Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 38

The correct answer is A, Khizr Khan. Khizr Khan founded the Sayyid dynasty at Delhi in 1414 after taking the city from Daulat Khan Lodi. He had been the governor of Multan and had submitted to Timur, so he never called himself Sultan: he ruled as a deputy with the title Rayat-i-Ala, read the Friday sermon and struck coins in the name of Timur's son Shah Rukh and sent him tribute. The dynasty had four rulers in all and by its close the sultanate had shrunk to Delhi and the country around it. Option B is wrong because Alauddin Alam Shah was the last Sayyid, who left Delhi for Badaun in 1451. Option C is wrong because Muhammad Shah was the third ruler of the line. Option D is wrong because the second ruler is known as Mubarak Shah, in whose reign Yahya bin Ahmad Sirhindi wrote the Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi. Exam tip: Sayyids from 1414 to 1451, Khizr Khan first and Alam Shah last.

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 D, Sepoy Mutiny 1857. Begum Hazrat Mahal, a queen of the deposed ruler of Awadh, led the revolt at Lucknow in 1857 and had her young son Birjis Qadr proclaimed the ruler of Awadh. She held the city for months, rejected the terms the British offered her and withdrew to Nepal, where she died.

Option A is wrong because the Moplah Revolt of 1921 was a peasant rising in the Malabar region of present day Kerala, long after her time. Option B is wrong because the Paika Revolt of 1817 in Odisha was led by Bakshi Jagabandhu, four decades before 1857. Option C is wrong because there was no Gond revolt of 1941 of this kind; the Gond risings against the Company belong to the early nineteenth century. Her name always goes with Lucknow and Awadh in 1857.

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, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. A Sanskrit scholar and principal of Sanskrit College, he argued from the shastras themselves that the remarriage of widows was permissible, petitioned the government and so brought about the Act of 1856; he also worked for girls' schools and against polygamy. Option B is wrong because Behramji Malabari, a Parsi reformer, pressed for the Age of Consent Act of 1891. Option C is wrong because Har Bilas Sarda moved the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, which is named the Sharda Act after him. Option D is wrong because Raja Ram Mohan Roy died in 1833; his great legislative success was the Regulation of 1829 that declared sati illegal, not the widow remarriage law. The Act was passed while Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General, a second fact often asked along with Vidyasagar's name.

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, Punjab and Sind. The elections of 1937 were held under the Government of India Act, 1935, and the Congress swept the country, winning a clear majority in five provinces and emerging as the largest party in most of the rest. The two provinces where it did not come first were Punjab and Sind. In Punjab the Unionist Party of Sikandar Hyat Khan, a cross-community alliance of landlords, dominated the assembly. In Sind local parties and independents held the field and no single group was strong, so the Congress stayed a minor player. The Congress eventually formed ministries in eight of the eleven provinces, and these resigned in October 1939 over India being drawn into the Second World War without consultation. Option B is wrong because the Congress was the largest party in Assam. Options C and D are wrong for the same reason, as each of them wrongly names Assam. Exam tip: 1937 elections - Congress ministries in 8 of 11 provinces, with Punjab and Sind the exceptions.

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, Vijayalaya. Around 850 AD Vijayalaya, until then a feudatory of the Pallavas, seized Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyar chiefs and made it his capital, and that conquest marks the beginning of the imperial Chola line. He built a temple of the goddess Nishumbhasudini there. His successors Aditya I and Parantaka I pushed the kingdom outward, and under Rajaraja I and Rajendra I it grew into the strongest power in south India, with a navy that reached Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. B is wrong because Krishna I was a Rashtrakuta ruler, remembered for the rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora. C is wrong because Parantaka I was a later Chola king, a successor and not the founder. D is wrong because Rajaraja I, who ruled from 985 to 1014 and built the Brihadeshwara temple at Thanjavur, came much later. Exam tip: Vijayalaya founded the line, Rajaraja I built Brihadeshwara and Rajendra I led the campaign to the Ganga.

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, Singapore. Subhas Chandra Bose proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India, the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, at Singapore on 21 October 1943. He himself took charge as head of state, prime minister and minister of war. The government was recognised by Japan, Germany and Italy among others, declared war on Britain and the United States, later moved its headquarters to Rangoon, and was given charge of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which Bose renamed Shaheed and Swaraj. Bose had reached Singapore in July 1943 and taken command of the Indian National Army from Rash Behari Bose. Option B is wrong because Shanghai had no part in this. Option C is wrong because Berlin is where Bose spent 1941 to 1943 and set up the Free India Centre and the Indian Legion. Option D is wrong because Mandalay in Burma is the jail where he was held in the 1920s. Exam tip: 21 October 1943 at Singapore, with the headquarters shifting to Rangoon in 1944.

The correct answer is D, Neolithic. Piklihal and Utnur are South Indian Neolithic settlements, famous for the ash mounds their cattle-keeping people left behind. Piklihal lies in Karnataka and Utnur in Telangana, and both were excavated in the 1950s. Their people tamed cattle, used polished stone axes and handmade grey pottery and lived in circular huts, which places them in the Deccan Neolithic phase of roughly 2500 to 1000 BCE. The ash mounds are the burnt remains of heaped cow dung from cattle pens, a feature almost unique to this region. A is wrong because monolithic simply means made of a single large stone and is not an archaeological period. B is wrong because megalithic sites are later burial sites marked by large stones, mostly belonging to the Iron Age. C is wrong because Palaeolithic sites are far older hunting camps with rough unpolished tools and no sign of herding. Exam tip: remember Piklihal, Utnur, Maski, Brahmagiri and Sanganakallu together as the Deccan Neolithic ash-mound sites.

The correct answer is B, Separate electorates for untouchables. The conference met in Bombay in 1931 and resolved that the depressed classes must be allowed to elect their own representatives through separate electorates, a demand Dr B. R. Ambedkar carried to the Second Round Table Conference in London the same year. The British accepted it in the Communal Award of 1932, which gave separate electorates to the depressed classes. Gandhi opposed this as a step that would split Hindu society and began a fast unto death in Yerwada jail. The deadlock ended with the Poona Pact of September 1932, under which separate electorates were given up and replaced by a larger number of seats reserved for the depressed classes inside the general electorate. Option A is wrong because universal adult suffrage was a later, wider demand of the national movement. Option C is wrong because the conference spoke for the depressed classes, not minorities in general. Option D is wrong because the form of the state was not its subject. Exam tip: Communal Award 1932, then Poona Pact 1932 - separate electorates traded for reserved seats.

The correct answer is A, 1 and 2 only. The Act of 1813 broke the Company's trade monopoly and asserted the Crown's sovereignty, but left the revenues where they were, so the first two statements stand and the third does not. The Act came at the height of the free trade campaign in Britain: it threw the India trade open to all British merchants, keeping the monopoly only in tea and in the China trade, which was ended by the Charter Act of 1833. It also declared in plain words that the Crown held sovereignty over the Indian territories the Company governed, and it set aside one lakh rupees a year for education and allowed missionaries into India. Statement 3 is wrong because the Company continued to control and spend Indian revenues; Parliament supervised through the Board of Control rather than taking the purse. B and D are wrong because each includes statement 3. C is wrong for the same reason and also drops statement 2. Exam tip: 1813 opened trade except tea and China; 1833 ended the monopoly altogether.

The correct answer is D, Jhelum. Alexander and Porus fought the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BCE on the banks of the Jhelum, the river the Greeks called Hydaspes and the Rig Veda calls Vitasta. Porus was the Paurava king who ruled the land between the Jhelum and the Chenab; he fought with war elephants and lost, but Alexander was so struck by his bearing that he gave the kingdom back to him and kept him as an ally. This was Alexander's last great battle in India, for his tired soldiers refused to march beyond the Beas and he turned homewards. Option A is wrong because the Parushni, today the Ravi, was the river of the Battle of Ten Kings in the Rig Veda. Option B is wrong because Alexander only crossed the Indus to enter Punjab. Option C is wrong because he never reached the Ganga at all. Exam tip: Hydaspes is the Jhelum, Alexander against Porus, 326 BCE.

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 C, At the Second Continental Congress in 1775. The Congress met in Philadelphia in May 1775, soon after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, and in June it appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the newly created Continental Army. He was chosen partly for his experience in the French and Indian War and partly because a Virginian at the head of a largely New England army would bind the colonies together. He held the command through the whole War of American Independence until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Option A is wrong because the Boston Tea Party of December 1773 was a protest against the Tea Act and created no army. Option B is wrong because the First Continental Congress of 1774 only sent a petition to the king and agreed to boycott British goods. Option D is wrong because Washington had already led the army for a year when independence was declared. Exam tip: 1775 command, 1776 Declaration of Independence, 1781 Yorktown, 1783 Treaty of Paris.

The correct answer is A, Old stone age. The earliest and by far the longest phase of human prehistory is the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age, when people lived by hunting and gathering and used rough, unpolished tools made mostly of quartzite. In India it is divided into the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, and its well known sites are Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh with its rock shelters and paintings, Hunsgi in Karnataka and Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu. Robert Bruce Foote, a geologist, picked up the first Palaeolithic tool in India at Pallavaram near Madras in 1863. Option B is wrong because the Mesolithic is the middle stone age of small microlithic tools, when animals were first tamed. Option C is wrong because the Iron Age is far later and belongs to history, not prehistory. Option D is wrong because the New Stone Age, or Neolithic, is the age of polished tools, farming and pottery. Exam tip: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, then the Iron Age.

The correct answer is B, 1833. The Charter Act of 1833 ended the East India Company's last trading privilege, its monopoly over trade with China and in tea, and turned the Company into a purely administrative body holding India in trust for the British Crown. Pressure from British free-trade manufacturers, who wanted open access to Asian markets, forced the change. The same Act made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India, with Lord William Bentinck the first to hold the title, centralised legislative power in his council and declared that no Indian was to be barred from office on grounds of religion, birth, descent or colour. Option A is wrong because the Charter Act of 1813 ended the monopoly on Indian trade but expressly kept the China and tea monopoly. Option C is wrong because 1838 saw no charter legislation. Option D is wrong because Company rule itself had ended in 1858 under the Government of India Act. Exam tip: 1813 Indian trade opened, 1833 China and tea monopoly ended, 1853 civil services opened to competition.

The correct answer is C, 17. Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled the Ghaznavid kingdom from 998 to 1030, is recorded as having led seventeen raids into India between about 1000 and 1027. His aim was plunder and not permanent rule, so he carried away treasure and left no settled administration east of the Punjab. The best known of the raids destroyed the Somnath temple in Gujarat in 1025; earlier he had defeated Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi dynasty in 1001 and sacked the rich temple towns of Mathura, Thanesar and Kanauj. The scholar Al-Beruni, who wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind, and the poet Firdausi belonged to his court. A is wrong because five is far short of the recorded total. B is wrong because fifteen is the figure most often confused with the right one. D is wrong because seven is not the accepted count either. Exam tip: Mahmud of Ghazni made 17 raids and struck Somnath in 1025, while Muhammad Ghori's win at Tarain in 1192 began Turkish rule.