What was the immediate cause of the Revolt of 1857?

The correct answer is B, Meerut. On 10 May 1857 the sepoys of the garrison at Meerut refused the new cartridges, killed their European officers, released their imprisoned comrades and marched towards Delhi, which they reached on 12 May. That day is taken as the beginning of the revolt.

Option A is wrong because Barrackpore in Bengal was where Mangal Pandey attacked his officers in March 1857, an earlier incident treated as the spark rather than the outbreak; it is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C is wrong because Delhi was reached two days later, and it became the political centre of the revolt when Bahadur Shah II was proclaimed emperor. Option D is wrong because Kanpur rose later under Nana Saheb. Fix the sequence in mind: Barrackpore in March, Meerut on 10 May, Delhi on 12 May.

The correct answer is B, 34th Native Infantry. Mangal Pandey was a sepoy of this regiment stationed at Barrackpore near Calcutta. In March 1857 he attacked his officers rather than use the new greased cartridges; he was court martialled and hanged on 8 April 1857, and his regiment was disbanded.

Option A is wrong because the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore had earlier refused the cartridges and was disbanded, but Mangal Pandey did not belong to it. Option C is wrong because the 3rd Light Cavalry was the Meerut regiment whose men began the revolt on 10 May 1857. Option D is wrong because the Awadh irregular units joined the rising later in the year. Examiners often pair these regiments with the wrong station, so remember Mangal Pandey with the 34th Native Infantry and Barrackpore together.

The correct answer is A, Nana Saheb. He was the adopted son of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, and the refusal of his pension by the Company was one of the causes of the revolt. At Kanpur he was proclaimed Peshwa, and his commander Tantia Tope led the fighting there and later at Jhansi and Gwalior. Nana Saheb finally escaped to Nepal.

Option B is wrong because Kunwar Singh, the aged zamindar of Jagdishpur, led the revolt in Bihar. Option C is wrong because Khan Bahadur Khan led it at Bareilly in Rohilkhand. Option D is wrong because Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was the leader at Faizabad in Awadh. Centre and leader pairs are asked in both directions, so learn them as a table and revise the four Awadh and Bihar names together.

The correct answer is D, Sepoy Mutiny 1857. Begum Hazrat Mahal, a queen of the deposed ruler of Awadh, led the revolt at Lucknow in 1857 and had her young son Birjis Qadr proclaimed the ruler of Awadh. She held the city for months, rejected the terms the British offered her and withdrew to Nepal, where she died.

Option A is wrong because the Moplah Revolt of 1921 was a peasant rising in the Malabar region of present day Kerala, long after her time. Option B is wrong because the Paika Revolt of 1817 in Odisha was led by Bakshi Jagabandhu, four decades before 1857. Option C is wrong because there was no Gond revolt of 1941 of this kind; the Gond risings against the Company belong to the early nineteenth century. Her name always goes with Lucknow and Awadh in 1857.

The correct answer is A, Jagdishpur in Bihar. Kunwar Singh, a zamindar of Jagdishpur in the Shahabad region, was about eighty years old when he took up arms, fought the British at Arrah with his brother Amar Singh and carried the revolt into central India before returning to Bihar, where he died in 1858.

Option B is wrong because Rohilkhand, with Bareilly at its centre, was the country of Khan Bahadur Khan. Option C is wrong because Bundelkhand is the region of Jhansi and Rani Lakshmibai. Option D is wrong because Malwa, with Indore and Mhow, is associated with the Holkar state, whose ruler stayed with the British while some of his troops rose. Bihar questions on 1857 almost always turn on Jagdishpur and Arrah, so keep those two place names with Kunwar Singh.