Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 2

The correct answer is B, 1960. The reorganisation of 1956 had left a bilingual Bombay State with Marathi and Gujarati speakers together. Agitation by the Samyukta Maharashtra movement and the Mahagujarat movement led to the Bombay Reorganisation Act, and on 1 May 1960 the state was divided into Maharashtra with Bombay as its capital and Gujarat with Ahmedabad as its first capital.

Option A, 1956, is the year the States Reorganisation Act created the bilingual state rather than divided it. Option C, 1963, is the year Nagaland became a state, on 1 December. Option D, 1966, is the year Punjab was divided and Haryana was formed, on 1 November. Both states keep 1 May as their formation day, so the date is easy to confirm, and note that Gandhinagar became the capital of Gujarat only later.

The correct answer is D, 1953. Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras province. The immediate cause was the death of Potti Sriramulu on 15 December 1952 after a fast unto death for a Telugu state, and the agitation that followed forced the Government's hand.

Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, when Andhra State was enlarged with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad and renamed Andhra Pradesh, so it marks a later step and is the commonest wrong choice. Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, when the map still carried the Part A to Part D classification. Option B, 1947, is independence, five years before the agitation began. The order to remember is 1952 death, 1953 Andhra State, 1956 Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is C, Kushinagar. The Buddha died there, an event described as the mahaparinirvana, and the town in eastern Uttar Pradesh keeps the Mahaparinirvana temple with its long reclining image of the Buddha, along with a stupa raised over his relics. It is one of the four places every Buddhist pilgrim is asked to visit.

Option A, Sarnath near Varanasi, is where the Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment, the event called the turning of the wheel of law, and it holds the Dhamek Stupa; it is in Uttar Pradesh but stands for a different event. Option B, Bodh Gaya, is in Bihar and is the place of his enlightenment. Option D, Lumbini, is in Nepal and is his birthplace. The four events, birth, enlightenment, first sermon and death, go with Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar in that order.

The correct answer is D, Akbar. He built Fatehpur Sikri in the Agra district of present day Uttar Pradesh in the sixteenth century and made it his capital, naming it after his victory in Gujarat. The city holds the Buland Darwaza, the Jama Masjid, the Panch Mahal and the tomb of Salim Chishti, and it was abandoned after a few years, which is why it survives so completely. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Option A, Babur, founded the dynasty after the first battle of Panipat in 1526 and ruled from Agra, not from Sikri. Option B, Humayun, lost the empire to Sher Shah Suri and regained it shortly before his death, and built nothing of this kind. Option C, Jahangir, was Akbar's son and was born at Sikri, which is the reason the place is often wrongly credited to him; he ruled from Agra and Lahore.

The correct answer is B, Champaran Satyagraha. Gandhi went to Champaran in northern Bihar in 1917 at the repeated request of the cultivator Raj Kumar Shukla, to look into the tinkathia system under which peasants had to grow indigo on a fixed part of their holding for European planters. The enquiry committee that followed ended the system, and the episode made Gandhi a national figure.

Option A, the Kheda Satyagraha, came in 1918 in Gujarat and was about the refusal to remit land revenue after a failed harvest. Option C, the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, also in Gujarat, was led by Vallabhbhai Patel, who won the title Sardar for it. Option D, the Dandi March of 1930, was the salt satyagraha and came much later. Only Champaran was both the first and in Bihar.

The correct answer is A, 22 March. On 22 March 1912 the province of Bihar and Orissa was carved out of the Bengal Presidency, which gave Bihar a separate administrative identity for the first time. The day is observed every year as Bihar Diwas with cultural programmes in the state and among people from Bihar living elsewhere.

Option B, 15 November, is the day Jharkhand was created out of the southern districts of Bihar in 2000, and is observed as Jharkhand's formation day. Option C, 1 November, is the formation day of several states created by the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, among them Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Option D, 26 January, is Republic Day and belongs to the nation, not to any single state.

The correct answer is A, Nagaur in Rajasthan. Acting on the report of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, Rajasthan became the first state to introduce Panchayati Raj, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated it at Nagaur on 2 October 1959, Gandhi Jayanti. Andhra Pradesh followed later the same year, which is why it is the usual second answer.

Option B, Shadnagar in Andhra Pradesh, is where that state launched its own Panchayati Raj in November 1959, after Rajasthan. Option C, Jaipur, is the capital and a natural guess, but the inauguration was deliberately held in a rural district. Option D, Gandhinagar, did not exist as a city in 1959 and Gujarat itself was formed only in 1960. Note also that Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh worked with three tiers before the 73rd Amendment made them uniform in 1992.

The correct answer is B, Rajasthan. Rajasthan covers about 342,239 square kilometres, roughly a tenth of the area of India, and has been the largest state since Madhya Pradesh was divided in 2000. It is bounded by Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and it has the longest stretch of India's international border with Pakistan.

Option A, Madhya Pradesh, is the second largest state and was the largest before Chhattisgarh was carved out of it. Option C, Maharashtra, is third by area but first among these in population. Option D, Uttar Pradesh, is the most populous state of India but stands fourth in area. Candidates who remember the population order rather than the area order pick Uttar Pradesh, which is the trap the question is built on.

The correct answer is C, Telangana. It was formed on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, out of the north-western districts of Andhra Pradesh, and Hyderabad was made the common capital of both states for a transitional period. It is counted as the twenty-ninth state.

Options A, B and D are the three states created in the year 2000, which take the numbers twenty-six to twenty-eight in the same count: Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh on 1 November, Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh on 9 November, and Jharkhand from Bihar on 15 November. Because they were created within a fortnight of one another, examiners often ask for their order, so tie each to its parent state and its date. The reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 created Union Territories, not a thirtieth state.

The correct answer is D, Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the Madras province on 1 October 1953, the first time independent India accepted language as the ground for a new state, and in 1956 it was enlarged and renamed Andhra Pradesh. Every later linguistic state followed this precedent.

Option A, Karnataka, was formed in 1956 as Mysore State by bringing Kannada-speaking areas together and was renamed Karnataka only in 1973, so it came later. Option B, West Bengal, existed from 1947 as a product of the partition of Bengal rather than of a linguistic reorganisation. Option C, Punjab, was reorganised on a linguistic basis much later, in 1966, when Haryana was separated and hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Learn 1953 as the single date for the first linguistic state.

The correct answer is A, Asaf-ud-Daula. The Nawab of Awadh had the Bara Imambara built at Lucknow in 1784 as a famine relief project, so that people could earn wages through a hard year, and the Rumi Darwaza was raised at the same time. Its central hall is one of the largest vaulted chambers built without pillars, and the maze of passages above it is known as the Bhulbhulaiya.

Option B, Wajid Ali Shah, was the last Nawab of Awadh and was deposed by the British in 1856, an act that fed the revolt of the following year. Option C, Shuja-ud-Daula, fought at Buxar in 1764 and was the father of Asaf-ud-Daula. Option D, Saadat Ali Khan, ruled after him and built other monuments in the city. All four belong to the same line, so the date of 1784 is the surest way to fix the right name.

The correct answer is A, Ayodhya. The city stands on the Sarayu in eastern Uttar Pradesh and is one of the oldest towns named in Indian literature. The Sarayu is fed by waters coming down from the Himalaya through the Ghaghara system and joins the Ganga further east, and the ghats of Ayodhya lie along it.

Option C, Kanpur, is also in Uttar Pradesh but stands on the Ganga, which makes it the closest wrong answer in the list. Option D, Haridwar, is in Uttarakhand and is the town where the Ganga leaves the hills for the plain. Option B, Bhopal, is the capital of Madhya Pradesh and is known for its lakes rather than for a river. The pairs worth holding are Varanasi and Prayagraj on the Ganga, Agra and Mathura on the Yamuna, Lucknow on the Gomti and Ayodhya on the Sarayu.

The correct answer is B, Shri Krishna Sinha. Known to the state as Shri Babu, he became the first Chief Minister of Bihar and held the office for many years after independence. His government is remembered for the abolition of the zamindari system and for opening temples to all castes. Jairamdas Daulatram was the first Governor of the state.

Option A, Dr Rajendra Prasad, was born at Ziradei in Siwan district and became the first President of India, not the Chief Minister of the state. Option C, Jayaprakash Narayan, never held office; he led the movement of 1974 that he called Sampoorna Kranti. Option D, Karpoori Thakur, was a later Chief Minister remembered for reservation policy and for abolishing the English requirement in matriculation, but he was not the first.

The correct answer is C, 2000. Jharkhand was created on 15 November 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, out of the southern plateau districts of Bihar. It was one of three states formed that year, along with Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh and Uttaranchal, now Uttarakhand, out of Uttar Pradesh. The separation took away most of Bihar's coal, iron ore and heavy industry.

Option A, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, which redrew boundaries on linguistic lines but did not create Jharkhand. Option B, 1972, is the year Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full states. Option D, 2014, is the year Telangana was separated from Andhra Pradesh, and it is the commonest wrong choice for candidates who remember only that a state was created that year.

The correct answer is B, the Ghaggar. Kalibangan, in Hanumangarh district, stands on the dry bed of the Ghaggar, the river many identify with the Saraswati of the texts. Excavation there produced the earliest ploughed field found anywhere in the subcontinent, rows of fire altars, a fortified citadel and lower town, and cylindrical seals.

Option A, the Luni, flows through Marwar far to the south west and has no Harappan town of this importance on it. Option C, the Banas, gives its name to the Banas or Ahar culture of Chalcolithic Rajasthan, with sites such as Ahar and Balathal near Udaipur, which is a different culture. Option D, the Sabarmati, belongs mostly to Gujarat. Remember Kalibangan with the Ghaggar and Hanumangarh, and Lothal and Dholavira with Gujarat.

The correct answer is A, Sirohi. Guru Shikhar, about 1,722 metres high, stands on Mount Abu in Sirohi district and is the highest point both of the Aravallis and of Rajasthan. Mount Abu is the only hill station in the state and also holds the Dilwara Jain temples, famous for their marble carving, and the Nakki Lake.

Option B, Udaipur, has the Aravalli hills around it and the Zawar zinc mines, but not the highest peak. Option C, Ajmer, has Taragarh hill and the source region of the Luni, and is well below Guru Shikhar. Option D, Rajsamand, contains Kumbhalgarh and the Khamnor hills where the Banas rises, and lies close to Haldighati. Remember the chain: Guru Shikhar on Mount Abu in Sirohi district. Sirohi also borders Gujarat, and the Aravallis reach their broadest spread in this southern part of the state.

The correct answer is B, the 36th Amendment. Sikkim became the twenty-second state of the Indian Union on 16 May 1975 through the Constitution (Thirty-sixth Amendment) Act, 1975, which placed it in the First Schedule as a state and added Article 371F for special provisions relating to it.

Option A, the 35th Amendment of 1974, is the near miss: it gave Sikkim the intermediate status of an associate state of the Union, a status no other unit has ever held, and that arrangement lasted less than a year. Option C, the 42nd Amendment of 1976, is the wide-ranging amendment that added the words socialist, secular and integrity to the Preamble and the Fundamental Duties. Option D, the 44th Amendment of 1978, undid much of the 42nd and moved the right to property out of the Fundamental Rights.

The correct answer is B, Madan Mohan Malaviya. He raised the funds and pushed through the legislation for Banaras Hindu University, which was founded at Varanasi in 1916 and became one of the largest residential universities in Asia. Malaviya was also a president of the Indian National Congress more than once, and he is remembered as Mahamana.

Option C, Annie Besant, is a near miss with a real connection: her Central Hindu College at Varanasi became part of the new university, and she worked closely with Malaviya, but the founder named in every record is Malaviya. Option A, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founded the college at Aligarh that grew into Aligarh Muslim University. Option D, Lala Lajpat Rai, was a leader of the Punjab and was among those behind Punjab National Bank, not this university.

The correct answer is A, Vaishali. It was the capital of the Licchavi clan, the leading member of the Vajji confederacy, and its assembly of clan heads is the reason it is described as one of the earliest republics in the world. Mahavira was born at Kundagrama near Vaishali, and the second Buddhist Council was held there. An Ashokan pillar with a lion capital still stands at the site.

Option B, Rajgir, was the capital of Magadha under Bimbisara and Ajatashatru and the venue of the first Buddhist Council, but it was a monarchy. Option C, Sasaram, in Rohtas district, is known for the tomb of Sher Shah Suri. Option D, Bhagalpur, is the old Anga country, the site of Vikramshila and the Gangetic dolphin sanctuary. Only Vaishali carries the republican tradition.

The correct answer is B. The Battle of Haldighati was fought in June 1576 in the hills near Gogunda in Mewar between Maharana Pratap of Mewar and the Mughal army sent by Akbar under Man Singh of Amber. Neither side destroyed the other; Pratap withdrew into the hills and carried on a long resistance from there, and his horse Chetak is part of the story every paper repeats.

Option A describes the Battle of Khanwa of 1527, where Babur defeated Rana Sanga after the first battle of Panipat. Option C refers to the earlier Mewar and Malwa conflicts in which Rana Kumbha took part, commemorated by the Vijay Stambha at Chittorgarh. Option D refers to the Rathore rulers of Marwar and the later conflict with Aurangzeb, including the war of succession after Jaswant Singh's death. Fixing 1576 to Haldighati and 1527 to Khanwa settles the commonest confusion.