Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 42

The correct answer is A, Qutub-ud-din Aibak. Aibak was a Turkish slave of Muhammad Ghori and took charge of the Indian territories after Ghori died in 1206, founding the Slave or Mamluk dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. He made Lahore and then Delhi his seat of power and began the Qutub Minar in honour of the Sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. He was known for his generosity and was called Lakh Baksh, the giver of lakhs. He died in 1210 after falling from a horse while playing chaugan, an early form of polo. B is wrong because Iltutmish was Aibak’s own slave and son-in-law, and ruled after him from 1211. C is wrong because Balban was a later Mamluk sultan who ruled from 1266 and was once part of the Chalisa, the group of forty nobles. D is wrong because Nasir-ud-din Mahmud ruled in the 1240s and 1250s, long after the dynasty was founded. Exam tip: fix the order - Aibak in 1206, Iltutmish in 1211, Raziya in 1236, Balban in 1266.

The correct answer is B, Cholas. Puhar, also called Kaveripattinam, was the great port of the early Cholas of the Sangam age.

The town stood where the Kaveri meets the Bay of Bengal, and Karikala, the best known early Chola ruler, is credited with developing it. Sangam poetry and the Tamil epic Silappadikaram describe its warehouses, its separate quarter for foreign merchants and its trade in pepper, pearls and fine cloth with Rome and South East Asia. Uraiyur was the inland capital of the early Cholas while Puhar served as the coastal capital and port.

A is wrong: the Cheras of the Kerala coast used Muziris and Tondi as their ports. C is wrong: the Pandyas ruled from Madurai and their port was Korkai, famous for pearls. D is wrong: the Vakatakas ruled in the Deccan and had no port on this coast.

Exam tip: pair them up, Chola with Puhar and Uraiyur, Chera with Muziris and Vanji, Pandya with Korkai and Madurai.

The correct answer is D, 72. The first session of the Indian National Congress met at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay from 28 to 31 December 1885 and was attended by 72 delegates, most of them lawyers, journalists, teachers and merchants drawn from the presidency towns, with W. C. Bonnerjee presiding. Options A, B and C are wrong because each is a near figure of the kind a paper setter places beside the right one to test whether the number has been learnt exactly; the session is always described in the sources as a gathering of 72 delegates, and no account puts it at 62, 68 or 78. The way to remember the founding is as a set: 28 December 1885, Bombay, Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, 72 delegates, W. C. Bonnerjee in the chair, A. O. Hume as the organiser and Lord Dufferin as the Viceroy.

The correct answer is A, Slave Dynasty. Razia Sultan was the daughter of Iltutmish, and Iltutmish belonged to the Slave dynasty, also called the Mamluk dynasty or the Ilbari Turks. She ruled Delhi from 1236 to 1240 and is the only woman to have sat on the throne of the Delhi Sultanate. Iltutmish named her his successor over his own sons, and she took the administration in hand, gave up the veil, held open court and led the army in person. The Turkish nobles, the group of forty, would not accept a woman ruler; she was overthrown and killed in 1240. B is wrong because the Khilji dynasty came to power only in 1290 under Jalaluddin Khilji. C is wrong because the Lodhi dynasty ruled from 1451 to 1526 and was the last house of the Sultanate. D is wrong because the Mughal empire was founded by Babur in 1526, nearly three centuries after her. Exam tip: Razia, daughter of Iltutmish, Slave dynasty, 1236 to 1240.

The correct answer is C, 8 August 1942. The All India Congress Committee, meeting at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, passed the Quit India resolution on 8 August 1942, and Gandhi gave his Do or Die speech the same evening. The government arrested the entire leadership in the early hours of 9 August, so the movement spread as a leaderless rising. Option A is wrong because the session opened on 7 August but the resolution was adopted on the following day. Option B is wrong because 15 August is remembered for independence in 1947 and has no connection with the start of the movement. Option D is wrong because by 11 August the movement was already at its height, with strikes, attacks on police stations and railway lines in the United Provinces, Bihar and Bombay. A useful memory hook is the name August Kranti given to the movement and to the maidan where it began.

The correct answer is D, Dadabhai Naoroji. Dadabhai Naoroji set up the East India Association in London in 1866 to place Indian questions before the British public and members of Parliament, and branches of it were soon opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. He had already started the London Indian Society a year earlier. Called the Grand Old Man of India, he wrote Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, in which he explained the drain of wealth from India to Britain, became the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons in 1892 and presided over the Indian National Congress three times. Option A is wrong because Gopal Krishna Gokhale founded the Servants of India Society in 1905. Option B is wrong because George Yule was the first English president of the Congress, at Allahabad in 1888. Option C is wrong because Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first president of the Congress in 1885. Exam tip: London Indian Society 1865 and East India Association 1866, both of Dadabhai Naoroji.

The correct answer is B, Minto-Morley Reforms, 1909. The Indian Councils Act of 1909, known as the Morley-Minto Reforms, introduced separate electorates for Muslims and so gave communal representation legal shape for the first time in British India. Muslim voters elected their own members from separate constituencies, which is why Lord Minto is often called the father of communal electorates. The Act also enlarged the legislative councils and allowed Indians into the executive councils, Satyendra Prasad Sinha becoming the first Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. A is wrong because the Act of 1892 only enlarged the councils and allowed a limited, indirect form of election. C is wrong because the Reforms of 1919 extended separate electorates to Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans but did not begin them. D is wrong because the Act of 1935 widened them further, to depressed classes, women and labour. Exam tip: pair 1909 with separate electorates and Minto, and 1919 with dyarchy in the provinces.

The correct answer is A, Nizam Shahis : Bijapur, which is the mismatched pair. The Nizam Shahis ruled from Ahmadnagar, founded by Malik Ahmad in 1490, while Bijapur belonged to the Adil Shahis of Yusuf Adil Shah. All five Deccan Sultanates grew out of the break-up of the Bahmani kingdom between about 1490 and 1518, and four of them joined hands to crush Vijayanagara at the battle of Talikota in 1565. Bijapur is remembered for the Gol Gumbaz, Golconda for its fort and diamonds, and Ahmadnagar for Chand Bibi’s defence against the Mughals. Option B is a correct pair, because the Barid Shahis held Bidar, the last Bahmani capital. Option C is a correct pair, because the Qutb Shahis of Quli Qutb Shah ruled Golconda and later founded Hyderabad. Option D is a correct pair, because the Imad Shahis held Berar, the first province to break away and the first to be annexed by Ahmadnagar. Exam tip: Ahmadnagar Nizam Shahi, Bijapur Adil Shahi, Golconda Qutb Shahi, Bidar Barid Shahi, Berar Imad Shahi.

The correct answer is A, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is the only American President shot inside a theatre, so he is the one the question points to. He was watching a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington on the night of 14 April 1865 when John Wilkes Booth, an actor who backed the defeated Confederacy, fired at him; Lincoln died the next morning. Lincoln was the sixteenth President, led the United States through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and was the first American President to be assassinated. B is wrong because John F. Kennedy was shot while riding in an open car in Dallas in 1963. C is wrong because James A. Garfield was shot at a railway station in Washington in 1881. D is wrong because William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901. Exam tip: the four assassinated Presidents in order are Lincoln 1865, Garfield 1881, McKinley 1901 and Kennedy 1963.

The correct answer is C, which is the statement that is not correct. The Kushana gold coins were struck on the same weight standard as the Roman aureus of the time, not on a different one, because the dynasty traded briskly with the Roman world and found it convenient to match that standard. The other three statements are sound. The Indo-Greeks issued the first Indian coins that carry the ruler’s name along with his portrait, a sharp change from the earlier punch-marked coins, which bore only symbols. The Kushanas, from Vima Kadphises and Kanishka onwards, issued the first gold coins in India in any quantity, with deities such as Shiva and the Buddha on the reverse. And their gold coins have indeed been found at many sites across north India and Central Asia, which is the clearest proof of how far their trade reached. Exam tip: punch-marked coins are the earliest, Indo-Greek coins the first with royal portraits, Kushana coins the first gold, and the Guptas issued the most gold coins.

The correct answer is C, Square or rectangular. At Mehrgarh the excavators found the remains of square and rectangular houses built of hand-made mud bricks, each divided into small compartments that appear to have been used to store grain. Mehrgarh lies on the Kachi plain near the Bolan Pass in Balochistan and was dug by Jean-Francois Jarrige from 1974. It is the earliest farming village known in the subcontinent, where wheat and barley were grown and sheep, goats and cattle were herded, so it is treated as the Neolithic forerunner of the Harappan world rather than a mature Harappan city. Burials there contained beads of lapis lazuli and turquoise and even show early dentistry. Option A is wrong because triangular houses are found at no site of this period. Option B is wrong because circular dwellings belong to Neolithic sites such as Burzahom in Kashmir, where people lived in pits. Option D is wrong for the same reason. Exam tip: Mehrgarh means the earliest evidence of farming, and square mud-brick houses with storage compartments.

The correct answer is D, Kakatiya. Rudramadevi ruled the Kakatiya kingdom from Warangal, called Orugallu then, in what is now Telangana, in the second half of the thirteenth century. Her father Ganapatideva had no son and named her his successor, so she governed in her own right, took the male title Rudradeva in inscriptions and led her armies herself, holding off rebel nobles and the Yadavas of Devagiri. She was followed by her grandson Prataparudra II, the last Kakatiya ruler, whose Warangal fell to the armies of Delhi in the fourteenth century. Option A is wrong because the Cholas ruled from Thanjavur in the Tamil country. Option B is wrong because the Vakatakas were an early Deccan dynasty of the third to fifth centuries, linked to the Guptas by marriage. Option C is wrong because the Western Gangas ruled from Talakad in Karnataka and built the Gommateshwara statue at Shravanabelagola. Exam tip: Kakatiyas means Warangal, Ganapatideva, Rudramadevi and the thousand-pillar temple at Hanamkonda.

The correct answer is C, Razia Sultana. Razia was the only woman to sit on the throne of Delhi, so she was both the first and the last woman ruler of the Sultanate. She was the daughter of Iltutmish, who chose her over his sons, and she ruled from 1236 to 1240. She held court unveiled, rode an elephant and took the title Jalalat-ud-din Razia. The Turkish nobles of the Chalisa resented a woman on the throne, and she was overthrown and killed in 1240. A is wrong because Chand Bibi was a regent of Ahmednagar and Bijapur in the Deccan in the sixteenth century, not a Delhi sultan. B is wrong because Nur Jahan was the wife of the Mughal emperor Jahangir and wielded influence through him, but never ruled as sovereign. D is wrong because Rani Durgavati ruled Gondwana and fought Akbar’s general Asaf Khan in 1564. Exam tip: remember the pair - Iltutmish named his daughter Razia, who ruled Delhi from 1236 to 1240.

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.

The correct answer is C, Bronze/Copper. Muhammad bin Tughlaq issued token coins of bronze and copper in 1329-30 that were to pass at the value of the silver tanka. The idea itself was sound and had worked in China and Persia, but the sultan did not keep the minting of these coins in state hands. Goldsmiths across the empire forged them in their homes, the treasury was flooded with fake coins, and traders refused to accept them. The sultan had to withdraw the issue and exchange the token coins for silver, which drained the treasury. A is wrong because Rupak was a coin name of the ancient period, not of this experiment. B is wrong because the rupee was introduced much later by Sher Shah Suri as a silver coin. D is wrong because the tanka was the standard silver coin whose value the token coins were meant to carry. Exam tip: link the pair - Muhammad bin Tughlaq and the failed bronze token currency of 1329.

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 A, 1906. The All India Muslim League was founded at Dhaka in December 1906, with Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka taking the lead and Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk and Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk among its founders, while Aga Khan III became its first president. The body grew out of the Simla deputation of 1906, which asked the Viceroy Lord Minto for separate electorates, and the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 granted that demand. The League signed the Lucknow Pact with the Congress in 1916, and from 1940, under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it pressed the Lahore Resolution demand for Pakistan. B is wrong because 1901 has no link with the founding of the League. C is wrong because 1905 is the year of the Partition of Bengal, which shaped the politics the League grew in. D is wrong because no such body was formed in 1903. Exam tip: hold the sequence - Partition of Bengal 1905, Simla deputation and Muslim League 1906, separate electorates 1909.

The correct answer is A, 1896. Vande Mataram, written in Sanskritised Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and included in his novel Anandamath, was sung for the first time at a Congress session at the Calcutta session of 1896, and Rabindranath Tagore himself set the tune and sang it. The song went on to become the anthem of the Swadeshi movement after the partition of Bengal in 1905, and the Constituent Assembly gave it the status of the national song on 24 January 1950, the same day it adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem. Options B, C and D are wrong because they shift the year by one, two or three; the sessions of 1897 at Amraoti, 1898 at Madras and 1899 at Lucknow have no connection with the first singing. Fix 1896 Calcutta for the song and 1905 for the movement that made it famous.

The correct answer is D, the Quit India Movement. Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the national flag at Gowalia Tank in Bombay on 9 August 1942, after the arrest of the senior leaders, and then went underground to direct the movement along with Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia, which earned her the name Heroine of the 1942 movement. Option A is wrong because the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920 to 1922 was led by Gandhi with the Ali brothers and the Khilafat leaders, before she entered public life. Option B is wrong because the best remembered women of the Civil Disobedience Movement are Sarojini Naidu, who led the raid on the Dharasana salt works, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. Option C is wrong because Individual Satyagraha of 1940 is remembered for Vinoba Bhave as the first satyagrahi and Jawaharlal Nehru as the second.

The correct answer is B, Government of India Act of 1858. Passed after the Revolt of 1857, this Act ended the rule of the East India Company and transferred the government of India to the Crown. It abolished the Court of Directors and the Board of Control and created in their place the office of Secretary of State for India, a member of the British Cabinet answerable to Parliament, assisted by a Council of India of fifteen members. The Governor-General was now also styled Viceroy, Lord Canning being the first, which is why the Act is called the Act for the Good Government of India. Option A is wrong because the Indian Councils Act of 1861 added Indians as non-official members to the legislative council. Option C is wrong because the Regulating Act of 1773 was the first British step to control the Company and made Warren Hastings Governor-General of Bengal. Option D is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 separated legislative from executive functions and began open competition for the civil service. Exam tip: 1858 means Crown rule, the Secretary of State and the first Viceroy.