Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 37

The correct answer is B, Lodi dynasty. The Lodis followed the Sayyids at Delhi. Bahlol Lodi, an Afghan noble who was governor of Sirhind, took the throne in 1451 when the last Sayyid ruler Alam Shah gave up Delhi and settled at Badaun. The Lodis were the last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate and its only Afghan line. Bahlol was followed by Sikandar Lodi, who shifted the capital to Agra, a city he founded in 1504, and then by Ibrahim Lodi, who was killed by Babur in the first battle of Panipat in 1526, which ended the sultanate and began Mughal rule. Option A is wrong because the Khaljis ruled much earlier, from 1290 to 1320, between the Slave dynasty and the Tughluqs. Option C is wrong because no Rajput dynasty ruled Delhi after 1192. Option D is wrong because the Tughluqs came before the Sayyids. Exam tip: Slave, Khalji, Tughluq, Sayyid, Lodi, then the Mughals from 1526.

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 D is wrong because 1911 is the year the partition was revoked, not made.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 A, Akbar. Akbar founded Din-i-Ilahi in 1582, a small spiritual order that he built out of ideas drawn from several faiths. He had already set up the Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri in 1575, where scholars of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity debated in front of him, and the new order grew out of those sittings. Din-i-Ilahi had no scripture, no priests and no rituals of its own; it asked only for a pure life and loyalty to the emperor, and Birbal is the one well known Hindu noble said to have joined it. Very few people ever followed it and the order faded away after Akbar died. B is wrong because Shah Jahan is remembered for the Taj Mahal and Mughal architecture, not for a new faith. C is wrong because Jahangir is known for his twelve edicts and his chain of justice. D is wrong because Babur founded the Mughal empire in 1526. Exam tip: Ibadat Khana 1575 and Din-i-Ilahi 1582, both Akbar.

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 B. The British wanted Russian influence kept out of Kabul, but they did not want a strong Afghan state on the north-west frontier either, because a powerful neighbour would be hard to control. This twin aim is part of the Great Game, the long rivalry between Britain and Russia over Central Asia. Lord Auckland acted on it in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838 to 1842, replacing Dost Mohammad with Shah Shuja; the occupation ended in a disastrous retreat from Kabul. The policy settled into keeping Afghanistan weak, divided and dependent, a cushion rather than an ally. Option A is wrong because Britain deliberately avoided building up Afghan strength. Option C is wrong because keeping Russia out, not inviting it in, was the whole point of the policy. Option D is wrong because Afghanistan was never annexed; the two Anglo-Afghan wars of this century ended in withdrawal. Exam tip: First Anglo-Afghan War, 1838 to 1842, under Lord Auckland, and the Great Game against Russia.

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 A, Nana Saheb. He was the adopted son of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, and the refusal of his pension by the Company was one of the causes of the revolt. At Kanpur he was proclaimed Peshwa, and his commander Tantia Tope led the fighting there and later at Jhansi and Gwalior. Nana Saheb finally escaped to Nepal.

Option B is wrong because Kunwar Singh, the aged zamindar of Jagdishpur, led the revolt in Bihar. Option C is wrong because Khan Bahadur Khan led it at Bareilly in Rohilkhand. Option D is wrong because Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was the leader at Faizabad in Awadh. Centre and leader pairs are asked in both directions, so learn them as a table and revise the four Awadh and Bihar names together.

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, Jyotiba Phule. He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the society of truth seekers, in 1873 in Maharashtra to free the lower castes from Brahminical domination, and his book Gulamgiri of the same year compared their condition with that of slaves. With Savitribai Phule he had already opened a school for girls at Pune in 1848. Option A is wrong because B. R. Ambedkar's organisations came much later, the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha in 1924 and the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927. Option C is wrong because Sri Narayana Guru worked in Kerala and founded the SNDP Yogam in 1903. Option D is wrong because E. V. Ramasamy Naicker, known as Periyar, began the Self-Respect Movement in Tamil Nadu in 1925. Phule's aim was social and not only religious: he pressed for schooling for the lower castes and for women, and in 1888 he was given the title Mahatma at a public meeting in Bombay.

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 A, Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909. This Act, formally the Indian Councils Act of 1909, first gave Muslims a separate electorate, in which Muslim voters chose Muslim members from Muslim-only constituencies. Lord Minto was the Viceroy and John Morley the Secretary of State, and the step came after the Simla deputation of 1906 and the founding of the Muslim League that year. It also enlarged the legislative councils and let Indians sit on the Viceroy's executive council for the first time, Satyendra Prasad Sinha being the first. Nationalists called the measure communal, since it made religion the basis of representation. Option B is wrong because the reforms of 1919 only extended separate electorates to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans. Option C is wrong because the Communal Award of 1932 added separate electorates for the depressed classes. Option D is wrong because the Act of 1935 continued the system rather than creating it. Exam tip: Minto is remembered as the father of communal electorates, 1909.

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, Nagabhata-I. Nagabhata I founded the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty in the middle of the eighth century, with his power centred on Avanti and Ujjain in western India. He is remembered mainly for stopping the Arab armies that pushed in from Sindh, a check that the Pratiharas were praised for long after. His successors Vatsaraja, Nagabhata II and Mihira Bhoja made the dynasty one of the three great powers of the age, and the Pratiharas, the Palas of Bengal and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan fought the long tripartite struggle for Kannauj, which the Pratiharas finally held. A is wrong because Narasimhadeva I was an Eastern Ganga ruler of Odisha who built the Sun Temple at Konark. C is wrong because Harshavardhana belonged to the Vardhana dynasty of Thanesar and Kannauj. D is wrong because Ramachandra was the last important Yadava king of Devagiri. Exam tip: Nagabhata I founded the Pratiharas; Mihira Bhoja was their greatest ruler.

The correct answer is C, Satyashodak Samaj – Maharashtra. Jyotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the Truth Seekers' Society, at Pune in 1873 to fight caste rank and priestly control in Maharashtra. Phule, helped by his wife Savitribai, had already opened schools for girls and for children of the castes then called low, and in his book Gulamgiri he compared the state of the Shudras with that of slaves. The Samaj arranged marriages without Brahmin priests and spoke for peasants, workers and women. A is wrong because the Satnami movement was led by Guru Ghasidas among the leather-working castes of Chhattisgarh, not in Punjab. B is wrong because the Matua sect was started by Harichand Thakur among the Namasudras of Bengal, not in Tamil Nadu. D is wrong because the Arya Samaj was founded by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 and was strongest in Punjab and north India, not Kerala. Exam tip: Phule – Satyashodhak Samaj, Pune 1873, Gulamgiri; Ghasidas – Satnami, Chhattisgarh.

The correct answer is B, Chola. Thanjavur was the capital of the Chola dynasty, which ruled the Tamil country from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Vijayalaya Chola took Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyars in about 850 CE and made it his capital, and it stayed the seat of power through the empire's greatest years. Rajaraja I built the Brihadeeswarar temple there, a granite Shiva temple in the Dravida style completed about 1010 CE and now a World Heritage Site; his son Rajendra I later raised a new capital at Gangaikonda Cholapuram. A is wrong because the Palas ruled Bengal and Bihar, with their centres at Pataliputra and Munger. C is wrong because the Vakatakas ruled the Deccan from Nandivardhana and Vatsagulma. D is wrong because the Parmaras ruled Malwa and had Dhar as their capital. Exam tip: Thanjavur and the Brihadeeswarar temple go with Rajaraja I of the Cholas.

The correct answer is D, Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana and was one of the five founders of the Non-Aligned Movement. He took Ghana to independence in 1957, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to break free of colonial rule, and served first as its Prime Minister and then as its President. The Non-Aligned Movement was built by five leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Sukarno of Indonesia and Nkrumah of Ghana, who refused to join either the American or the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Their effort led to the first NAM summit at Belgrade in 1961. A is wrong because Nigeria became independent in 1960 and its early leader was Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. B is wrong because Kenya was led to freedom by Jomo Kenyatta. C is wrong because the first Prime Minister of Uganda was Milton Obote. Exam tip: remember the five founders of NAM and the Belgrade summit of 1961.

The correct answer is D, Chin Khilich Khan. Chin Qilich Khan, better remembered by his title Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, was a Mughal noble appointed governor of the Deccan by Muhammad Shah. Tired of court intrigue at Delhi, he returned to the south, defeated his rival Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda in 1724 and from then on ruled the Deccan as an independent prince in all but name, founding the Asaf Jahi or Nizam dynasty of Hyderabad that lasted until 1948. He kept the forms of Mughal loyalty, struck coins in the emperor’s name, yet appointed his own officers and made war and peace on his own. Option A is wrong because Asaf Jah II, that is Nizam Ali Khan, was a later ruler of the same line, not its founder. Option B is wrong because Bahadur Shah was the Mughal emperor who ruled from 1707 to 1712. Option C is wrong because Alivardi Khan made himself independent in Bengal, not Hyderabad. Exam tip: Hyderabad 1724 Chin Qilich Khan, Awadh 1722 Saadat Khan, Bengal Murshid Quli Khan.

The correct answer is A, Treaty of Mangalore. The Second Anglo-Mysore War ran from 1780 to 1784. Haidar Ali fought the English East India Company with the Marathas and the Nizam on his side, and after his death in December 1782 his son Tipu Sultan carried the war on and signed the Treaty of Mangalore in March 1784. By its terms the two sides gave back the territory and the prisoners each had taken, so the war ended in a draw and left Mysore undiminished; it was the last treaty the Company signed with an Indian power on equal terms. B is wrong because no Treaty of Arcot closed this war. C is wrong because Wandiwash was the battle of 1760 in which the English beat the French in the Third Carnatic War, not a treaty. D is wrong because the Treaty of Madras of 1769 ended the First Anglo-Mysore War. Exam tip: the four wars end at Madras 1769, Mangalore 1784, Seringapatam 1792 and Tipu's death in 1799.

The correct answer is B, Ricardian theory of rent. The Ryotwari settlement rested on David Ricardo's theory of rent, which held that rent is the surplus left after the cost of cultivation is met, so the state could claim that surplus straight from the tiller. Alexander Read and Thomas Munro introduced the system in Madras, and it spread to Bombay, Assam and Berar, covering about half of British India. Revenue was settled directly with the ryot, the peasant, who was treated as the owner of his land so long as he paid; there was no zamindar in between, the demand was fixed in cash and high, and the settlement was revised about every thirty years. A is wrong because Adam Smith wrote on the division of labour and free trade, not on this settlement. C is wrong because Malthus is remembered for his theory of population. D is wrong because Marx wrote later and had no hand in British revenue policy. Exam tip: Permanent Settlement with Cornwallis in Bengal, Ryotwari with Munro in Madras, Mahalwari with Holt Mackenzie in the North-Western Provinces.

The correct answer is D, Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. Swami Sahajanand Saraswati set up the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha in 1929 to organise the peasants of Bihar against the zamindars. He was a sanyasi who turned to peasant work, and his Sabha pressed for an end to illegal cesses and begar and for security of tenancy for the raiyat. What he built in Bihar grew into the All India Kisan Sabha, founded at Lucknow in 1936 with Sahajanand Saraswati as its first president and N G Ranga as general secretary. A is wrong because Kunwar Singh led the revolt of 1857 in Bihar and died in 1858. B is wrong because J M Sengupta was a Congress leader of Bengal with no part in it. C is wrong because Jayaprakash Narayan, though a Bihar leader, was then building the Congress Socialist Party, which was founded in 1934. Exam tip: Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha 1929 and the All India Kisan Sabha at Lucknow in 1936, both with Sahajanand Saraswati.