Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 8

The correct answer is B. The Harappan script uses about four hundred picture-like signs, and it was written in the boustrophedon style, that is from right to left in the first line and then from left to right in the next, turning like an ox ploughing a field. Since the inscriptions are very short and no bilingual text exists, no reading has been accepted, and the civilisation is therefore called proto-historic.

Option A is wrong on both counts: the signs are far too many for an alphabet and no decipherment has been agreed. Option C names Brahmi, a much later script of the historical period, first read from the inscriptions of Ashoka. Option D is wrong because the Harappans traded with Mesopotamia but wrote in a script of their own, quite unlike cuneiform, which was pressed into clay with a wedge-shaped stylus.

The correct answer is A, Cyril Radcliffe. The British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe chaired both the Punjab and the Bengal Boundary Commissions in 1947. Each commission had four judges, two named by the Congress and two by the Muslim League, and when they could not agree the final decision fell to Radcliffe. He had never been to India before and was given only about five weeks for the job. His award was made public on 17 August 1947, two days after independence, and the line he drew is still called the Radcliffe Line on India's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Option B is wrong because Moon was a British civil servant in Punjab who later wrote about Partition; he did not head the commissions. Option C is wrong because A. V. Alexander came to India in 1946 as a member of the Cabinet Mission. Option D is wrong because one person, Radcliffe, headed both commissions. Exam tip: Cabinet Mission 1946 was Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander; the 1947 border was Radcliffe's.

The correct answer is D, Shah Jahan. The Jama Masjid of Delhi was built by Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 as the main mosque of his new capital, Shahjahanabad. It is one of the largest mosques in India, made of red sandstone and white marble, with three great gateways, four towers and two tall minarets. Its courtyard can hold about 25,000 worshippers. Its original name was Masjid-i-Jahan Numa, and it stands facing the Red Fort, which Shah Jahan also built. A is wrong because Humayun died in 1556, almost a century before the mosque was built. B is wrong because Babur founded the Mughal Empire in 1526 and died in 1530. C is wrong because Aurangzeb built the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore and the Moti Masjid inside the Red Fort, not the Jama Masjid. Exam tip: Shah Jahan = Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Jama Masjid (Delhi), Moti Masjid (Agra); Aurangzeb = Badshahi Mosque (Lahore), Bibi ka Maqbara (Aurangabad).

The correct answer is C, Vakataka Dynasty. Chandragupta II married his daughter Prabhavatigupta to the Vakataka king Rudrasena II, whose kingdom lay in the Deccan, south of the Gupta lands. When Rudrasena died young, Prabhavati ruled as regent for her minor sons, so the Guptas had a friendly power guarding their southern flank. This alliance helped Chandragupta II in his campaign against the Shaka Kshatrapas of western India, whom he defeated to win Gujarat and Malwa. Her copper-plate grants, such as the Poona plates, are an important source for this period. Option A is wrong because the Lichchhavi link belongs to Chandragupta I, who married the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi. Option B is wrong because the Kadambas of Karnataka claimed marriage ties with the Guptas, but Prabhavati was not married into that family. Option D is wrong because the Naga link is Chandragupta II's own marriage to the Naga princess Kuberanaga, who was Prabhavati's mother. Exam tip: Kumaradevi (Lichchhavi) with Chandragupta I; Prabhavati to the Vakatakas under Chandragupta II.

The correct answer is B, Lord Cornwallis. As Governor-General from 1786 to 1793 he turned the Company's corrupt trading staff into a paid, rule-bound civil service. He raised salaries, banned private trade and presents, and set up a graded service promoted by seniority, which is why he is called the father of the civil services in India. He also kept all higher posts for Europeans, which is the 'Europeanised' part of the question. His Cornwallis Code of 1793 separated revenue collection from judicial work, and the same year he introduced the Permanent Settlement of land revenue in Bengal. A is wrong because Lord Canning is remembered as the last Governor-General and first Viceroy, who handled the Revolt of 1857. C is wrong because Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal under the Regulating Act of 1773, laid early foundations but did not build a professional service. D is wrong because Lord Dalhousie is known for the Doctrine of Lapse, railways and the telegraph. Exam tip: Cornwallis 1793 means civil services, Cornwallis Code and Permanent Settlement together.

The correct answer is D, Kashmir. Lalitaditya Muktapida was the most powerful king of the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir in the eighth century, ruling roughly from 724 to 760 CE. He is remembered for building the Martand Sun Temple near Anantnag, whose ruins still stand, and for founding the town of Parihaspora as his capital. Almost everything we know about him comes from Kalhana's Rajatarangini, the twelfth-century Sanskrit chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, which credits him with campaigns against Yashovarman of Kannauj and with wide conquests. The words Karkota, Martand and Rajatarangini all point to Kashmir, so any one of them settles the question. A, Gujarat, was ruled at that time by the Maitrakas of Valabhi and later the Chaulukyas. B, Sikkim, had no such king; its Namgyal kingdom began only in 1642. C, Kerala, was under the Cheras and never had a Karkota ruler. Exam tip: Lalitaditya, Karkota, Martand temple, Rajatarangini all mean Kashmir.

The correct answer is C, 18 years and 14 years. The 1929 Act fixed these as the lowest ages at which men and women could marry. It is also called the Sarda Act, after Har Bilas Sarda, who moved the bill in the Central Legislative Assembly. The Act was passed in 1929 and came into force on 1 April 1930, and it applied to people of all religions. NCERT's history book treats it as a milestone in the long campaign of reformers against child marriage. Independent India raised the limits to 21 years for men and 18 years for women in 1978, and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 later replaced the old law. A is wrong because the Act did not fix 17 years for men and 15 years for women. B is wrong because 20 and 18 were never the ages set by this Act. D is wrong because 21 and 18 came only with the 1978 amendment, not in 1929. Exam tip: Sarda Act 1929, boys 18 and girls 14; amendment of 1978, 21 and 18.

The correct answer is A, Nizam Shahis : Bijapur. The Nizam Shahis ruled from Ahmadnagar; Bijapur belonged to the Adil Shahis. The Bahmani Sultanate, founded in 1347 by Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah, broke up in the late 15th and early 16th centuries into five Deccan Sultanates: Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Golconda, Bidar and Berar. Four of them joined hands to defeat Vijayanagara at the Battle of Talikota in 1565, while Berar stayed away. Each dynasty is named after the title of its founder, which makes the pairs easy to link. Option B is correctly matched because the Barid Shahis ruled Bidar, the last Bahmani capital. Option C is correctly matched because the Qutb Shahis ruled Golconda, famous for its fort and its diamond trade. Option D is correctly matched because the Imad Shahis ruled Berar, which Ahmadnagar annexed in 1574. Exam tip: Nizam Shahi Ahmadnagar, Adil Shahi Bijapur, Qutb Shahi Golconda, Barid Shahi Bidar, Imad Shahi Berar.

The correct answer is C, Lahore. The Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted the Purna Swaraj or complete independence resolution. At midnight on 31 December 1929, Nehru hoisted the tricolour on the banks of the river Ravi. The Congress then fixed 26 January 1930 as Purna Swaraj Day for the whole country, and the session also authorised the Working Committee to launch civil disobedience, which began with the Dandi March in March 1930. That is why the Constitution was brought into force on 26 January 1950. A is wrong, because the Ahmedabad session of 1921 met during the Non-Cooperation Movement, with Hakim Ajmal Khan as acting president. B is wrong, because the Calcutta session of 1928 under Motilal Nehru only gave the British one year to accept dominion status. D is wrong, because the Lucknow session of 1916 is known for the Congress-League pact and the reunion of moderates and extremists. Exam tip: Lahore 1929, Nehru, Purna Swaraj; 26 January 1930, the first Independence Day.

The correct answer is A, Abu'l Hasan al Hujwiri. He wrote Kashf-ul-Mahjub in Lahore in the 11th century, and it is the oldest Persian treatise on Sufism. Al Hujwiri came from Ghazni in Afghanistan and settled in Lahore. The title means "Unveiling of the Veiled", and the book explains Sufi ideas, practices and the lives of earlier saints for ordinary readers. His shrine in Lahore, Data Darbar, is still one of the busiest in South Asia, and people call him Data Ganj Bakhsh, "the giver of treasures". Option B is wrong because Moinuddin Chishti set up the Chishti order in India at Ajmer in the late 12th century and did not write this book. Option C is wrong because the sayings of Nizamuddin Auliya were recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi in Fawaid-ul-Fuad. Option D is wrong because Amir Khusrau was a poet and musician, known for works such as Khazain-ul-Futuh and Tughluq Nama. Exam tip: Kashf-ul-Mahjub by Hujwiri of Lahore; Fawaid-ul-Fuad records Nizamuddin Auliya.

The correct answer is D, 1928. On 8 and 9 September 1928, young revolutionaries met secretly at the ruins of Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi and renamed the Hindustan Republican Association as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. Chandrashekhar Azad became its commander, with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Bhagwati Charan Vohra among the key members. The word 'Socialist' showed that the group now wanted not just freedom but a society free from exploitation. The HRA itself had been founded in 1924 at Kanpur by Sachindranath Sanyal and others, and it had carried out the Kakori train action in 1925. Option A is wrong because 1927 is the year Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and others were hanged in the Kakori case. Option B is wrong because 1930 saw the Chittagong armoury raid, not the birth of the HSRA. Option C is wrong because 1929 is the year Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly. Exam tip: HRA 1924 at Kanpur, HSRA 1928 at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi.

The correct answer is C, Ahmad Shah Abdali. On 14 January 1761 the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali, also called Ahmad Shah Durrani, crushed the Maratha army at Panipat in present-day Haryana. The Marathas were led by Sadashivrao Bhau, and Vishwasrao, the young son of Peshwa Balaji Bajirao, was killed in the fighting. Abdali was backed by the Rohilla chief Najib-ud-daula and by Shuja-ud-daula, the Nawab of Awadh. The defeat checked Maratha expansion in north India for about a decade and made it easier for the British to rise to power. Option A is wrong because Hemu lost the Second Battle of Panipat to Akbar's forces in 1556. Option B is wrong because Muhammad Ghori fought the battles of Tarain in 1191 and 1192, not at Panipat. Option D is wrong because Babur won the First Battle of Panipat against Ibrahim Lodi in 1526 and founded the Mughal empire. Exam tip: Panipat I 1526 Babur vs Ibrahim Lodi; Panipat II 1556 Akbar vs Hemu; Panipat III 1761 Abdali vs Marathas.

The correct answer is D, Sulaiman and Kirthar hills. These hills in the north-west of the subcontinent, now in Pakistan, are among the places where people first began to grow wheat and barley. NCERT's Class 6 history book says this happened about 8000 years ago, when people here also began rearing sheep, goats and cattle and started living in villages. Mehrgarh, a fertile plain near the Bolan Pass in this region, is one of the earliest farming villages known to us. A is wrong because the Nilgiri hills in the far south are not linked with the first wheat and barley farming. B is wrong because the Garo hills in the north-east are named as a place where agriculture developed, but not as the home of the earliest wheat and barley. C is wrong because the Malabar area on the south-west coast is not where wheat and barley farming began. Exam tip: first wheat and barley, Sulaiman and Kirthar hills; oldest farming village, Mehrgarh near the Bolan Pass.

The correct answer is B, 2 and 3 only. Goa was taken from Bijapur and the Madras site came from a Vijayanagara Nayak, but the Dutch did not get their east coast land from the Gajapatis. Albuquerque captured Goa in 1510 from the Adil Shahi Sultanate of Bijapur, and it became the centre of Portuguese power in the East. In 1639 Francis Day obtained the site of Madras from Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka, a local chief under the Vijayanagara ruler, and Fort St. George was built there. Statement 1 is wrong because the Dutch set up their east coast factories, such as Masulipatnam (1605) and Pulicat (1610), with grants from the Golconda Sultanate and from Vijayanagara and its Nayaks, long after Gajapati power in Odisha had ended. So A, C and D, which include statement 1, are wrong. Exam tip: Goa 1510 from Bijapur, Madras 1639 from a Vijayanagara Nayak, the Dutch at Masulipatnam and Pulicat.

The correct answer is B, Indus river. Mohenjodaro lies on the right bank of the Indus in Larkana district of Sindh, now in Pakistan. It was excavated in 1922 by R. D. Banerji, and its name means 'mound of the dead'. It was the largest planned city of the civilisation, and papers ask about its finds: the Great Bath, the Great Granary, the bronze dancing girl, the bearded priest-king and the Pashupati seal. Remember the sister site too: Harappa, the first city dug up in 1921 by Daya Ram Sahni, stands on the Ravi. A is wrong because the Jhelum flows through Kashmir and Punjab and meets the Indus system far north of Sindh. C is wrong because the Ghaghara is a Himalayan tributary of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, far east of the Harappan heartland. D is wrong because the Beas is a Punjab tributary of the Sutlej, not the river at Mohenjodaro. Exam tip: Mohenjodaro on Indus, Harappa on Ravi, Lothal on Bhogava, Kalibangan on Ghaggar, Ropar on Sutlej.

The correct answer is A, Nahar Singh. Raja Nahar Singh was the last ruler of Ballabhgarh, a small Jat state in what is now Faridabad district of Haryana, just south of Delhi. During the revolt of 1857 he sided with the rebels and with the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. After the British recaptured Delhi, he was arrested and tried, and he was hanged at Chandni Chowk in Delhi on 9 January 1858; his state was then annexed. Faridabad still remembers him, as its cricket stadium and the Delhi Metro station at Ballabhgarh carry his name. Option B is wrong because Balram Singh, also called Balu, was the 18th-century founder of the Ballabhgarh state, long before 1857. Option C is wrong because Ajit Singh was not the ruler of Ballabhgarh at the time of the revolt. Option D is wrong because Gopal Singh was not its last ruler either; the throne in 1857 was held by Nahar Singh. Exam tip: Haryana's 1857 leaders include Rao Tula Ram of Rewari, Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabhgarh and Nawab Abdur Rahman Khan of Jhajjar.

The correct answer is A, Zat, Sawar. Every Mughal mansab was expressed by two numbers, the zat rank and the sawar rank. Akbar organised the mansabdari system in the 1570s so that every noble and officer, civil or military, had a place on one graded ladder. The zat rank fixed a mansabdar's status and his personal salary, while the sawar rank fixed how many horsemen he had to keep ready for the emperor. Mansabdars were usually paid through jagirs, which were rights to collect land revenue from an area, not ownership of the land, and they could be transferred at the emperor's will. The post was not hereditary. Option B is wrong because barkat (blessing) and fana (merging of the self in God) are ideas from Sufi thought. Option C is wrong because namus and din are words for honour and faith, not ranks. Option D is wrong because peshkash and nazr were tributes and gifts offered to a ruler or a superior. Exam tip: zat = personal rank and pay; sawar = number of cavalrymen; together they make one mansab.

The correct answer is B, Lord Metcalfe. As acting Governor-General, Sir Charles Metcalfe repealed the licensing regulations of 1823 through the Press Act of 1835, so he is called the 'Liberator of the Indian Press'. The 1823 regulations had been imposed by acting Governor-General John Adam, and they made every printing press take a government licence, which could be withdrawn at will. Metcalfe replaced this with a simple rule: a printer or publisher only had to declare where the press was. Papers like to set the trap of Ripon here, because he too freed the press, but decades later. A is wrong because Lord Lytton did the opposite; he passed the Vernacular Press Act of 1878, called the 'gagging Act'. C is wrong because Lord Ripon repealed Lytton's Vernacular Press Act in 1882, not the 1823 regulations. D is wrong because Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General from 1842 to 1844, is known for the annexation of Sindh, not for press freedom. Exam tip: Adam 1823 gagged the press, Metcalfe 1835 freed it, Lytton 1878 gagged it again, Ripon 1882 freed it.

The correct answer is C, Anti-slavery activists of American Civil War. Phule saw the condition of India's 'lower' castes as a form of slavery, so he dedicated his book to the Americans who had fought to free slaves. The book is Gulamgiri, which means slavery, published in 1873. Eight years earlier, in 1865, the American Civil War had ended with slavery abolished in the United States. By this dedication Phule linked the struggle against racial slavery in America with the struggle against caste in India. In the same year, 1873, he founded the Satyashodhak Samaj to work for caste equality. A is wrong because the book was not dedicated to India's anti-colonial nationalists. B is wrong because the Bhakti saints were poets of an earlier age, not the people Phule honoured in this book. D is wrong because the Brahmo Samaj reformers of Bengal were not the ones he dedicated it to. Exam tip: Gulamgiri (1873) and Satyashodhak Samaj (1873), both by Jyotirao Phule.

The correct answer is C, Pavnar, Maharashtra. Vinoba Bhave lived in his ashram at Pavnar near Wardha and began the individual Satyagraha from there on 17 October 1940. Gandhiji launched this limited protest after rejecting the August Offer of 1940, to show that India had not agreed to be dragged into the Second World War. Only chosen individuals would make an anti-war speech and court arrest, so that the war effort was not disturbed by a mass movement. Gandhiji picked Vinoba Bhave as the first satyagrahi and Jawaharlal Nehru as the second. Option A is wrong because Punnapra-Vayalar in Travancore saw a communist-led uprising in 1946. Option B is wrong because Nadiad in Kheda is linked with the Kheda Satyagraha of 1918. Option D is wrong because the individual Satyagraha began from one place, Pavnar. Exam tip: August Offer 1940, then individual Satyagraha from Pavnar; Vinoba first, Nehru second.