Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 35

The correct answer is A, Shortughai. Shortughai stands in north-eastern Afghanistan, near the Oxus or Amu Darya river, and is the northernmost Harappan settlement known. It was not a city but a small trading outpost, set up close to the lapis lazuli mines of Badakhshan and the tin and gold routes of Central Asia, which shows how far Harappan trade reached. Mundigak is the other important early site in Afghanistan. Option B is wrong because Balakot lies on the Las Bela coast of Balochistan in Pakistan and is known for shell and bead work. Option C is wrong because Nageswar is in Gujarat, on the Gulf of Kutch, a centre that worked conch shell. Option D is wrong because Kalibangan is in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan, on the dried bed of the Ghaggar, famous for its ploughed field and fire altars. Exam tip: Shortughai northernmost, Daimabad southernmost, Sutkagendor westernmost, Alamgirpur easternmost.

The correct answer is A, 1905. Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal on 19 July 1905 and it came into effect on 16 October 1905, splitting the province into a Muslim-majority eastern half and the rest of Bengal. The reason given in public was that Bengal had grown too large to administer, but the real aim was to weaken the nationalist movement there by dividing Hindus and Muslims. The protest against it began the Swadeshi and boycott movement, in which foreign cloth was burnt and Indian goods, schools and banks were promoted, and Rabindranath Tagore's song Amar Sonar Bangla belongs to those days. The anger was so wide that the partition was finally cancelled in 1911, when the capital was also moved from Calcutta to Delhi. B is wrong because 1901 is the year Queen Victoria died. C is wrong because 1907 is the year of the Surat split in the Congress. D is wrong because 1911 is the year the partition was revoked, not made. Exam tip: announced in 1905 by Curzon, revoked in 1911 under Hardinge.

The correct answer is C, Parushni, the Vedic name of the river we now call the Ravi. The Battle of Ten Kings, or Dasarajna, is described in the seventh book of the Rigveda. Sudas, the Bharata king of the Tritsu clan, was attacked by a confederacy of ten chiefs led by the Puru tribe, and with his priest Vasishtha guiding him he defeated them on the banks of the Parushni. The victory made the Bharatas the leading power of the Sapta Sindhu and later gave the land the name Bharatavarsha. Option A is wrong because the Sarasvati was the river the Rigveda praises most as sacred, but no such battle is placed on it. Option B is wrong because the Drishadvati, paired with the Sarasvati in the later Brahmavarta region, is not the site either. Option D is wrong because the Shutudri is the Sutlej. Exam tip: Parushni is the Ravi, Vitasta the Jhelum, Askini the Chenab, Vipasha the Beas and Shutudri the Sutlej.

The correct answer is B, Arikamedu. Arikamedu, on the Ariyankuppam river near Puducherry on the Coromandel coast, began as a small fishing settlement and grew into a busy port that traded with the Romans and the Greco Roman world in the first centuries of the common era. Excavations there have brought out Roman amphorae that carried wine and olive oil, red glazed Arretine ware, glass and stone beads, lamps and Roman coins, along with the local rouletted pottery, which is why the site is identified with the Poduke named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. A is wrong because Badami in Karnataka was the inland capital of the Chalukyas, known for its rock cut cave temples. C is wrong because Lothal in Gujarat is a Harappan site with a dockyard, far older and on the western coast. D is wrong because tulapurushadana was a ritual of weighing oneself against gold and giving it away, not a place at all. Exam tip: Arikamedu near Puducherry is the Poduke of Roman trade; Lothal is the Harappan dock in Gujarat.

The correct answer is A, province. In the Gupta and post-Gupta period the empire was divided into bhuktis, which were provinces, and inscriptions call the governor of a bhukti an uparika or uparika-maharaja, usually a prince or a trusted noble. A bhukti was split into vishayas, or districts, each under a vishayapati, and below them came the vithi and then the village, where the gramika and the village elders worked. Some records call the same unit a desha or a rashtra. The Gupta habit of granting land and whole villages to brahmins and officers slowly turned these charges into hereditary holdings, a step towards the feudal pattern of early medieval India. Option B is wrong because the land tax of the period was bhaga or bhoga, not bhukti. Option C is wrong because the officer in charge was the uparika, while bhukti was the territory he held. Option D is wrong because a king was called raja or maharajadhiraja. Exam tip: bhukti province, vishaya district, vithi sub-division, grama village.

The correct answer is D, A, B and C. When the British left in 1947, India had, besides the provinces under direct British rule, about 565 princely states whose rulers had accepted British paramountcy. That paramountcy lapsed with independence and every ruler had to accede either to India or to Pakistan; Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon, working through the States Department, persuaded almost all of them to sign an Instrument of Accession. Statements A and B therefore both describe princely states. Statement C is also true, since several, among them Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura, were kept as separate administrative units and became full states only later. Statement D is false, because Goa, Daman and Diu were Portuguese and Pondicherry was French, European possessions and never princely states. Option A is wrong because it leaves out statement C. Options B and C are wrong because each includes the false statement D. Exam tip: about 565 princely states, Patel and V. P. Menon, the Instrument of Accession, and Goa and Pondicherry as European colonies.

The correct answer is D, Harshavardhana. Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, travelled in India in the seventh century, when Harshavardhana of the Pushyabhuti dynasty ruled from Kannauj. He came in search of Buddhist texts, studied at Nalanda university and left an account of his travels in the Si-Yu-Ki, which is one of our main sources for Harsha and for everyday life of that age. He is remembered as the Prince of Pilgrims. A is wrong because Ashoka ruled in the third century BCE, about nine hundred years earlier. B is wrong because Samudragupta of the fourth century CE is described in the Allahabad Pillar inscription of Harisena, not by a Chinese traveller. C is wrong because Chandragupta I founded Gupta power in the fourth century CE, also long before this visit. Exam tip: pair the visitors - Fa-Hien with Chandragupta II and Hiuen Tsang with Harshavardhana.

The correct answer is C, Mehrgarh. Mehrgarh, on the Bolan river in the Kachi plain of Baluchistan, is the earliest known farming village in the Indian subcontinent, occupied from about 7000 BCE. Its people were among the first in the region to grow wheat and barley and to rear sheep, goats and cattle, and the site records the long shift from hunting and gathering to settled village life. Archaeologists have found mud-brick houses, storage pits, burials with goods placed beside the dead, and some of the earliest evidence anywhere of cotton and of drilled teeth. Mehrgarh is treated as the forerunner of the Harappan civilisation. Option A is wrong because Hallur, in Karnataka, is a southern neolithic and megalithic site known for early iron. Option B is wrong because Chiraud, or Chirand, in Bihar is a neolithic site much later than Mehrgarh and famous for bone tools. Option D is wrong because Burzahom, in Kashmir, is known for pit dwellings and is also later. Exam tip: Mehrgarh of about 7000 BCE is the earliest village with wheat and barley, Burzahom has pit houses and Chirand has bone tools.

The correct answer is B, 1517. Ibrahim Lodi came to the throne of Delhi in 1517 after the death of his father Sikandar Lodi. He was the third and last ruler of the Lodi dynasty, which was the final dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. His harsh treatment of the Afghan nobles turned them against him, and Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, invited Babur to invade India. A is wrong because 1526 is the year Ibrahim Lodi was defeated and killed, not the year he was crowned. C is wrong because by 1527 the Sultanate had already ended and Babur was fighting Rana Sanga at Khanua. D is wrong because Sikandar Lodi was still ruling in 1516. Exam tip: fix the span - Ibrahim Lodi ruled 1517 to 1526, and the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 ended the Delhi Sultanate and began Mughal rule.

The correct answer is D, Charter Act – 1833. This Act ended the last trading rights of the East India Company, its monopoly of trade with China and of the tea trade, and turned the Company into a purely administrative body holding India in trust for the British Crown. The same Act made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India, with William Bentinck the first to hold that title, gave him alone the power to legislate for the whole of British India, and added a Law Member to his council, a post first held by Macaulay, who led the work on a common code of law. A is wrong because the Regulating Act of 1773 was only the first step towards control, setting up a Supreme Court at Calcutta. B is wrong because Pitt's India Act of 1784 created the Board of Control and the system of dual government. C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1813 opened Indian trade to all British merchants but kept the Company's monopoly of trade with China and in tea. Exam tip: 1813 – Indian trade opened except tea and China; 1833 – that exception also removed.

The correct answer is B, Uttar Pradesh. Aram Bagh stands in Agra in Uttar Pradesh, on the left bank of the Yamuna across from the Taj Mahal, and it is held to be the oldest Mughal garden in India. Babur laid it out soon after 1526 in the Persian charbagh plan, a walled garden cut into four parts by water channels, and it is also called Ram Bagh and Bagh-i-Nur-Afshan. Tradition says the body of Babur rested here before it was carried to Kabul, and Nur Jahan later repaired the garden. A is wrong because Babur built this garden at Agra, which was his capital, not at Delhi. C and D are wrong because neither Madhya Pradesh nor Bihar has this monument. Exam tip: remember the chain - Aram Bagh is at Agra, built by Babur, the first Mughal garden in the charbagh style.

The correct answer is A, Satyendra Prasanna Sinha. The 1915 session of the Indian National Congress, held at Bombay, was presided over by Satyendra Prasanna Sinha, later Lord Sinha of Raipur. He was the first Indian appointed to the Governor-General's Executive Council, in 1909, and went on to become Under-Secretary of State for India and Governor of Bihar and Orissa, the first Indian to govern a province. His presidency came in the year Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Pherozeshah Mehta died and Gandhi returned from South Africa, so the session marks a turning point for the party. Option B is wrong because Ambica Charan Mazumdar presided at Lucknow in 1916, where the Congress and the Muslim League signed their pact and the moderates and extremists reunited. Option C is wrong because Bhupendra Nath Bose presided at Madras in 1914. Option D is wrong because Madan Mohan Malaviya presided at Lahore in 1909 and at the Delhi special session in 1918. Exam tip: 1914 Madras Bose, 1915 Bombay Sinha, 1916 Lucknow Mazumdar.

The correct answer is A, Frederiknagore. The Danes acquired Serampore on the Hooghly in 1755 and named it after their king, and the town later became famous as the base of the Baptist missionaries William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, who printed books in many Indian languages there. Option B, Tranquebar, was the earlier Danish settlement on the Coromandel coast, founded in 1620 with the fort of Dansborg, so it is Danish but it is not Serampore. Option C, Chinsura, a few miles from Serampore on the same river, was the Dutch settlement in Bengal and passed to the English in 1825. Option D, Chandernagore, also on the Hooghly, was the French settlement founded in 1690 and remained French until the middle of the twentieth century. The Danes sold all their Indian possessions to the English in 1845.

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 B, Lord Dalhousie. Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control, sent the Despatch in 1854 while Dalhousie was Governor-General. It recommended a department of education in every province, universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, a network of schools from the village to the college, grants in aid to private schools and the use of the vernacular languages at the lower levels.

Option A is wrong because Lord William Bentinck is linked to Macaulay's Minute of 1835, which made English the medium of higher education, not to the Despatch. Option C is wrong because Lord Auckland is remembered for the First Anglo-Afghan War and left India in 1842. Option D is wrong because Lord Curzon came in 1899 and is associated with the Indian Universities Act of 1904 and the partition of Bengal in 1905.

The correct answer is D, B R Ambedkar. On 20 March 1927 Dr B R Ambedkar led thousands of Dalits to the Chavdar tank at Mahad in Maharashtra and drank its water, asserting the right of the depressed classes to use a public water source. Upper-caste groups later purified the tank with cow dung and curd, and in December that year Ambedkar returned to Mahad and publicly burnt the Manusmriti. The day is remembered as Social Empowerment Day, and Mahad is called the first collective act of Dalit assertion in modern India. Option A is wrong because Jyotirao Phule died in 1890, long before 1927, though his Satyashodhak Samaj of 1873 prepared the ground. Option B is wrong because E V Ramaswamy Naicker, called Periyar, led the Self-Respect Movement and the Vaikom Satyagraha in the south. Option C is wrong because K Kelappan, known as Kerala Gandhi, led the Guruvayur Satyagraha of 1931. Exam tip: Mahad 1927 and Kalaram temple 1930 — both led by Ambedkar.

The correct answer is B, Meerut. On 10 May 1857 the sepoys of the garrison at Meerut refused the new cartridges, killed their European officers, released their imprisoned comrades and marched towards Delhi, which they reached on 12 May. That day is taken as the beginning of the revolt.

Option A is wrong because Barrackpore in Bengal was where Mangal Pandey attacked his officers in March 1857, an earlier incident treated as the spark rather than the outbreak; it is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C is wrong because Delhi was reached two days later, and it became the political centre of the revolt when Bahadur Shah II was proclaimed emperor. Option D is wrong because Kanpur rose later under Nana Saheb. Fix the sequence in mind: Barrackpore in March, Meerut on 10 May, Delhi on 12 May.

The correct answer is A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He founded the Atmiya Sabha, a society of friends for religious and philosophical discussion, at Calcutta in 1815, and it was the first of his organised efforts against idol worship and empty ritual. From it grew the Brahmo Sabha of 1828, later the Brahmo Samaj. Option B is wrong because Keshab Chandra Sen came a generation later and split the Brahmo Samaj by founding the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866. Option C is wrong because Debendranath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Sabha in 1839 and joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1843, giving it organisation after Roy's death. Option D is wrong because Raja Radhakant Deb was an orthodox leader who founded the Dharma Sabha to oppose the abolition of sati, that is, to oppose Roy.

The correct answer is B, Swadeshi Movement. The Swadeshi Movement began as the answer to Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal, which came into effect on 16 October 1905. Curzon called the partition an administrative measure, but the real aim was to divide Hindus and Muslims and break the strength of the nationalists in Bengal. The protest took the form of boycotting British cloth and goods and of promoting Indian-made cloth, salt, schools and banks; the day of the partition was observed as a day of mourning, and the annulment of the partition came in 1911. A is wrong because the Civil Disobedience Movement began in 1930 with the Dandi March. C is wrong because the Quit India Movement was launched in August 1942 after the failure of the Cripps Mission. D is wrong because the Non-Cooperation Movement started in 1920, growing out of Jallianwala Bagh and the Khilafat question. Exam tip: Partition of Bengal 1905 goes with Swadeshi and Boycott, and the partition was annulled in 1911.

The correct answer is A, 1 and 2 only, because the Pranami sect and the theosophists shaped Gandhi's thinking, while the Romantic poets did not. Gandhi's mother Putlibai belonged to the Pranami sect, a Vaishnava tradition that drew on both Hindu and Islamic teaching and held that faiths are one; the household he grew up in therefore treated religious tolerance as ordinary. As a law student in London he met theosophists who were reading the Bhagavad Gita in Edwin Arnold's translation, and it was through them that he first studied his own scripture seriously. Statement 3 is the odd one out, so options B and C are wrong: Gandhi's reading of English writers centred on Ruskin's Unto This Last, Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You and Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience, not on Wordsworth or the Romantics. Option D is wrong because it drops the theosophists. Exam tip: Gandhi's three book influences are Ruskin, Tolstoy and Thoreau.