Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 19

The correct answer is C, Anga. Champa was the capital of the Anga mahajanapada, and its site lies near modern Bhagalpur in Bihar, where the Champa river meets the Ganga. Anga is one of the sixteen mahajanapadas listed in the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya, and Champa was among the six great cities of the Buddha's time. The kingdom was rich because the river port carried trade downstream, which is why Bimbisara of Magadha annexed it and made his son Ajatashatru its governor. Option A is wrong because the capital of Kashi was Varanasi. Option B is wrong because Matsya, in the Alwar-Jaipur region of Rajasthan, had Viratnagar as its capital. Option D is wrong because the Vajji confederacy, a group of clans led by the Lichchhavis, had its centre at Vaishali. Exam tip: pair the capitals - Anga-Champa, Kashi-Varanasi, Vajji-Vaishali, Magadha-Rajgir.

The correct answer is B, Third. The Third Anglo-Maratha War, fought in 1817-18 under Lord Hastings, ended Maratha power. Peshwa Baji Rao II was beaten at Khadki, Koregaon and Ashti, the office of Peshwa was abolished, and his lands around Poona were taken over and joined to the Bombay Presidency. Baji Rao II was pensioned off to Bithur near Kanpur, and a small kingdom was carved out at Satara for a descendant of Shivaji. With this the East India Company became the paramount power in India. Option A is wrong because there was no fourth Anglo-Maratha war; the Marathas fought three. Option C is wrong because the Second War of 1803-05 followed the Treaty of Bassein and cost the Marathas Orissa, Delhi and Agra, but the Peshwa stayed on his seat. Option D is wrong because the First War of 1775-82 ended in the Treaty of Salbai, which restored the position as it was before the war. Exam tip: Salbai 1782, Bassein 1802, Peshwaship abolished 1818.

The correct answer is C, Brihadratha. Brihadratha was the last Mauryan emperor, and about 185 BCE his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Shunga killed him while the army was being reviewed, ending the dynasty Chandragupta Maurya had founded around 322 BCE. Pushyamitra then set up the Shunga dynasty with its capital at Pataliputra. The story comes to us from Bana's Harshacharita, and the Puranas give the Mauryas a rule of about 137 years. Pushyamitra is remembered for performing two Ashvamedha sacrifices and for the revival of Brahmanical practice, while the Buddhist stupa at Bharhut and the railing at Sanchi belong to Shunga times. Option A is wrong because Devavarman was an earlier, short-lived Mauryan king. Option B is wrong because Bindusara was the second Mauryan emperor, son of Chandragupta and father of Ashoka. Option D is wrong because Dasharatha, a grandson of Ashoka, ruled earlier and gave the Nagarjuni caves to the Ajivikas. Exam tip: Chandragupta founded the Mauryas, Brihadratha ended them, Pushyamitra began the Shungas.

The correct answer is C, Kesari. Bal Gangadhar Tilak started Kesari in 1881 and used it to carry the message of swaraj to Marathi readers.

Tilak brought out two papers from Pune in the same year, Kesari in Marathi and Maratha in English. His writings in Kesari on the Bengal partition and on the Muzaffarpur bomb case led to a charge of sedition, and in 1908 he was sentenced to six years of transportation to Mandalay in Burma. It was Tilak who declared that swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it, and he began the public Ganapati and Shivaji festivals to reach ordinary people.

Option A is wrong because Yugantar was started in Bengali by Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Bhupendranath Datta. Option B is wrong because the Bengalee was edited by Surendranath Banerjee. Option D is wrong because Amrita Bazar Patrika was founded by Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh.

Exam tip: Tilak - Kesari in Marathi and Maratha in English; Gandhi - Young India and Navajivan.

The correct answer is A, Nahapana. Nahapana belonged to the Kshaharata family of the Shakas, the Western Kshatrapas who ruled in western India, and not to the Kushanas at all. He is remembered because the Satavahana king Gautamiputra Satakarni defeated him and restruck his silver coins, a hoard of which was found at Jogalthembi in Maharashtra.

Option B, Vasishka, was a Kushana ruler of the family of Kanishka and is known from inscriptions of the line. Option C, Vasudeva, was the last important Kushana king, whose coins and devotion to Shiva mark the Indianisation of the dynasty; he should not be confused with Vasudeva the founder of the Kanva dynasty. Option D, Huvishka, ruled between Kanishka and Vasudeva and is known from a large coinage and from the Mat shrine near Mathura.

The correct answer is A, Maharana Pratap. The Battle of Haldighati was fought on 18 June 1576 near Gogunda in Rajasthan, between Maharana Pratap of Mewar and the Mughal army sent by Akbar. Pratap rode his horse Chetak and fought alongside his Rajput soldiers and the Bhil archers of the hills; the Mughal force was led by Raja Man Singh of Amber with Asaf Khan. The Mughals held the field, but Pratap escaped and carried on a long guerrilla war, winning back much of Mewar at Dewair in 1582. Option B is wrong because Amar Singh was Pratap's son and became Rana after him. Option C is wrong because Udai Singh II, Pratap's father, founded Udaipur and died in 1572. Option D is wrong because Man Singh commanded the Mughal side, not Mewar. Exam tip: Haldighati 1576 - Maharana Pratap against Akbar's general Man Singh; Pratap's horse was Chetak.

The correct answer is D, Dinaras. Gupta gold coins were called dinaras, a name borrowed from the Roman denarius that had already reached India through trade and through Kushana coinage. The Guptas struck more gold coins than any other ancient Indian dynasty, and their types, such as the Archer, the Ashvamedha and the Lyrist, are a major source for the dynasty's history.

Option A, rupaka, was the Gupta silver coin, introduced by Chandragupta II after he defeated the Shaka Kshatrapas and took over their silver currency zone in western India. Option B, tanka, was the silver coin of the Delhi Sultanate, standardised by Iltutmish in the thirteenth century. Option C, drama or dramma, was a silver coin used by several post-Gupta and early medieval dynasties of western and central India, and was never the Gupta gold denomination.

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 D, Diwan-i-insha. The Diwan-i-insha was the department of royal correspondence in the Delhi Sultanate. It drafted the Sultan's letters and orders to provincial governors and other rulers, kept copies of them and was headed by the Dabir-i-khas, who had to be a careful writer of Persian because the wording of a farman carried the Sultan's authority. Option A is wrong because the Diwan-i-arz was the military department, under the Ariz-i-mumalik, which recruited soldiers, paid them and held the horse-branding and descriptive roll system. Option B is wrong because the Diwan-i-khairat was the department of charity, set up by Firoz Shah Tughlaq to give help to the poor and to arrange marriages of poor girls. Option C is wrong because the Diwan-i-risalat looked after religious matters and grants to scholars. Exam tip: insha for letters, arz for the army, wizarat for finance.

The correct answer is A, mansabdari system. Mansab means a position or rank, and Akbar used it to place every officer of the empire on a graded ladder. A mansabdar's rank had two numbers: zat, which fixed his personal standing and pay, and sawar, which fixed how many horsemen he had to keep ready for service. Most mansabdars were paid not in cash but by the revenue of an assigned piece of land, and they were moved from one place to another so that no family could settle into a region. B is wrong because the iqta was the revenue assignment of the Delhi Sultanate, held by muqtis, and it did not grade officers in this way. C is wrong because zabt, or the dahsala system worked out under Todar Mal, was a way of assessing land revenue from measured land and average produce, not of ranking nobles. D is wrong because the jagir was only the land whose revenue paid a mansabdar's salary. Exam tip: mansab equals zat plus sawar; zabt or dahsala is revenue assessment.

The correct answer is C, Ahsanabad. Gulbarga was renamed Ahsanabad and made the first capital of the Bahmani kingdom.

The Bahmani sultanate was founded in 1347 by Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah, also called Hasan Gangu, after Deccan nobles revolted against Muhammad bin Tughlaq. He took Gulbarga in present-day Karnataka as his seat and gave it the name Ahsanabad. In 1425 Ahmad Shah Wali shifted the capital to Bidar, which was renamed Muhammadabad. The kingdom's long rivalry was with the Vijayanagara empire across the Tungabhadra, and it broke into five Deccan sultanates by the early sixteenth century.

Option A, Devagiri, was the Yadava capital. Option B, Daulatabad, is the name Muhammad bin Tughlaq gave Devagiri when he moved his own capital there. Option D, Berar, was a province and later one of the five successor sultanates, not the first capital.

Exam tip: Bahmani capitals - Gulbarga (Ahsanabad) 1347, then Bidar 1425.

The correct answer is C, China. The Panchsheel agreement was signed on 29 April 1954 between India and China, as part of the treaty on trade between India and the Tibet region of China. Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai gave it the name Panchsheel, the five principles: respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai belongs to those years, and the five principles later shaped the Non-Aligned Movement. The war of 1962 showed how little the agreement held. Option A is wrong because India's main agreements with Pakistan are the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and the Simla Agreement of 1972. Option B is wrong because Bangladesh came into being only in 1971. Option D is wrong because the India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship was signed in 1950. Exam tip: Panchsheel - India and China, 29 April 1954, five principles.

The correct answer is D, Ashwini Kumar Dutta. He founded the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti at Barisal in 1905, during the movement against the partition of Bengal. The samiti built a network of village volunteers who pushed swadeshi goods, enforced the boycott of foreign cloth, settled local disputes through their own arbitration courts and organised relief work, which made it the strongest of the Swadeshi era volunteer bodies. A teacher by calling, Dutta had earlier set up Brajamohan College in Barisal, and the government banned the samiti and deported him in 1908. Option A is wrong because Chandrasekhar Azad led the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and died at Alfred Park, Allahabad, in 1931. Option B is wrong because Bhagat Singh worked through the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the HSRA. Option C is wrong because Rajguru was an HSRA member hanged with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev in 1931. Exam tip: Swadeshi volunteer bodies - Swadesh Bandhab Samiti of Barisal and Anushilan Samiti of Bengal.

The correct answer is B, French Revolution. The storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789 marks the beginning of the French Revolution. French society then had three estates: the clergy first, the nobility second and everyone else, from peasants to merchants, in the third, which paid the taxes but had no privileges. The Bastille was a royal fortress prison and a symbol of the despotic power of Louis XVI, so the crowd attacked it for arms and gunpowder. The revolution gave the world the slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and 14 July is still the national day of France. Option A is wrong because the Russian Revolution of 1917 began with strikes in Petrograd. Option C is wrong because the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Option D is wrong because the Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated in the February Revolution of 1917. Exam tip: 14 July 1789 Bastille, 1917 Russian Revolution, 1991 end of the Soviet Union.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. C. Rajagopalachari led the salt march in the Madras Presidency, in the area that is now Tamil Nadu.

When the Civil Disobedience Movement began in 1930, Rajagopalachari marched from Tiruchirappalli to Vedaranyam on the Tanjore coast and broke the salt law there in April 1930. He was arrested soon after. Rajagopalachari, often called Rajaji, later became the first Indian and the last Governor-General of India in 1948, and was the first recipient of the Bharat Ratna in 1954 along with C. V. Raman and S. Radhakrishnan.

A is wrong: no salt march of his was held in Maharashtra. C is wrong: Rajasthan is landlocked, so a coastal salt satyagraha was not possible there. D is wrong: Gujarat is where Gandhi himself marched, from Sabarmati to Dandi.

Exam tip: Dandi in Gujarat - Gandhi; Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu - C. Rajagopalachari; Dharasana salt works - Sarojini Naidu.

The correct answer is B, Parantaka I. Parantaka I (907 to 955 CE), son of Aditya I, crushed the Pandya king Maravarman Rajasimha II and his Sri Lankan allies at the battle of Vellur, or Vellore, around 915 CE, and took the title Maduraikonda, 'captor of Madurai'. His reign is also remembered for the Uttaramerur inscriptions of 919 and 921 CE, which describe how village assemblies were elected by lot, and for covering the Nataraja shrine at Chidambaram with gold. Late in his rule he lost the battle of Takkolam (949 CE) to the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III, where his son Rajaditya was killed. Option A is wrong because Rajaraja I (985 to 1014 CE) came later and is known for the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur. Option C is wrong because Rajendra I led the Ganga expedition and took the title Gangaikonda Chola. Option D is wrong because Vijayalaya founded the imperial Chola line by capturing Thanjavur around 850 CE, before this battle. Exam tip: Vellur = Parantaka I (Maduraikonda), Takkolam = Chola defeat by Krishna III.

The correct answer is A, Satyendra Prasad Sinha. Satyendra Prasad Sinha, later Lord Sinha of Raipur, was the first Indian appointed to the Viceroy's Executive Council, taking the post of Law Member under Lord Minto in 1909. He went on to become the first Indian raised to the British peerage and to sit in the House of Lords, served as Under-Secretary of State for India, and was the first Indian to govern a province as Governor of Bihar and Orissa. He also presided over the Bombay session of the Indian National Congress in 1915. His appointment came with the Indian Councils Act, 1909, the Morley-Minto Reforms, which enlarged the councils and brought in separate electorates. Option D is wrong because Syed Ali Imam followed Sinha as Law Member in 1910. Option B is wrong because Tej Bahadur Sapru became Law Member only in 1920. Option C is wrong because P. S. Sivaswami Iyer served on the Madras Executive Council. Exam tip: 1909 Morley-Minto brought the first Indian into the Viceroy's Executive Council.

The correct answer is D, Dharmapala. Dharmapala, the second and greatest ruler of the Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar, founded Vikramshila Vishwavidyalaya in the late eighth century at a site in present-day Bhagalpur district of Bihar. He also founded the monastery at Odantapuri, and under the Palas these became the great Buddhist seats of learning after Nalanda. Vikramshila specialised in Tantric Buddhism, and its best-known head was Atisha Dipankara Srijnana, who carried Buddhism to Tibet. The university was destroyed around 1193 during Bakhtiyar Khalji's raids. Dharmapala also fought the tripartite struggle for Kannauj and placed Chakrayudha on its throne. Option C is wrong because Mahipala I only revived Pala power and repaired monasteries. Option A is wrong because Ramapala was a much later Pala king, the subject of Sandhyakar Nandi's Ramacharitam. Option B is wrong because Govindapala was the last ruler of the line. Exam tip: Nalanda goes to Kumaragupta I, Odantapuri and Vikramshila to Dharmapala.

The correct answer is A, Akbar. Akbar introduced the mansabdari system in the closing years of the sixteenth century to grade every officer of the empire. Mansab means rank, and each mansabdar held two numbers: zat, which fixed his personal status and pay, and sawar, the number of armed horsemen he had to keep ready. Ranks ran from ten to five thousand, with higher ones kept for princes of the royal house. Akbar also brought in the dagh system of branding state horses and the chehra, a written description of each soldier, to stop officers from showing borrowed men at muster. Option D is wrong because Jahangir only added the du-aspa sih-aspa device, which raised a noble's cavalry without raising his zat. Option B is wrong because Shah Jahan merely introduced the month-scale, or mahana, to adjust pay. Option C is wrong because Aurangzeb continued the system as he found it. Exam tip: Akbar gave the mansabdari ranks and Todar Mal's dahsala revenue settlement.

The correct answer is D, 1878. The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878, when Lord Lytton was Viceroy of India.

The Act was aimed at Indian-language newspapers, which had grown sharply critical of British rule after the famine of 1876-78. It allowed a magistrate to demand a bond from a printer or publisher, and to seize the press if seditious matter appeared. Because English papers were left untouched, it was nicknamed the 'Gagging Act'. Surendranath Banerjea and others protested strongly, and the Amrita Bazar Patrika switched overnight from Bengali to English to escape it. Lord Ripon repealed the Act in 1882.

A is wrong: 1876 is the year of the Royal Titles Act, which made Queen Victoria Empress of India. B is wrong: no press law was passed in 1874. C is wrong: 1872 saw the first non-synchronous all-India census, not a press law.

Exam tip: Vernacular Press Act - passed by Lytton in 1878, repealed by Ripon in 1882.