for Ghori. Tarain, now Taraori, lies in Haryana near Karnal.

The correct answer is B, Babur and Ibrahim Lodi. Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi, the last Sultan of the Lodi dynasty, on the field of Panipat in 1526, using the tulughma flanking division and field guns served by Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi, and founded the Mughal Empire. A is wrong because Babur fought Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khanwa in 1527, a year later and at a different place, after which he took the title Ghazi. C is wrong because Akbar, or rather his regent Bairam Khan, fought Hemu at the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556. D is wrong because Ahmad Shah Abdali fought the Marathas at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. All three Panipat battles are in the options of such questions, so match the pair of combatants before picking a year.

The correct answer is A, the Battle of Chausa, fought in 1539 near Buxar in Bihar, where Sher Shah Suri routed Humayun, who escaped across the Ganga with the help of a water carrier. The following year Sher Shah defeated him again at Kannauj, also called Bilgram, and Humayun left India for about fifteen years while the Sur dynasty ruled Delhi. B is wrong because the Battle of Ghaghra of 1529 was fought by Babur against the Afghans of Bihar and Bengal and Nusrat Shah. C is wrong because Chanderi in 1528 was Babur's battle against Medini Rai of Malwa. D is wrong because Khanwa in 1527 was Babur's victory over Rana Sanga of Mewar. All four are Mughal era battles, but only Chausa and Kannauj involve Humayun and Sher Shah.

The correct answer is B, Bairam Khan. Akbar was only about thirteen years old in 1556, and his regent Bairam Khan commanded the army that defeated Hemu, the able general of the Sur side who had captured Delhi and crowned himself Hemchandra Vikramaditya. The victory restored Mughal rule barely a year after Humayun's death. A is wrong because, although Akbar was present in the camp, the command and the credit belong to Bairam Khan, who ruled as regent until 1560. C is wrong because Man Singh of Amber served Akbar later and is remembered for leading the Mughal army at Haldighati in 1576. D is wrong because Todar Mal was Akbar's revenue minister, famous for the zabti or bandobast land revenue system, not a battlefield commander here.

The correct answer is B, the Vijayanagara Empire. In 1565 the allied Deccan sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar defeated the Vijayanagara army led by Rama Raya at Talikota, a battle also called Rakshasa-Tangadi or Bannihatti; the capital city of Vijayanagara, today's Hampi, was plundered and the empire never recovered. A is wrong because the Bahmani kingdom had already broken up into the five Deccan sultanates by the early sixteenth century, and those sultanates were the winners here. C is wrong because Mewar's great battles of this century were Khanwa in 1527 and Haldighati in 1576, both in Rajasthan. D is wrong because the Ahom kingdom of the Brahmaputra valley fought the Mughals, most famously at Saraighat in 1671 under Lachit Borphukan. Talikota is remembered as the battle that ended the last great Hindu empire of the south, and Hampi stands today as its ruined witness.

The correct answer is B, the Battle of Plassey, fought on 23 June 1757 on the bank of the Bhagirathi, where Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, largely because Mir Jafar, the Nawab's own commander, held his troops back by prior arrangement. Bengal, the richest province of India, passed under the Company's political control. A is wrong because Buxar in 1764 confirmed and legalised that power through the diwani granted by the Treaty of Allahabad, so it is called the consolidation rather than the foundation. C is wrong because Wandiwash in 1760 was fought against the French and removed a European rival. D is wrong because Assaye in 1803 belongs to the Second Anglo-Maratha War, nearly fifty years later. Plassey also shows how little fighting decided so much: the engagement lasted only a few hours and the real work was done by the conspiracy with Mir Jafar and the Seth bankers of Murshidabad.

The correct answer is B, the Battle of Buxar, fought on 22 October 1764, in which Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. By the Treaty of Allahabad the next year the Company received the diwani, the right to collect revenue, in Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, and Clive built the system of dual government on it. A is wrong because Plassey in 1757 was followed by the installation of Mir Jafar as Nawab, not by any treaty of this kind. C is wrong because the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 was fought between Abdali and the Marathas, with no British party and no treaty. D is wrong because Sobraon in 1846 was followed by the Treaty of Lahore with the Sikhs.

The correct answer is A, the Marathas. On 14 January 1761 Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan, helped by Najib-ud-Daula and Shuja-ud-Daula, defeated the Maratha army commanded by Sadashivrao Bhau; the Peshwa's son Vishwasrao was killed, and the defeat destroyed Maratha hopes of replacing the Mughals at Delhi. B is wrong because Sikh power under Ranjit Singh rose later, and the Sikhs fought Abdali in separate campaigns in Punjab, not at Panipat. C is wrong because the Company was not a party to this battle, although it was the chief gainer, since both the possible Indian claimants to Delhi weakened each other. D is wrong because the Nizam stayed out of it. Learn the trio together: Plassey 1757, Wandiwash 1760, Panipat 1761 and Buxar 1764. The Marathas were also left without allies, since Abdali had the support of Najib-ud-Daula and Shuja-ud-Daula while the Rajputs and the Jats stayed away.

The correct answer is C, the French. The Battle of Wandiwash, or Vandavasi in Tamil Nadu, was the decisive engagement of the Third Carnatic War, in which Sir Eyre Coote defeated Count de Lally in 1760. The French lost Pondicherry soon after, and although it was returned by treaty, French political ambition in India was over. A is wrong because Portuguese power had declined much earlier, after the loss of their monopoly in the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth century. B is wrong because the Dutch were defeated by the English at the Battle of Bedara in 1759 and concentrated on the East Indies. D is wrong because the Danes held only small settlements such as Tranquebar and Serampore and were never a military rival. Wandiwash belongs with the Carnatic Wars, which were fought in the Coromandel region.

The correct answer is A, the Battle of Karnal, fought in 1739, in which Nadir Shah of Persia routed the army of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah in a few hours, entered Delhi, ordered a massacre and took away an immense treasure including the Peacock Throne and the Kohinoor. The invasion exposed how weak the empire had become after Aurangzeb. B is wrong because Samugarh in 1658 was the battle in which Aurangzeb defeated his brother Dara Shikoh in the war of succession. C is wrong because Dharmat, also in 1658, was an earlier engagement of the same war of succession, again won by Aurangzeb's side. D is wrong because Khajwa in 1659 was fought by Aurangzeb against his brother Shah Shuja. Only Karnal involves a foreign invader and the loss of the throne and the diamond.