The Deccan Riots of 1875 were directed mainly against which group?

The correct answer is A, Nadia. The Indigo Revolt, called the Neel Bidroha, began in 1859 in the Nadia district of Bengal, where the ryots refused to sow indigo on the terms the planters forced on them. Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas led the strike, which spread across Bengal; the government appointed the Indigo Commission in 1860 and the planters closed their factories. B, Pabna, is wrong because the agrarian leagues of 1873, directed against the illegal rent demands of zamindars, were formed there, not the indigo strike. C, Midnapore, is wrong because it is associated with the much earlier Chuar uprising of the Jungle Mahals. D, Birbhum, is wrong; it saw no rising of this name, and the option is placed only because it is a neighbouring Bengal district. Fix the district with the leaders' surname, Biswas, and the pair will not slip in the examination hall.

The correct answer is B, Dinabandhu Mitra. Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the Bengali play Nil Darpan, published in 1860, which showed how indigo planters coerced the cultivators of Bengal, and it reached the English reading public and the administration soon after. A is wrong because Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandamath and other novels, and the song Vande Mataram, but not this play. C, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, is a strong distractor: he translated Nil Darpan into English, and the translation was published by Reverend James Long, who was prosecuted for it, but he did not write the original. D is wrong because Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's work lay in education and in the campaign for widow remarriage, not in this agitation. In exams this pair of names is the standard trap, so remember the author first and the translator second.

The correct answer is B, the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act, 1879. After the riots of 1875 the government enquired into peasant indebtedness in the Deccan and passed this Act, which restricted the moneylender's power to have a debtor's land sold in execution of a decree and gave the courts power to look behind the bond. A is wrong because the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 followed the Pabna agitation of 1873 and gave occupancy rights to tenants in Bengal. C is wrong because the Champaran Agrarian Act of 1918 followed Gandhi's satyagraha of 1917 and abolished the tinkathia system of indigo cultivation in Bihar. D is wrong because the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 followed Birsa Munda's Ulgulan and protected khuntkatti land in the tribal tracts. Learning each rising with the Act that followed it turns this whole chapter into four or five safe marks.

The correct answer is B, Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu. The Santhal Hool, the largest tribal rising before 1857, was led by the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, with Chand and Bhairav beside them, in the Damin-i-Koh tract of the Rajmahal hills. The Santhals rose against moneylenders, zamindars and railway contractors, declared the Company's rule at an end, and were suppressed after a year; the Santhal Parganas were then made a separate district in 1855. A is wrong because Birsa Munda led the Ulgulan of 1899 and Jatra Bhagat the Tana Bhagat movement of 1914. C is wrong because Chakra Bisoi led the Khond uprising in the Odisha hills and Tomma Sora the Koya rising of 1879. D is wrong because Tirot Singh led the Khasi uprising and Gomdhar Konwar the Ahom revolt of 1828.

The correct answer is A, great tumult. Ulgulan is the Mundari word for a great upheaval or tumult, and it is the name the Mundas gave to the rising Birsa Munda led in Chhotanagpur from 1899 to 1900 against landlords, moneylenders, contractors and missionaries. Birsa was called Dharti Aba, the father of the earth, and the rising forced the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908. B is wrong because the rising, though it had a religious side in Birsa's new faith, was never described as a holy war. C is wrong because the share of three parts, or two-thirds of the produce, is the demand of the Tebhaga movement of Bengal in 1946. D is wrong because the Mundas' land claim was expressed in the specific word khuntkatti, the right of the family that first cleared the land.