Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 26

The correct answer is A, Death. In early Buddhist art the Buddha was never shown in human form, so the events of his life were carved as symbols, and the stupa stands for his mahaparinirvana, that is his death at Kushinagar. A stupa is a domed mound raised over relics; Ashoka is said to have built many of them, and those at Sanchi, Bharhut and Amaravati are the best known. This code of symbols is fixed, and examiners return to it again and again. Option B is wrong because the first sermon at Sarnath is shown by the wheel, the dharmachakra, usually with two deer beside it for the deer park. Option C is wrong because the birth at Lumbini is shown by the lotus and the bull. Option D is wrong because the great departure from home is shown by a horse, while enlightenment at Bodh Gaya is shown by the Bodhi tree. Exam tip: lotus for birth, horse for renunciation, Bodhi tree for enlightenment, wheel for the first sermon and stupa for death.

The correct answer is C, Subhash Chandra Bose. Both slogans belong to Netaji and to the Azad Hind Fauj, the Indian National Army he led from 1943. He gave the call of Dilli Chalo to set the march on Delhi as the army's goal, and asked for blood in return for freedom in his famous appeal to Indians in South East Asia. He also gave the greeting Jai Hind, set up the Provisional Government of Free India at Singapore in October 1943, and formed the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of women soldiers. Option A is wrong because Gandhi's slogans were Quit India and Do or Die, given in 1942. Option B is wrong because Nehru is remembered for his Tryst with Destiny speech, not these slogans. Option D is wrong because Patel, the Iron Man of India, is linked to the Bardoli movement and the merger of the princely states. Exam tip: Dilli Chalo, Jai Hind and Give me blood all point to Subhash Chandra Bose.

The correct answer is A, Dantidurga. He was the founder of Rashtrakuta power and overthrew the last important Chalukya of Badami, Kirtivarman II, about 753 CE. The Rashtrakutas then ruled the Deccan from Manyakheta and left the rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora, begun under Dantidurga's successor Krishna I.

Option B, Aditya I, was a Chola king of the ninth century who defeated the last Pallava, Aparajita, not a Chalukya. Option C, Bhaskaravarman, was the king of Kamarupa in Assam and an ally of Harsha against Shashanka of Gauda, and he never campaigned in the Deccan. Option D, Kubja Vishnuvardhana, was a brother of Pulakeshin II who founded the Eastern Chalukya branch at Vengi in coastal Andhra; he extended the family's power instead of ending it. Dantidurga alone closed the Badami line.

The correct answer is C, Both A and B. India's village iron smelters were ruined by two pressures at once. Cheap iron and steel made in British factories was brought into India in large quantities from the middle of the nineteenth century, and local smiths could not match its price, so demand for their metal fell away. At the same time the colonial forest laws of the later nineteenth century turned large tracts into reserved forest and shut smelting communities out. They could no longer cut wood to make the charcoal their furnaces ran on, and without charcoal the furnaces went cold. Some paid heavy fees to enter, and many families gave up the craft and turned to farming or labour. A alone and B alone are incomplete, because each names only one of the two causes. D is wrong because both statements are correct. Exam tip: cheap British imports plus forest laws that cut off charcoal ended village iron smelting.

The correct answer is C, Ibrahim. Ibrahim Lodi came to the throne in 1517 and almost at once faced Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khatoli, near the Rajasthan border, where the Lodi army was defeated and the Sultan's forces driven back. The victory made Rana Sanga the strongest Rajput power of the day, and he later fought Babur at Khanwa in 1527. Option A is wrong because Bahlul Khan Lodi, the founder of the dynasty, died in 1489, long before this battle. Option B is wrong because Qutbuddin Aibak belonged to the Slave dynasty and died in 1210. Option D is wrong because Sikandar Lodi, Ibrahim's father, died in 1517 and is remembered for founding Agra in 1504, not for Khatoli. Ibrahim Lodi was finally killed at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. The Moplahs, or Mappilas, were Muslim cultivators of the Malabar region of northern Kerala, and their long struggle against the jenmi landlords grew into the Malabar or Moplah rebellion of 1921. The tenants had no security of tenure and paid heavy rents and renewal fees, so when the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation campaigns of 1920-21 reached Malabar the anger turned into an armed revolt in the Ernad and Valluvanad taluks. British troops crushed the rising, and dozens of prisoners died of suffocation in a closed goods wagon in the Wagon Tragedy of November 1921. A is wrong because Tamil Nadu saw no Moplah movement. B is wrong because Bengal's tenant struggles were the Pabna agitation and, later, the Tebhaga movement. D is wrong because the peasant risings of Uttar Pradesh were the Awadh Kisan Sabha movement and the Eka movement. Exam tip: Moplah rebellion - Malabar in Kerala, 1921, linked to the Khilafat movement and the Wagon Tragedy.

The correct answer is B, Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah. In 1347 the centurion nobles of Daulatabad, the Amiran-i-Sadah, rebelled against the Delhi Sultan and raised one of their own, Hasan Gangu, to the throne of the Deccan. He took the regnal name Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah and made Gulbarga, renamed Ahsanabad, his capital, and the dynasty he founded is called Bahmani after him. Option A is wrong because Mahmud Gawan was a Persian merchant who came to the Deccan more than a hundred years later and served as wazir under Muhammad Shah III; he was a minister, never a founder. Option C is wrong because Muhammad Shah I was Hasan Bahman Shah's son and successor, who organised the kingdom into four tarafs but inherited rather than created it. Option D is wrong because Muhammad bin Tughlaq was the Delhi Sultan against whom the Deccan nobles revolted; the Bahmani kingdom was carved out of his empire, not founded by him.

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 B, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan. The Mughal throne passed from Babur, who ruled from 1526 to 1530, to his son Humayun from 1530 to 1540 and again from 1555 to 1556, then to Akbar from 1556 to 1605, to Jahangir from 1605 to 1627, to Shah Jahan from 1628 to 1658 and to Aurangzeb from 1658 to 1707. Option B places four of these in exactly that order and is therefore correct. Option A is wrong because it puts Jahangir, a grandson of Humayun, before both Akbar and Humayun. Option C is wrong because it reverses the line completely, beginning with Shah Jahan and ending with his great-grandfather Humayun. Option D is wrong because Humayun ruled before Akbar, not after Shah Jahan, and Jahangir came before Shah Jahan rather than last. Fixing the six reigns in order is the safest preparation for this question type.

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 B, Mughals. After Guru Gobind Singh died at Nanded in 1708, Banda Singh Bahadur led the Sikhs in revolt against Mughal rule in Punjab. He gathered peasants of the Malwa and Doaba tracts, sacked Samana and Sadhaura, and in 1710 won his best-known victory at Sirhind, where the governor Wazir Khan, held responsible for the killing of the Guru's young sons, was defeated and slain. Banda set up his base at Lohgarh, struck coins and issued orders in the name of the Gurus, and ended the zamindari system in the tracts he held by giving land to those who tilled it. He was besieged at Gurdaspur, captured in 1715 and put to death at Delhi in 1716 in the reign of Farrukhsiyar. Option A is wrong because the Gurkhas ruled Nepal and fought the British in 1814-16. Option C is wrong because British power reached Punjab only in 1849. Option D is wrong because the Marathas were never his target. Exam tip: 1708 Guru Gobind Singh, 1710 Sirhind, 1716 Banda's execution.

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 A, it proposed that the Indian magistrates would try Europeans in criminal cases. The Ilbert Bill of 1883 sought to remove the rule that European British subjects could be tried only by European judges. It was drafted by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, the law member of Lord Ripon’s council, and would have let Indian district magistrates and sessions judges hear criminal cases against Europeans. The European community in India protested so fiercely that the bill was watered down in 1884, giving a European the right to be tried by a jury half of whose members were European. The episode taught educated Indians the value of organisation and is counted among the immediate causes of the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. Option B is wrong because Indians could already file such cases. Option C is wrong because the bill spoke of Indian judges and magistrates generally, not of ICS officers alone. Option D is wrong because Ilbert wrote the bill; the agitation was against it. Exam tip: Ilbert Bill 1883, Lord Ripon, and the Congress in 1885.

The correct answer is D, Dargah. A dargah is the tomb of a Sufi saint, built over his grave and visited by people of every faith who tie threads, offer flowers and pray for their wishes. The gathering held on the anniversary of the saint's death is called urs, when qawwali is sung at the shrine. The dargah of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti at Ajmer and that of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi are the best known in India, and Mughal emperors from Akbar onwards walked to Ajmer as pilgrims. A is wrong because an idgah is the open walled ground outside a town where the community gathers for the Id prayer. B is wrong because a khanqah was the hospice in which a living Sufi master stayed with his disciples, taught them and fed travellers. C is wrong because ibadatgah simply means a place of worship in general. Exam tip: khanqah is where the saint lived, dargah is where he lies, and urs is the yearly gathering there.

The correct answer is C, Debendranath Tagore. Debendranath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Sabha in Calcutta in 1839 to study the Upanishads and Vedanta and to spread the rational religion that Rammohun Roy had preached. The Sabha ran a school and brought out the Tattvabodhini Patrika, a journal that carried writings on religion, science and social reform; Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar and Akshay Kumar Datta were among its members. Debendranath, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, joined the Brahmo Sabha in 1843 and reorganised it as the Brahmo Samaj, and the Tattvabodhini Sabha merged into it in 1859. Option A is wrong because Keshab Chandra Sen joined the Brahmo Samaj much later and broke away to form the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866. Option B is wrong because Rammohun Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in 1828 and died in 1833, before this body was set up. Option D is wrong because Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 at Bombay. Exam tip: Brahmo Sabha 1828 Rammohun Roy, Tattvabodhini Sabha 1839 Debendranath Tagore, Arya Samaj 1875 Dayanand Saraswati.

The correct answer is A, Maulvi Liaquat Ali. Maulvi Liaquat Ali of Mahgaon village led the revolt of 1857 at Allahabad, now Prayagraj. He was declared governor of the city by the rebels, set up his headquarters at Khusro Bagh and held the town for about a fortnight in June 1857 before Colonel Neill retook it with troops moving up from Calcutta. He escaped, stayed underground for fourteen years and was caught at Bombay in 1871, then transported for life to the Andaman Islands. C is wrong because Khan Bahadur Khan, a grandson of Hafiz Rahmat Khan, led the revolt at Bareilly. B is wrong because Tatya Tope fought at Kanpur beside Nana Saheb and later at Gwalior with the Rani. D is wrong because Rani Lakshmibai led the fighting at Jhansi and died near Gwalior in June 1858. Exam tip: Allahabad Maulvi Liaquat Ali, Kanpur Nana Saheb, Lucknow Begum Hazrat Mahal, Bareilly Khan Bahadur Khan, Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai, Faizabad Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah.

The correct answer is D, V D Savarkar. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar founded Abhinav Bharat at Nashik in 1904, together with his brother Ganesh. It grew out of an earlier group called Mitra Mela and took its name from Mazzini’s Young Italy, whose biography Savarkar translated into Marathi. The society trained young men in arms, spread revolutionary literature and had branches in Maharashtra and later in London, where Savarkar went on a scholarship and wrote The Indian War of Independence 1857. It was finally disbanded in 1952. Option A is wrong because Khudiram Bose was a young Anushilan Samiti revolutionary hanged in 1908 for the Muzaffarpur bomb case. Option B is wrong because Shyamji Krishna Verma founded the India House and the Indian Home Rule Society in London in 1905. Option C is wrong because Lala Har Dayal led the Ghadar Party, started in San Francisco in 1913. Exam tip: Abhinav Bharat 1904 Savarkar, India House 1905 Shyamji Krishna Verma, Ghadar Party 1913 Har Dayal.

The correct answer is B, 1858. The Government of India Act of 1858, passed after the revolt of 1857, ended the rule of the East India Company and placed India directly under the British Crown. It abolished the Court of Directors and the Board of Control and created the office of Secretary of State for India, a member of the British cabinet, assisted by a Council of India of fifteen members. The Governor General was now also styled Viceroy, and Lord Canning was the first to hold both titles. Queen Victoria's Proclamation, read out at Allahabad on 1 November 1858, promised that treaties with the princes would be honoured and that Indians would be admitted to office without regard to race or creed. A is wrong because 1878 is the year of the Vernacular Press Act. C is wrong because 1868 saw no transfer of power. D is wrong because 1888 has no such event. Exam tip: 1858 means Company rule ends, Crown rule begins, Canning is the first Viceroy.

The correct answer is D, Pala. The Palas ruled eastern India, that is Bengal and Bihar, so their capital was never in the south. The line was founded by Gopala around 750 CE, who was chosen by the chiefs of Bengal to end a long spell of disorder. Dharmapala and Devapala after him ruled from Pataliputra and Monghyr, and they built and endowed the great Buddhist monastery at Vikramashila, which drew students from Tibet. A is wrong because the Cholas ruled the Tamil country, with their capital first at Thanjavur and later at Gangaikonda Cholapuram. B is wrong because the Cheras held the Malabar coast of present-day Kerala and had their seat at Vanji, usually identified with Karur. C is wrong because the Pallavas ruled from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu and gave India the shore temples of Mahabalipuram. Exam tip: Chola at Thanjavur, Chera at Vanji and Pallava at Kanchipuram are all southern; the Pala kingdom of Bengal and Bihar is the odd one out.

The correct answer is D, Rajendra Chola I. He took the title Gangaikonda Chola, the one who won the Ganga, after his army marched north about 1022 CE, defeated the Pala ruler Mahipala and carried Ganga water back to the Tamil country. That water was poured into a great tank at his new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, which he raised in place of Thanjavur and where he built a large Shiva temple in his father's style. He also sent a fleet against Srivijaya in South East Asia, a rare overseas campaign for an Indian ruler. A is wrong because Vijayalaya founded the dynasty by seizing Thanjavur in the ninth century. B is wrong because Gandaraditya is remembered for a Tamil devotional hymn, not for a northern march. C is wrong because Parantaka I fought the Rashtrakutas and was beaten at Takkolam. Exam tip: Rajendra I means Gangaikonda Chola, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and the naval raid on Srivijaya.