Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 50

The correct answer is B, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Radcliffe, an English lawyer who had never been to India before, chaired both the Punjab and the Bengal Boundary Commissions, each of which had two Congress and two League nominees. His award was signed on 12 August and published on 17 August 1947, two days after independence, and the frontier it drew is still called the Radcliffe Line. Option A is wrong because Cripps was a member of the Cabinet Mission and of the earlier 1942 mission. Option C is wrong because Pethick-Lawrence headed the Cabinet Mission as Secretary of State for India. Option D is wrong because Wavell was the Viceroy till March 1947 and had no part in the boundary award. Remember that Lahore went to Pakistan while Amritsar and Gurdaspur came to India.

The correct answer is D, He was the first recipient of the Padma Shree Award. C. Rajagopalachari was one of the first three recipients of the Bharat Ratna in 1954, along with C. V. Raman and S. Radhakrishnan, not of the Padma Shri, so this statement is not true. Known as Rajaji, he took charge in 1948 as the last Governor General of India and the only Indian to hold that post, after Lord Mountbatten left. He had earlier been Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Union Home Minister and Chief Minister of Madras State. A is true, since no other Indian held the office. B is true, because he founded the Swatantra Party in 1959 to oppose Nehru's policy of state control and land ceilings. C is true, as he was a close associate of Gandhi and a senior Congress leader. Exam tip: the first Bharat Ratna went to Rajaji, Raman and Radhakrishnan in 1954.

The correct answer is A, a plebiscite held in February 1948. The Nawab of Junagadh, Mahabat Khan III, announced accession to Pakistan in September 1947 although his small state in Kathiawar was surrounded by Indian territory and had a largely Hindu population. Popular resistance followed, the Nawab left for Karachi, and after the administration was taken over a plebiscite was held in February 1948 in which the vote for India was overwhelming. Option B describes Hyderabad, where Operation Polo ran from 13 to 18 September 1948. Option C is wrong because the Radcliffe Boundary Commission drew the line between India and Pakistan in Punjab and Bengal and had no role in the princely states. Option D is wrong: the referendum of the 1950s that students sometimes recall is the vote in the Chandernagore settlement, and 1956 is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, not of any vote in Junagadh.

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 C, the Mountbatten Plan, 1947. Announced on 3 June 1947 and therefore also called the 3 June Plan, it provided that the legislative assemblies of Bengal and Punjab would meet in two parts to decide on partition, that a referendum would be held in the North-West Frontier Province and in Sylhet district of Assam, that Sind and Baluchistan would make their own decision, and that British paramountcy over the princely states would lapse. Option A is wrong because the Wavell Plan of 1945 dealt only with the composition of the Viceroy's Executive Council. Option B is wrong because the Cabinet Mission Plan rejected partition and proposed grouping of provinces within one union. Option D is wrong because the Cripps Proposals of 1942 offered Dominion status after the war with a right of provinces to stay out of the union.

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 Patiala and East Punjab States Union. It was formed in 1948 by grouping Patiala with Kapurthala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Malerkotla, Nalagarh and Kalsia, with the Maharaja of Patiala as Rajpramukh, and it became a Part B state under the Constitution of 1950. PEPSU was merged into Punjab in 1956 when the States Reorganisation Act ended the four-part classification. Options A, C and D are plausible-looking expansions built from the same words, and that is exactly how the question is set; each of them misstates either the first element, which is the state of Patiala, or the second, which is East Punjab. Remember PEPSU alongside the other unions of states created in the same years, Saurashtra from the Kathiawar states, Rajasthan from the Rajputana states, Madhya Bharat from the central Indian states and Travancore-Cochin in the south.

The correct answer is A, Chalukya. Vikramaditya VI ruled the Western Chalukya kingdom of Kalyani, and his court poet Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita on his life. Vikramaditya VI reigned from about 1076 to 1126 CE from Kalyani in present-day Karnataka, and he started the Chalukya-Vikrama era, a new reckoning counted from his accession, which very few Indian rulers ever did. Another scholar of his court was Vijnaneshwara, who wrote the Mitakshara, the best known commentary on the Yajnavalkya Smriti and a key text of Hindu law. B is wrong because the Pallavas ruled from Kanchi and had faded away by the tenth century. C is wrong because the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta were displaced by these very Chalukyas in 973 CE. D is wrong because the Western Gangas ruled Talakad in southern Karnataka and are remembered for Shravanabelagola, not for Bilhana. Exam tip: Bilhana wrote Vikramankadevacharita for Vikramaditya VI, and Vijnaneshwara wrote the Mitakshara at the same court.

The correct answer is B, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India from 24 March 1947 and continued after 15 August 1947 as the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India, holding the post till June 1948. Option A is wrong because Wavell was Viceroy from 1943 to March 1947 and left before independence. Option C is wrong because C. Rajagopalachari succeeded Mountbatten in 1948 and was the only Indian and the last Governor-General, the office ending when the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. Option D is wrong because Rajendra Prasad was President of the Constituent Assembly and then the first President of the Republic from 1950. In Pakistan the arrangement differed: Muhammad Ali Jinnah became its first Governor-General and Liaquat Ali Khan its first Prime Minister.

The correct answer is C, Prithviraja III. Prithviraja III, the Chahamana or Chauhan ruler of Ajmer and Delhi, defeated Muhammad Ghori in the First Battle of Tarain in 1191; he is the Prithviraj Chauhan of popular memory. Tarain, now Taraori, lies near Thanesar in Haryana on the old route to Delhi, and the same ground saw the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192, in which Ghori returned, defeated Prithviraja and opened north India to Turkish rule. Chand Bardai, who wrote the Prithviraj Raso, and Jayanaka, who wrote the Prithviraja Vijaya, are linked with his court. A is wrong because Vigraharaja III ruled the Chahamanas long before Ghori appeared in India. B is wrong because Ajayaraja II is remembered for founding Ajmer in the twelfth century, not for this battle. D is wrong because Durlabharaja III also belongs to the earlier line of Ajmer rulers. Exam tip: First Tarain 1191 Prithviraja wins, Second Tarain 1192 Ghori wins.

The correct answer is B, Part B states. These were the former princely units and unions of states, among them Hyderabad, Mysore, Rajasthan, Saurashtra, Madhya Bharat, Travancore-Cochin, PEPSU and Jammu and Kashmir, and each was headed by a Rajpramukh rather than by a Governor. Option A, Part A states, were the former governors' provinces of British India, such as Bombay, Madras, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, each with a Governor and an elected legislature. Option C, Part C states, were the former chief commissioners' provinces and some smaller princely areas, including Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Vindhya Pradesh, Ajmer, Coorg, Manipur and Tripura, administered by a Chief Commissioner or Lieutenant Governor. Option D, Part D, held only the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The whole scheme was abolished by the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which replaced it with states and union territories.

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 B, the Wavell Plan. Lord Wavell called Indian leaders to Simla in June 1945 to consider his plan for a reconstructed Executive Council in which all members except the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief would be Indians, with equal representation for caste Hindus and Muslims. The conference broke down when Jinnah demanded that the Muslim League alone should nominate every Muslim member. Option A is wrong because the August Offer was made in 1940 and promised Dominion status after the war along with an expanded council. Option C is wrong because the Cabinet Mission came only in March 1946. Option D is wrong because the Cripps Mission proposals were made in 1942 and were rejected by the Congress, with Gandhi calling the offer a post-dated cheque. The lesson examiners draw from Simla is that the League had by then secured a veto on any settlement.

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 B, the 36th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1975. It made Sikkim the twenty-second state of the Union after a referendum in which its people voted to end the rule of the Chogyal and to join India. Option A, the 35th Amendment of 1974, is the near miss the examiner relies on: it gave Sikkim the intermediate status of an associate state of the Union, a status that existed only for that one year. Option C, the 42nd Amendment of 1976, is the sweeping amendment of the Emergency years that added the words socialist, secular and integrity to the Preamble and created the Fundamental Duties. Option D, the 44th Amendment of 1978, reversed many of those changes and replaced internal disturbance with armed rebellion as a ground for a national emergency. Sikkim had been an Indian protectorate since 1950.

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, 9 December 1946. The Constituent Assembly, elected indirectly by the provincial legislatures under the Cabinet Mission Plan, met for the first time on 9 December 1946 in the Constitution Hall at New Delhi, with Dr Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman as the oldest member present. The Muslim League boycotted the sitting, and Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected permanent President on 11 December 1946. Option B is wrong because 24 March 1946 is the date the Cabinet Mission reached India. Option C is wrong because 15 August 1947 is the date of independence, when the same Assembly became the sovereign legislature of the Dominion. Option D is wrong because 26 November 1949 is the date the Constitution was adopted, while it came into force on 26 January 1950.

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 D, none of the above. The princely states were not a small fringe of the map. Standard accounts place their share at roughly two-fifths of the land area of the subcontinent, and some put it close to a half, with around a quarter of the population; about 565 states of every size, from Hyderabad and Kashmir down to estates of a few villages, lay between and around the British provinces. Option A, one-third, is the figure students most often guess and it understates the true extent. Option B, one-fourth, is nearer to the share of population than of area, which is where the confusion comes from. Option C, one-tenth, is far too small and would describe only a handful of the larger states. Because every fraction offered falls short of the accepted range, the paper marks the fourth option as correct. The lesson is to carry one bearing in memory: more than a third, nearer two-fifths.

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.