Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 62

The correct answer is C, 1835. Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote his Minute on 2 February 1835, and Lord William Bentinck's resolution of the following month accepted it, ending the long quarrel between the Orientalists and the Anglicists in favour of European learning taught in English. Option A is wrong because 1813 is the year of the Charter Act that first set aside one lakh rupees a year for education. Option B is wrong because 1823 is the year of the Licensing Regulations against the press, although the General Committee of Public Instruction was also formed in that year. Option D is wrong because 1854 belongs to Wood's Despatch. The policy Macaulay built rested on the downward filtration theory, the belief that education given to the upper classes would trickle down to the masses.

The correct answer is B, Indian Opinion. Gandhi started Indian Opinion at Durban in 1903 to put the case of Indians settled in South Africa before the public.

The weekly was printed at the Phoenix Settlement near Durban and came out in English and Gujarati, with Tamil and Hindi sections in its early years. Gandhi later wrote that a struggle such as satyagraha could not be carried on without a journal of its own, and the paper carried his writings on the campaign against the Asiatic Registration Act.

Option A, Young India, was an English weekly Gandhi edited in India from 1919. Option C, Swaraj Hind, is not a paper associated with him. Option D, Navajivan, was his Gujarati weekly, also taken up in India in 1919.

Exam tip: Indian Opinion, 1903, South Africa; Young India and Navajivan, 1919, India.

The correct answer is C, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Bose was re-elected president at the Tripuri session of 1939 after defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, but the Working Committee would not serve under him; he resigned in April 1939 and Rajendra Prasad was asked to take the chair for the remainder of the year. A is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru had presided in 1929 and 1936 and would preside again in 1937 and 1951, but he did not step in after Bose resigned. B is wrong because Pattabhi Sitaramayya was the candidate Bose had defeated in the election; he became president only in 1948, at Jaipur. D is wrong because Acharya J. B. Kripalani became president much later, at the Meerut session of 1946, the last session before independence.

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 Charter Act of 1813, which required the Company to set aside not less than one lakh rupees a year for the revival and improvement of literature, the encouragement of the learned natives of India and the introduction of useful knowledge. Option A is wrong because the Charter Act of 1793 is remembered for renewing the Company's monopoly for twenty years and for making the Governor-General's salaries a charge on Indian revenues. Option C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1833 ended the Company's commercial activities and made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India. Option D is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 introduced open competition for the civil service and separated the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General's Council.

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 C, Surat, 1907. At Surat the two wings of the Congress quarrelled over the choice of president and over how far the boycott and swadeshi programme should be carried; the session broke up in disorder, Rash Behari Ghosh was declared president, and the Congress stayed divided until 1916. A is wrong because the Benares session of 1905 under Gopal Krishna Gokhale only recorded a protest against the partition of Bengal, with the two groups still inside one organisation. B is wrong because the Calcutta session of 1906 under Dadabhai Naoroji was the session where swaraj was demanded for the first time, and the split was avoided by choosing a leader both sides respected. D is wrong because the Madras session of 1908, again under Rash Behari Ghosh, came after the split and was attended mainly by the moderates.

The correct answer is B, Belgrade. The first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement met at Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, in September 1961, and twenty-five countries took part. The movement grew out of the wish of newly free nations to stay out of the two Cold War blocs, and its founders were Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Its guiding ideas were peaceful coexistence, an end to colonialism and disarmament. A is wrong because Bandung in Indonesia hosted the Afro-Asian Conference of 1955, which prepared the ground but was not a NAM summit. C is wrong because Cairo hosted the second summit in 1964. D is wrong because Jakarta hosted the tenth summit, in 1992. Exam tip: remember the order, Bandung 1955 then the first NAM summit at Belgrade in 1961.

The correct answer is C, 1857, the year of the revolt, when the three presidency universities were founded on the model recommended by Wood's Despatch of 1854; they were examining rather than teaching universities at the start. Option A is wrong because 1835 is the year of Macaulay's Minute and of the Metcalfe Press Act. Option B is wrong because 1854 is the year of the Despatch that recommended the universities, a distinction worth holding on to since many questions offer both years. Option D is wrong because 1882 is the year of the Hunter Commission, and also the year the Vernacular Press Act was repealed by Lord Ripon. A fourth university, at Allahabad, followed later in the century. One more point is often attached to this year: these universities examined candidates and awarded degrees while the teaching was done by affiliated colleges, a pattern that lasted for decades.

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 B, Annie Besant. She presided over the Calcutta session of 1917 and was the first woman president of the Congress, in the same years in which she was leading the Home Rule League. A is wrong because Sarojini Naidu, who presided at Kanpur in 1925, was the first Indian woman president of the Congress, which is a different distinction and the commonest confusion in this question. C is wrong because Nellie Sengupta presided over the Calcutta session of 1933 and was the third woman to hold the office. D is wrong because Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was a leading organiser of the salt satyagraha and of handicrafts and cooperatives after independence, but she never presided over a Congress session. A useful way to keep the two apart is that Besant was the first woman of any nationality to preside, while Naidu was the first Indian woman, and the Kanpur session of 1925 came eight years after Besant Calcutta session of 1917.

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, Lord Lytton, whose Vernacular Press Act of 1878 is remembered as the gagging act because it applied only to newspapers in Indian languages, allowed the government to demand a bond and forfeit printing presses, and gave no right of appeal to a court. Option B is wrong, though Lord Ripon repealed the Act in 1882, which is why his name is attached to the repeal and not the passing. Option C is wrong because Lord Curzon is associated with the Indian Universities Act of 1904 and the partition of Bengal in 1905. Option D is wrong because Lord Minto brought the Newspapers Act of 1908 and the Indian Press Act of 1910 against the extremist press. Note also that the Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped the 1878 Act by becoming an English paper overnight.

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, Belgaum, 1924. The Belgaum session in Karnataka is the only session of the Congress over which Mahatma Gandhi presided, and in his presidential year he worked chiefly for Hindu-Muslim unity, khadi and the removal of untouchability. B is wrong because the Gaya session of 1922 was presided over by C. R. Das, and it was there that the no-changers and the pro-changers divided over entering the legislatures, a quarrel that produced the Swaraj Party. C is wrong because the Kanpur session of 1925 was presided over by Sarojini Naidu, the first Indian woman to hold the office. D is wrong because the Ahmedabad session of 1921 was presided over by Hakim Ajmal Khan, who acted in place of C. R. Das while Das was in jail.

The correct answer is C, Lal Bahadur Shastri. Lal Bahadur Shastri was Prime Minister from 1964 to 1966 and led the country through the war with Pakistan in 1965. He gave the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan, which linked the soldier at the border with the farmer in the field, and his years saw the beginning of the Green Revolution and the setting up of the Food Corporation of India. The war ended with the Tashkent Agreement, signed with Ayub Khan on 10 January 1966; Shastri died in Tashkent the same night. He was given the Bharat Ratna after his death, and 2 October is remembered as his birthday as well as Gandhi Jayanti. Option A is wrong because Morarji Desai became Prime Minister in 1977. Option B is wrong because Indira Gandhi took office in 1966 and led India in the 1971 war. Option D is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru died in May 1964, before this war. Exam tip: 1962 China under Nehru, 1965 Pakistan under Shastri, 1971 Bangladesh war under Indira Gandhi.

The correct answer is A, the Bengal Gazette, also known as Hicky's Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertiser, started by James Augustus Hicky in 1780; its attacks on the officials of the Company led to its seizure. Option B is wrong because the Calcutta Gazette was an official government paper begun a few years later. Option C is wrong because the Bombay Samachar, a Gujarati paper founded in 1822, is the oldest surviving Indian newspaper but not the first one published in India, a distinction that makes it a frequent trap. Option D is wrong because the Indian Mirror belongs to the second half of the nineteenth century and is associated with Devendranath Tagore. Keep the pair apart: first newspaper of 1780, oldest surviving of 1822.

The correct answer is B, Karachi, 1931. The Karachi session, presided over by Vallabhbhai Patel, endorsed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and adopted the resolution on Fundamental Rights and the National Economic Programme, which promised free speech, free press, equality before law, a living wage and state ownership of key industries; the draft is attributed to Jawaharlal Nehru. A is wrong because Lahore in 1929 adopted Purna Swaraj as the goal and fixed Independence Day, not the rights programme. C is wrong because Faizpur in 1936 is remembered as the first session held in a village, where an agrarian programme was discussed. D is wrong because Haripura in 1938, presided over by Subhas Chandra Bose, is remembered for setting up the National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru.

The correct answer is C, Charles Metcalfe, who as acting Governor-General repealed the Licensing Regulations of 1823 through the Press Act of 1835 and freed Indian newspapers from the need for a licence, earning the title of liberator of the Indian press. Option A is wrong because Lord Wellesley did the opposite, imposing pre-censorship on all newspapers by the Censorship of Press Act of 1799. Option B is wrong because Lord William Bentinck is remembered for the abolition of sati in 1829, the suppression of thuggee and the acceptance of Macaulay's education policy. Option D is wrong because Macaulay drafted the Press Act of 1835 and the Indian Penal Code, but the credit for the liberation of the press is attached to Metcalfe, in whose name the law was passed.

The correct answer is B, Nagpur, 1920. The Nagpur session, presided over by C. Vijayaraghavachariar, confirmed the Non-Cooperation programme begun at the Calcutta special session of September 1920 and rewrote the organisation from top to bottom: a Working Committee of fifteen members was created, the provincial committees were reorganised on linguistic lines, the membership fee was lowered to four annas, and the goal was defined as swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means. A is wrong because Lucknow in 1916 is the session of reunion and of the pact with the Muslim League. C is wrong because Calcutta in 1928 considered the Nehru Report on a dominion constitution for India. D is wrong because Madras in 1927 resolved on boycotting the Simon Commission and passed an independence resolution, without touching the party's own constitution.