In which of the following locations did the 1920 Indian National Congress session take place?

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 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.