Important Dates in Indian History: Timeline for Exams

The correct answer is A, 1526. In the First Battle of Panipat, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last Sultan of the Lodi dynasty, and the victory ended the Delhi Sultanate and founded the Mughal empire in India. Babur's use of field artillery and the tulughma formation against a much larger army is the reason the battle is remembered as a turning point in military history as well as in dynastic history. Option B, 1556, is the Second Battle of Panipat, in which Akbar's forces under Bairam Khan defeated Hemu and restored Mughal rule after the interlude of the Sur dynasty. Option C, 1761, is the Third Battle of Panipat, in which Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the Marathas and checked their expansion in the north. Option D, 1576, is the Battle of Haldighati, fought between Akbar's army and Maharana Pratap of Mewar, and is placed here because its year looks close to 1556.

The correct answer is D, C A B D. Taking the four in the order they appear in history: Wood's Despatch came first, in 1854, and is called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a graded system of schools and universities. The Hunter Commission, also known as the Indian Education Commission, followed in 1882 under W. W. Hunter and reported mainly on primary and secondary education. The Saddler Commission, or Calcutta University Commission, sat in 1917 and 1919 and reviewed university education. The Sargent Plan, prepared by the Central Advisory Board of Education in 1944, was the last of the four and proposed universal free elementary education within forty years. Options A and C both place the Hunter Commission first, which is wrong because Wood's Despatch of 1854 precedes it, and option B puts the Saddler Commission before the Hunter Commission, reversing 1882 and 1917.

The correct answer is D, Nagpur. The annual session of the Indian National Congress in December 1920 met at Nagpur under the presidency of C. Vijayaraghavachariar, and it confirmed the programme of non cooperation that a special session at Calcutta had approved in September of that year. The Nagpur session also changed the creed of the Congress from constitutional means to attaining swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means, and reorganised the party on linguistic provinces with a working committee. Option A, Thiruvananthapuram, never hosted a session of this period. Option B, Mumbai, then Bombay, hosted the first session of 1885 and the Quit India session of August 1942, not the 1920 session. Option C, Tripura, is a confusion with Tripuri in the Central Provinces, where the session of 1939 was held and where the Subhash Chandra Bose crisis came to a head.

The correct answer is A, 13 April 1919. On the day of Baisakhi in 1919 a crowd gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, and Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on the closed enclosure. The Hunter Committee inquired into the firing, and Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Option B, 10 May 1857, is the date the revolt of 1857 broke out at Meerut, a different century and a different event. Option C, 5 February 1922, is the Chauri Chaura incident in Gorakhpur district, after which Gandhi withdrew the Non Cooperation Movement. Option D keeps the day and month but changes the year to 1920, which is the commonest way this question is made wrong.

The correct answer is D, Faizpur. The fiftieth session of the Indian National Congress met in December 1936 at Faizpur in the Khandesh region of what is now Maharashtra, and it was the first session of the Congress held in a village rather than in a city. Jawaharlal Nehru presided, and the choice of a rural venue was deliberate, marking the Congress decision to take its programme of agrarian reform to the peasantry before the provincial elections held under the Government of India Act of 1935. Option A, Karumadi, is a village in Kerala known for the Karumadikkuttan statue of the Buddha. Option B, Punnapra, also in Kerala, is remembered for the Punnapra Vayalar uprising of 1946. Option C, Rampur, is a district town of Uttar Pradesh and hosted no such session; all three are placed here only because they sound like villages.

The correct answer is B, 1938. Subhash Chandra Bose was elected president of the Indian National Congress at the Haripura session in Gujarat in 1938, where he set up a National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru. He was elected a second time at Tripuri in 1939, defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, but resigned in April of that year after losing the confidence of the working committee, and went on to found the Forward Bloc. Option A, 1932, is the year of the Communal Award and the Poona Pact and has no connection with his presidency. Option C, 1941, is the year Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta and made his way to Germany. Option D, 1943, is the year he took charge of the Indian National Army at Singapore and proclaimed the Azad Hind government, which is the fact most often confused with the presidency.

The correct answer is C, 1757. At Plassey on the bank of the Bhagirathi, Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, after buying over his commander Mir Jafar, and the victory made the Company the real power in the richest province of India. Option A, 1764, is the Battle of Buxar, where the Company defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daulah of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam the second, and which completed what Plassey had begun. Option B, 1765, is the year of the Treaty of Allahabad, by which the Company received the diwani, the right to collect the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Option D, 1761, is the Third Battle of Panipat, fought between Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Marathas in the same decade, which is why it is placed among the options.

The correct answer is B, Allahabad. The fourth session of the Indian National Congress met at Allahabad in 1888 and elected George Yule as its president, and he was the first Englishman and the first non Indian to hold the office. Yule was a Calcutta businessman and a former president of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, and his election was meant to show that the Congress was not a body of one community alone. Option A, Calcutta, hosted the second session of 1886 under Dadabhai Naoroji. Option C, Madras, hosted the third session of 1887 under Badruddin Tyabji, the first Muslim president of the Congress. Option D, Bombay, hosted the very first session of December 1885 under Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, and is the option most often chosen by mistake because it is the city students associate with the early Congress.

The correct answer is C, 26 November 1949. The Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave to itself the Constitution on the twenty sixth of November 1949, and that day is kept every year as Constitution Day or Samvidhan Divas. Option A, 26 January 1950, is the date the Constitution came into force, which is Republic Day; the day was chosen because the Lahore session of the Congress had made the twenty sixth of January 1930 the first Independence Day. Option B, 9 December 1946, is the day the Constituent Assembly met for the first time, with Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman before Rajendra Prasad was elected president. Option D, 15 August 1947, is the date of independence under the Indian Independence Act. Papers turn this question on the single word adopted, enforced or commenced, so read the stem carefully.

The correct answer is A, the Lahore session of 1929. Presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore session of December 1929 passed the resolution of Purna Swaraj or complete independence, unfurled the tricolour on the bank of the Ravi and called on the country to observe the twenty sixth of January 1930 as Independence Day. Option B, the Karachi session of 1931, is remembered for the resolution on fundamental rights and the national economic programme, and for endorsing the Gandhi Irwin Pact. Option C, the Nagpur session of 1920, adopted the Non Cooperation Movement and changed the creed of the Congress to swaraj by peaceful means, but it did not define swaraj as complete independence. Option D, the Lucknow session of 1916, is the session of the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League and of the reunion of the moderates and the extremists.