The universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were established in which year?

The correct answer is B, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who brought out Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali in 1821 and the Persian weekly Mirat-ul-Akhbar the next year, closing the latter in protest against the Licensing Regulations of 1823. Option A is wrong because Rash Behari Bose was a revolutionary of a much later generation who worked from Japan and helped found the Indian Independence League. Option C is wrong because Sisir Kumar Ghosh, with his brother Motilal Ghosh, founded the Amrita Bazar Patrika, the paper that turned into an English weekly to escape the Vernacular Press Act. Option D is wrong because Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is associated with Som Prakash and with widow remarriage and women's education, not with Sambad Kaumudi. Remember the pair that goes with this name: Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali of 1821 and Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian of 1822, both from Calcutta and both by the same reformer.

The correct answer is B, Wood's Despatch of 1854, sent by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control, and called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a complete system: departments of public instruction in the provinces, universities in the presidency towns, a grants-in-aid scheme for private schools, vernacular primary education, teacher training and the education of women. Option A is wrong because Macaulay's Minute only settled the medium of instruction and the Anglicist case in 1835. Option C is wrong because the Hunter Commission of 1882 reviewed how far the Despatch had been carried out. Option D is wrong because the Sargent Plan of 1944 came at the end of British rule and was criticised for proposing a forty-year timetable for universal education.

The correct answer is C, 1835. Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote his Minute on 2 February 1835, and Lord William Bentinck's resolution of the following month accepted it, ending the long quarrel between the Orientalists and the Anglicists in favour of European learning taught in English. Option A is wrong because 1813 is the year of the Charter Act that first set aside one lakh rupees a year for education. Option B is wrong because 1823 is the year of the Licensing Regulations against the press, although the General Committee of Public Instruction was also formed in that year. Option D is wrong because 1854 belongs to Wood's Despatch. The policy Macaulay built rested on the downward filtration theory, the belief that education given to the upper classes would trickle down to the masses.

The correct answer is B, the Charter Act of 1813, which required the Company to set aside not less than one lakh rupees a year for the revival and improvement of literature, the encouragement of the learned natives of India and the introduction of useful knowledge. Option A is wrong because the Charter Act of 1793 is remembered for renewing the Company's monopoly for twenty years and for making the Governor-General's salaries a charge on Indian revenues. Option C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1833 ended the Company's commercial activities and made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India. Option D is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 introduced open competition for the civil service and separated the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General's Council.

The correct answer is A, Lord Lytton, whose Vernacular Press Act of 1878 is remembered as the gagging act because it applied only to newspapers in Indian languages, allowed the government to demand a bond and forfeit printing presses, and gave no right of appeal to a court. Option B is wrong, though Lord Ripon repealed the Act in 1882, which is why his name is attached to the repeal and not the passing. Option C is wrong because Lord Curzon is associated with the Indian Universities Act of 1904 and the partition of Bengal in 1905. Option D is wrong because Lord Minto brought the Newspapers Act of 1908 and the Indian Press Act of 1910 against the extremist press. Note also that the Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped the 1878 Act by becoming an English paper overnight.