Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 65

The correct answer is A. Most Ashokan inscriptions are in Brahmi, and the script already shows regional differences in the shapes of its letters.

Ashoka's edicts were written mostly in Prakrit, in the Brahmi script, which James Prinsep deciphered in 1837-38. Brahmi letters varied from region to region even then, and over the centuries these variations grew into the family of scripts used today, including Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. In the north-west the same edicts were written in Kharoshthi, and in Afghanistan in Greek and Aramaic.

B is wrong: hieroglyphic writing, with picture signs, developed in ancient Egypt, not Mesopotamia.

C is wrong: cuneiform, wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets, developed in Mesopotamia, not Egypt.

D is wrong: Kharoshthi was written right to left and used in the north-west, in Gandhara, not in southern India.

Exam tip: Brahmi left to right, mother of Indian scripts; Kharoshthi right to left, north-west; hieroglyphs Egypt; cuneiform Mesopotamia.

The correct answer is B, Sarojini Naidu. She presided over the Kanpur session of the Congress in 1925 and was the first Indian woman to hold the office; she is also remembered as the Nightingale of India and as the leader of the Dharasana salt satyagraha of May 1930. Option A is wrong because Annie Besant, who presided at Calcutta in 1917, was the first woman President of the Congress but was Irish by birth, so she does not answer a question that asks for the first Indian woman. Option C is wrong because Nellie Sengupta, English by birth, presided over the Calcutta session of 1933, the third woman to hold the post. Option D is wrong because Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit never presided over the Congress; her distinction is that she became the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1953.

The correct answer is B, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who published Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English from Pune and was tried for sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code for what he wrote in them. Option A is wrong because Gopal Krishna Gokhale is connected with Sudharak and Hitavada. Option C is wrong because Dadabhai Naoroji brought out Rast Goftar in Gujarati and wrote Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. Option D is wrong because Aurobindo Ghosh edited Vande Mataram during the Swadeshi movement and later Karmayogin. Remember that the sedition section was inserted into the Penal Code in 1870 and became the government's main weapon against nationalist editors. Tilak is also remembered for his words that the government's action proved his case, and for the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals through which he carried politics to ordinary readers of these papers.

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 B, 1916. At the Lucknow session of December 1916, presided over by Ambica Charan Mazumdar, the moderates and the extremists were reunited and the Congress and the Muslim League agreed on a joint scheme of political reform, accepting separate electorates for Muslims; that agreement is the Lucknow Pact. A is wrong because 1909 is the year of the Morley-Minto reforms, which introduced separate electorates by law and are often confused with the pact that later accepted them. C is wrong because 1919 is the year of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and of the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh, and the Congress session that year met at Amritsar. D is wrong because 1923 saw the Delhi special session under Abul Kalam Azad, held to settle the dispute over contesting the legislative elections.

The correct answer is D. The Battle of Plassey was fought on 23 June 1757 on the bank of the Bhagirathi near Palashi in Bengal, and Robert Clive's small Company force defeated Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah there. The victory owed less to fighting than to treachery: the Nawab's commander Mir Jafar kept his troops out of the battle after a secret bargain, and the bankers of Murshidabad backed the plot. Mir Jafar was made Nawab, and the Company won a hold over the trade and revenue of Bengal, which is why 1757 is treated as the start of British political power in India. Option A is wrong because the Nizam of Hyderabad was not a party to Plassey. Option B is wrong because Madras was already a Company settlement and Plassey was fought in Bengal. Option C is wrong because there was no Battle of Berar, and Oudh came under Company influence later. Exam tip: Plassey 1757 against Siraj-ud-daulah, Buxar 1764 against Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-daula and Shah Alam II.

The correct answer is B, Subhash Chandra Bose. In a broadcast on Azad Hind Radio in 1944, Bose addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation and asked for his blessings for the Indian National Army's fight. Though the two differed sharply on method, Bose always treated Gandhi as the leader of the nation, and the title has stuck in common use ever since.

Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, worked closely with Gandhi and called him many things in his writings, but not this title first. Option C, Sarojini Naidu, is remembered as the Nightingale of India and as the person who called Gandhi a Mickey Mouse in jest; she did not coin this title. Option D, Chandra Shekhar Azad, died in 1931 at Alfred Park in Allahabad, well before the broadcast. A related fact worth remembering is that Rabindranath Tagore is credited with giving Gandhi the title Mahatma.

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 B, 2 and 3 only. Rakhmabai had been married as a child and refused to join her husband's household as an adult; he went to court for the restitution of conjugal rights, so statement 3 is part of the case. The judgment and the uproar that followed turned on whether a girl married as a child could be compelled to cohabit, and the campaign it fuelled produced the Age of Consent Act of 1891, which raised the age from ten to twelve years, so statement 2 is also part of it. Statement 1 is not: although Rakhmabai later studied medicine in England and became one of India's first practising woman doctors, the litigation itself was not about a right to education, which is why options A, C and D, each of which includes statement 1, are wrong.

The correct answer is C, China. The Panchsheel agreement was signed on 29 April 1954 between India and China, as part of the treaty on trade between India and the Tibet region of China. Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai gave it the name Panchsheel, the five principles: respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai belongs to those years, and the five principles later shaped the Non-Aligned Movement. The war of 1962 showed how little the agreement held. Option A is wrong because India's main agreements with Pakistan are the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and the Simla Agreement of 1972. Option B is wrong because Bangladesh came into being only in 1971. Option D is wrong because the India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship was signed in 1950. Exam tip: Panchsheel - India and China, 29 April 1954, five principles.

The correct answer is C, Lala Lajpat Rai. The Punjab leader wrote these biographies, lived in the United States during the First World War and was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly in 1926.

Lajpat Rai, the 'Punjab Kesari', was one of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio of extremist leaders. He wrote short lives of the Italian nationalists Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi and of Shivaji and Shrikrishna to inspire national pride. From 1914 to 1919 he stayed in the United States, where he founded the Indian Home Rule League of America and wrote Young India. He presided over the Calcutta special session of the Congress in 1920, founded the Servants of the People Society, and died in 1928 after the police lathi charge during the protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore.

A is wrong: Aurobindo Ghosh turned to spiritual life in Pondicherry and never sat in the Central Assembly.

B is wrong: Bipin Chandra Pal, another of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio, did not write these biographies or found a league in America.

D is wrong: Motilal Nehru led the Swarajists in the Assembly but did not write these works or live in America.

Exam tip: Lajpat Rai = Punjab Kesari, Young India (book), Home Rule League of America, died after Simon Commission protest (1928).

The correct answer is C, Russian revolution. The call ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ closes the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, and it became the rallying cry of the socialist movement that carried the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917. Lenin's party used it to bind industrial workers behind the party, and the words were later carved on Marx's tomb in London and printed on Soviet emblems. The February revolution of 1917 ended tsarist rule and the October revolution brought the Bolsheviks in. A is wrong because the French revolution of 1789 raised liberty, equality and fraternity. B is wrong because the American revolution of 1776 was fought over taxation without representation. D is wrong because Japan had the Meiji Restoration of 1868, a drive to modernise from above rather than a workers' revolution. Exam tip: Communist Manifesto 1848 by Marx and Engels; Russian revolution 1917 under Lenin, slogan of the working class.

The correct answer is C, 1, 4, 3, 2. The events fall in 1972, 1974, 1985 and 2001 in that order, which is also UPSC's official key.

The Simla Agreement was signed on 2 July 1972 by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after the 1971 war; it turned the ceasefire line in Kashmir into the Line of Control. India's first nuclear test, code-named Smiling Buddha, was held at Pokhran on 18 May 1974. The SAARC Charter was signed at the first summit in Dhaka on 8 December 1985. The Agra Summit between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf took place in July 2001 and ended without a joint declaration.

A is wrong: it puts the 1985 SAARC Charter before the 1974 test.

B is wrong: it starts with the 1974 test, but the Simla Agreement came two years earlier.

D is wrong: it begins with the test and also places the 2001 Agra Summit before the 1985 SAARC Charter.

Exam tip: Simla 1972, Pokhran-I 1974, SAARC Dhaka 1985, Lahore bus 1999, Agra 2001.

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 C, Chemical and electrical. The second industrial revolution, from about 1850 to 1914, was driven by steel, chemicals, electricity and oil.

The first industrial revolution began in Britain around 1760 and rested on cotton textiles, coal, iron and the steam engine. The second wave, led by Germany and the United States as well as Britain, brought new science-based industries. Chemical firms made synthetic dyes, fertilisers and explosives, while electrical industries grew from the dynamo, the electric light bulb and power stations. Cheap steel from the Bessemer process and the internal combustion engine belong to this phase too.

A is wrong: coal and iron were the backbone of the first industrial revolution.

B is wrong: mechanised cotton spinning and weaving (spinning jenny, water frame, power loom) started the first revolution.

D is wrong: James Watt's improved steam engine also belongs to the first revolution, in the late 18th century.

Exam tip: first revolution = cotton, coal, iron, steam; second revolution = steel, chemicals, electricity, oil.

The correct answer is C, Burzahom. Pit houses dug into the ground with steps leading down into them were found at Burzahom, a neolithic site near Srinagar in Kashmir.

The pits were deep, with the earth taken out of them heaped around the mouth and a roof of wood and thatch above, which kept the house warm through the long Kashmir winter. Hearths were found both inside the pits and outside them. Burzahom is also known for the burial of dogs along with their masters, for its many bone and stone tools, and for a stone slab showing a hunting scene. Its name means the place of birch, after the birch trees of the valley.

A is wrong: Utnur in Telangana is a neolithic site known for the ash mounds of its cattle pens. B is wrong: Paiyampalli is a neolithic site in Tamil Nadu. D is wrong: Hallur in Karnataka is known as an early site for the use of iron in South India.

Exam tip: Burzahom in Kashmir is the site of pit dwellings and dog burials, while Hallur in Karnataka marks early iron.

The correct answer is A, Mahendravarman I. The Pallava king who ruled in the early 7th century took these titles, and they appear in the inscriptions of the cave temples he cut.

Mahendravarman I, son of Simhavishnu, was a poet, musician and builder. He wrote the Sanskrit farce Mattavilasa Prahasana, which gave him the title Mattavilasa. Vichitrachitta, meaning curious-minded, reflects his love of new ideas: his Mandagapattu inscription boasts that he built a shrine without brick, timber, metal or mortar, marking the start of rock-cut temples in Tamil country. Gunabhara is another of his many birudas. Tradition holds that he moved from Jainism to Shaivism under the influence of Appar, and he fought the Chalukya Pulakeshin II.

B is wrong: Simhavishnu founded the line's power and was known as Avanisimha.

C is wrong: Narasimhavarman I was called Mamalla and Vatapikonda after he took Vatapi.

D is wrong: Simhavarman was an earlier Pallava ruler with none of these titles.

Exam tip: Mahendravarman I = Mattavilasa Prahasana and Mandagapattu cave; Narasimhavarman I = Mamalla, Mahabalipuram and Vatapikonda.

The correct answer is D, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements match what inscriptions tell us about how the decimal place-value system spread.

In the place-value system, the value of a digit depends on its position, so nine digits and a zero can write any number. Mathematicians such as Aryabhata already used place-value ideas around AD 499, but the oldest dated use on an Indian inscription is in the Mankani (Sankheda) copper plates of Gujarat, dated to AD 595-596. Older numerical notation, which had separate signs for tens and hundreds, gradually gave way, and by the ninth century place-value numerals were common in inscriptions across India; the Gwalior inscription of 876 shows a written zero. Inscriptions from Cambodia and Sumatra show place-value numerals in Sanskrit records by the late seventh century.

A is wrong: it leaves out statement 3, which is also correct.

B is wrong: it leaves out statement 2, which is also correct.

C is wrong: it leaves out statement 1, which is also correct.

Exam tip: place value in inscriptions = Mankani plates 595-596 (first), Southeast Asia 7th century, general in India by the 9th century, zero at Gwalior 876.

The correct answer is A, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who launched the Urdu weekly Al-Hilal and, when it was suppressed, followed it with Al-Balagh, using both to argue for Hindu-Muslim unity against the colonial government. Option B is wrong because Mohammad Ali, one of the Ali brothers of the Khilafat movement, edited Comrade in English and Hamdard in Urdu. Option C is wrong because Syed Ahmed Khan founded the Aligarh movement, the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College and the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq. Option D is wrong because Muhammad Iqbal was a poet and philosopher, not the founder of this weekly. Azad later became independent India's first Education Minister, which is how this name links the two halves of the chapter. Al-Hilal also marks a shift in the Urdu press, from a literary tone to open political argument, which is why the government moved against it under the press laws of that decade.

The correct answer is B, Meerut. The Meerut session of November 1946, with Acharya J. B. Kripalani in the chair, was the last session of the Congress held before 15 August 1947. A is wrong because the Ramgarh session of 1940, presided over by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was the last session before the Quit India years; no session could be held between 1940 and 1946, which is why Azad remained president for so long. C is wrong because Jaipur hosted the first session of independent India, in 1948, under Pattabhi Sitaramayya. D is wrong because Tripuri hosted the session of 1939, where Subhas Chandra Bose was re-elected and from which he soon resigned. Azad therefore held the office for the longest unbroken stretch in the Congress history, from 1940 to 1946, and Kripalani was president at the moment of the transfer of power, which is why his name appears in questions on the last Congress president of British India.