Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 67

The correct answer is B, Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Bose stood for a second term in 1939 against the wishes of Gandhi, who had put forward Pattabhi Sitaramayya, and won by 1,580 votes to 1,377. Gandhi described the result as his own defeat, most of the Working Committee refused to serve under Bose, and he resigned in April 1939 and founded the Forward Bloc the following month.

Option A, C. Rajagopalachari, was a senior Congress leader of Madras and later the first Indian Governor-General, but he was not the candidate here. Option C, Abul Kalam Azad, presided over the Congress from 1940 and held office through the Quit India years and the transfer of power negotiations. Option D, Rajendra Prasad, had been president at the Bombay session of 1934 and later chaired the Constituent Assembly. Only Sitaramayya was Bose's rival at Tripuri.

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 B, Awadh, with Lucknow as its centre. After the annexation of Awadh in 1856 and the exile of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, Begum Hazrat Mahal proclaimed her young son Birjis Qadr as the ruler and led the rising at Lucknow; when the city fell she withdrew and finally took refuge in Nepal. Option A is wrong because the revolt at Jhansi was led by Rani Lakshmibai, who was killed near Gwalior in June 1858. Option C is wrong because Bareilly was led by Khan Bahadur Khan. Option D is wrong because Kanpur was led by Nana Saheb with Tantia Tope as his commander. Pairing each centre with its leader is the standard way this part of the revolt is tested, so the four names should be memorised together.

The correct answer is B, a large wheel with earthen pots tied to the outer ends of its spokes. The araghatta was a water-lifting wheel that carried a chain or ring of pots down into a well and brought them up full.

Early medieval Sanskrit texts and inscriptions mention the araghatta as a common device for irrigating fields from wells. As the wheel turned, each pot dipped into the water, rose with it and emptied into a channel at the top. It is the ancestor of the Persian wheel (rahat) that later spread widely in north India under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, when gearing worked by bullocks was added.

A is wrong: a leather bag drawn over a pulley is the charsa or mot, a different device.

C is wrong: a single large pot driven by bullocks does not describe a wheel with many pots.

D is wrong: a bucket pulled up by hand on a rope is the simplest well-lift, not the araghatta.

Exam tip: araghatta = wheel with a ring of pots; charsa or mot = leather bag; dhenkuli or shaduf = lever-and-bucket lift.

The correct answer is C, Rangoon, in Burma, now Yangon in Myanmar. The Indian National Army had shifted its headquarters from Singapore to Rangoon in January 1944 for the Imphal campaign, and it was in Rangoon on 4 July 1944 that Bose made the speech in which he asked his countrymen for blood in exchange for freedom.

Option A, Singapore, is where he took charge of the army on 4 July 1943, gave the call Chalo Delhi and proclaimed the Provisional Government on 21 October 1943, which is why the city is the common wrong answer here. Option B, Tokyo, is where he arrived in May 1943 and met the Japanese Prime Minister. Option D, Berlin, is where he ran the Free India Centre and Azad Hind Radio from 1941 to 1943. The two famous slogans belong to two different cities and two different years.

The correct answer is C, Aruna Asaf Ali. With Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee arrested in the early hours of 9 August 1942, she hoisted the flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan, the ground where the Quit India resolution had been passed the previous evening, and then went underground to direct the movement. Option A is wrong because Usha Mehta's contribution to the same movement was the secret Congress Radio she ran from Bombay, broadcasting bulletins until she was caught. Option B is wrong because Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay belongs mainly to the salt satyagraha of 1930 and to the revival of handicrafts after independence. Option D is wrong because Sucheta Kriplani worked in the 1942 underground too, but the flag at Gowalia Tank is attributed to Aruna Asaf Ali; she later became the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state.

The correct answer is B, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. A niece of Rabindranath Tagore, she set up the Bharat Stree Mahamandal in 1910 to work for the education of women across provinces and classes, and it is counted as the first women's organisation of all-India reach. Option A is wrong because Pandita Ramabai's institutions were the Arya Mahila Samaj of 1882 and the Sharada Sadan of 1889, both earlier but regional in their work and aimed chiefly at widows. Option C is wrong because Margaret Cousins helped found the Women's Indian Association at Madras in 1917 and founded the All India Women's Conference in 1927. Option D is wrong because Ramabai Ranade founded the Seva Sadan in Bombay and Poona, which trained women for work and service.

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, Moirang. Colonel Shaukat Malik of the Indian National Army raised the tricolour at Moirang, a town near Loktak Lake in Manipur, on 14 April 1944. The place now holds the INA Memorial and museum, and the event is remembered as the first hoisting of the flag of free India on Indian soil by the army.

Option A, Imphal, was the main objective of the 1944 offensive, but the siege failed and the town was never taken. Option B, Kohima, in Nagaland, saw the other great battle of that campaign, and the Japanese and INA retreat from Imphal and Kohima in mid-1944 broke the advance. Option D, Ukhrul, is a hill district of Manipur through which the campaign passed but where no such flag ceremony took place. Moirang is the answer examiners look for.

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, Savitribai Phule. She taught at the school the couple opened at Bhidewada in Pune in 1848 and is remembered as the first woman teacher of the modern Indian school; she also worked for widows and against caste discrimination through the Satyashodhak Samaj. Option B is wrong because Tarabai Shinde is known for her tract Stri Purush Tulana of 1882, a defence of women against the double standards of her time, not for the school. Option C is wrong because Anandi Gopal Joshi was one of the first Indian women to earn a degree in Western medicine, in 1886. Option D is wrong as the answer here because, although Fatima Sheikh taught alongside Savitribai Phule in the same enterprise, the question asks for the founder-teacher who worked with Jyotirao Phule.

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, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Japanese, who had occupied the islands in 1942, transferred them in name to the Azad Hind Government in December 1943, and Bose renamed them Shaheed and Swaraj, meaning the martyr and self-rule. He visited Port Blair and hoisted the flag there on 30 December 1943. In practice the Japanese military kept control of the islands.

Option A, Lakshadweep, in the Arabian Sea, remained under British control throughout the war. Option C, Singapore, was the seat of the Azad Hind Government but was Japanese-occupied territory, not Indian soil handed over to it. Option D, Manipur, was the theatre of the 1944 campaign, where the INA reached Moirang, but it was never handed over to the Provisional Government. The renaming of the islands is the fact asked in papers.

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 C, Madras. The Women's Indian Association was started at Madras in 1917 by Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins and Dorothy Jinarajadasa, and it took up the franchise, education and the removal of social disabilities; its journal was Stri Dharma. Option A is wrong because Bombay is associated with the Seva Sadan and with the All India Women's Conference work of later years rather than with this body's founding. Option B is wrong because Calcutta was the seat of the Bharat Stree Mahamandal of 1910 and of the Congress sessions of 1917 and 1933 presided over by women. Option D is wrong because Lahore is remembered for the Congress session of 1929 and the Purna Swaraj resolution, not for this association. The year 1917 is easy to fix in memory because the same year brought the women's deputation to Montagu.

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 A, the Red Fort in Delhi. The court martial of the three officers, a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, opened at the Red Fort in November 1945, and the Congress set up an INA Defence Committee whose counsel included Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali, Kailash Nath Katju and Jawaharlal Nehru. The men were convicted of waging war against the King, but the sentences were remitted because public feeling had become too strong to ignore.

Option B, Fort William in Calcutta, was the headquarters of the Eastern Command and held no such trial. Option C, the Cellular Jail at Port Blair, had held revolutionaries of an earlier generation, among them Veer Savarkar and the Chittagong and Lahore conspiracy prisoners. Option D is wrong because the proceedings were a court martial, not a case in a High Court.

The correct answer is A, the Heraka movement of the Naga hills. Gaidinliu, a Rongmei Naga, joined her cousin Haipou Jadonang's Heraka movement, which combined religious revival with resistance to British rule, and took over its leadership after he was hanged in 1931. Arrested in 1932 while still in her teens, she remained in jail until 1947; Jawaharlal Nehru, who met her in Shillong jail, gave her the title Rani. Option B is wrong because the Ulgulan of Birsa Munda was in Chhotanagpur at the end of the nineteenth century. Option C is wrong because the Santhal rebellion of 1855 to 1856 was led by Sidhu and Kanhu. Option D is wrong because the Bardoli satyagraha of 1928 was a peasant movement in Gujarat led by Vallabhbhai Patel.

The correct answer is A, Mohammad Ziauddin. On the night of 16 and 17 January 1941 Bose left the Elgin Road house in Calcutta, where he was under house arrest, dressed as a Pathan insurance agent of that name, and travelled by way of Gomoh in Bihar and Peshawar to Kabul, and from there through Moscow to Berlin. The escape is remembered as the Mahanishkraman, the great departure.

Option C, Orlando Mazzotta, was a later alias: Bose travelled on an Italian passport in that name on his way from Kabul into Europe, so it belongs to the next stage of the journey, not to the night of the escape from Calcutta. Options B and D, Abdul Rahman and Rahmat Khan, are not names he used. The usual trap in this question is to pair the Calcutta escape with the Italian passport name.

The correct answer is A. Fifteen women were members of the Constituent Assembly, and Begum Aizaz Rasul was the only Muslim woman among them; Dakshayani Velayudhan was its only Dalit woman member. Option B is wrong because Sarojini Naidu was one of several women in the Assembly, which also included Hansa Mehta, Durgabai Deshmukh, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Renuka Ray, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Sucheta Kriplani. Option C is wrong on the plain fact; women took part in the debates on fundamental rights, on the uniform civil code and on the status of minorities. Option D is wrong because the Drafting Committee was chaired by Dr B. R. Ambedkar; Sucheta Kriplani's remembered moment in the Assembly is her singing of Vande Mataram at the session of 14 August 1947.