Which of the following places is related to Gandhi's Satyagraha of the year 1917?

The correct answer is A, 1856. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act was passed in July 1856 and made the remarriage of a Hindu widow lawful, so that the children of such a marriage were treated as legitimate. It came after a long campaign by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the Sanskrit scholar of Bengal, who argued from the shastras themselves that remarriage was allowed, and who gathered thousands of signatures in its support. The reformer also had to accept a condition in the Act by which a widow who remarried gave up the property she held from her first husband. B is wrong because 1858 is the year of Queen Victoria's Proclamation, which passed the rule of India to the Crown. C is wrong because 1859 is remembered for the Bengal Rent Act and the Indigo revolt, not for this law. D is wrong because 1862 is the year the High Courts were set up at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Exam tip: 1829 sati banned, 1856 widow remarriage allowed, 1891 Age of Consent Act.

The correct answer is D, Charter Act – 1833. This Act ended the last trading rights of the East India Company, its monopoly of trade with China and of the tea trade, and turned the Company into a purely administrative body holding India in trust for the British Crown. The same Act made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India, with William Bentinck the first to hold that title, gave him alone the power to legislate for the whole of British India, and added a Law Member to his council, a post first held by Macaulay, who led the work on a common code of law. A is wrong because the Regulating Act of 1773 was only the first step towards control, setting up a Supreme Court at Calcutta. B is wrong because Pitt's India Act of 1784 created the Board of Control and the system of dual government. C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1813 opened Indian trade to all British merchants but kept the Company's monopoly of trade with China and in tea. Exam tip: 1813 – Indian trade opened except tea and China; 1833 – that exception also removed.

The correct answer is C, Satyashodak Samaj – Maharashtra. Jyotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the Truth Seekers' Society, at Pune in 1873 to fight caste rank and priestly control in Maharashtra. Phule, helped by his wife Savitribai, had already opened schools for girls and for children of the castes then called low, and in his book Gulamgiri he compared the state of the Shudras with that of slaves. The Samaj arranged marriages without Brahmin priests and spoke for peasants, workers and women. A is wrong because the Satnami movement was led by Guru Ghasidas among the leather-working castes of Chhattisgarh, not in Punjab. B is wrong because the Matua sect was started by Harichand Thakur among the Namasudras of Bengal, not in Tamil Nadu. D is wrong because the Arya Samaj was founded by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 and was strongest in Punjab and north India, not Kerala. Exam tip: Phule – Satyashodhak Samaj, Pune 1873, Gulamgiri; Ghasidas – Satnami, Chhattisgarh.

The correct answer is B, 1858. The Government of India Act of 1858, passed after the revolt of 1857, ended the rule of the East India Company and placed India directly under the British Crown. It abolished the Court of Directors and the Board of Control and created the office of Secretary of State for India, a member of the British cabinet, assisted by a Council of India of fifteen members. The Governor General was now also styled Viceroy, and Lord Canning was the first to hold both titles. Queen Victoria's Proclamation, read out at Allahabad on 1 November 1858, promised that treaties with the princes would be honoured and that Indians would be admitted to office without regard to race or creed. A is wrong because 1878 is the year of the Vernacular Press Act. C is wrong because 1868 saw no transfer of power. D is wrong because 1888 has no such event. Exam tip: 1858 means Company rule ends, Crown rule begins, Canning is the first Viceroy.

The correct answer is D, Karnataka. Hampi stands on the south bank of the Tungabhadra river in the Vijayanagara district of Karnataka, and it was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire founded by Harihara and Bukka in 1336. At its height in the sixteenth century under Krishnadeva Raya it was among the largest cities in the world; the Persian envoy Abdur Razzaq and the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes both wrote of its crowded bazaars and its ring of fortifications. The city was sacked after the battle of Talikota in 1565 and never recovered. Its ruins, including the Virupaksha temple and the Vittala temple with its stone chariot and musical pillars, were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. A is wrong because Tamil Nadu holds the great Chola temples instead. B is wrong because Kerala lay outside the Vijayanagara heartland. C is wrong because the medieval capital in Telangana was Warangal of the Kakatiyas. Exam tip: Hampi is on the Tungabhadra in Karnataka, a UNESCO site since 1986.