Solution: (b)
Two new railway companies, Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR), were created in 1853-54 to construct and operate two ‘experimental’ lines near Bombay and Calcutta respectively. The first train in India had become operational on 22 December, 1851 for localized hauling of canal construction material in Roorkee. A year and a half later, on 16 April, 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder in Bombay and Thane. Covering a distance of 34 kilometres, it was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan.
Which of the following pairs contributed significantly to integrate the princely states into Indian Union?
(a) Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru
(b) Sardar Patel and V.P. Menon
(c) Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi
(d) Sardar Patel and K.M. Munsi
Solution: (b)
At the time of Indian independence, India was divided into two sets of territories, the first being the territories of “British India,” which were under the direct control of the India Office in London and the Governor-General of India, and the second being the “Princely states,” the territories over which the Crown had suzerainty, but which were under the control of their hereditary rulers. In addition, there were several colonial enclaves controlled by France and Portugal. The integration of these territories into Dominion of India, created by the Indian Independence Act 1947 by the British parliament, was a declared objective of the Indian National Congress, which the Government of India pursued over the years 1947 to 1949. Through a combination of tactics, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon in the months immediately preceding and following the independence convinced the rulers of almost all of the hundreds of princely states to accede to India.
When did the British Govt. start ruling India directly?
(a) After the Battle of Plassey
(b) After the Battle of Panipat
(c) After the War of Mysore
(d) After Sepoy Mutiny
Solution: (a)
The British-administered territories in India were expanded in three successive waves. The first wave (A.D. 1757-66) brought under [direct] British rule Bengal, Bihar, and the Northern Circars along the north-west shore of the Bay of Bengal; the second (A.D. 1790-1818) brought the Carnatic, the Upper Ganges Basin, and the Western Deccan; the third (A.D. 1843-9) brought the Indus Basin. In the Battle of Plassey, a British army of 2800 British soldiers and sepoys routed a Bengali army of 100,000 men. Clive’s victories over the Bengalis and French made the British East Indies Company a major power in India, able to install its own candidate on the Mughal throne and claim the wealthy province of Bengal for itself. British power, plus the fact that their “honor able masters” in England were 7000 miles and nine months travel away, left India wide open to exploitation by the company and its employees.
From where did Acharya Vinoba Bhave start the Individual Satyagraha in 1940?
(a) Nadiad in Gujarat
(b) Pavnar in Maharashtra
(c) Adyar in Tamil Nadu
(d) Guntur in Andhra Pradesh
Solution: (b)
In October, 1940, Gandhi selected Vinoba Bhave as the first Satyagrahi-civil resister-for the individual Satyagraha against the British, and Jawaharlal Nehru was the second. Gandhi personally went to Pavnar Ashram to seek his consent. After obtaining Vinoba’s consent, Gandhi issued a comprehensive statement on 5 October, 1940.
The original name of Swami Dayananda Saraswati was
(a) Abhi Shankar
(b) Gowri Shankar
(c) Daya Shankar
(d) Mula Shankar
Solution: (d)
Dayananda Saraswati was an important Hindu religious scholar, reformer, and founder of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. He was the first to give the call for Swarajya– “India for Indians” – in 1876, later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak. Since he was born under Mul Nakshatra, he was named “Moolshankar”, and led a comfortable early life, studying Sanskrit, the Vedas and other religious texts to pre pare himself for a future as a Hindu priest.
Who was the first Indian to be elected to the British Parliament?
(a) Dadabhai Naoroji
(b) Gopala Krishna Gokhale
(c) Bipin Chandra Pal
(d) Lala Lajpat Rai
Solution: (a)
Dadabhai Naoroji, known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India’s wealth into Britain. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom House of Commons between 1892 and 1895, and the first Asian to be a British Member of Parliament. He is also credited with the founding of the Indian National Congress, along with A.O. Hume and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha.
Who designed the national flag of Independent India?
(a) Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
(b) Rabindranath Tagore
(c) Mahatma Gandhi
(d) Pingali Venkaiah
Solution: (d)
The National flag of India is a horizontal rectangular tricolor flag, of India saffron, white and India green; with the Ashok Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre. It was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, when it became the official flag of the Dominion of India. The flag is based on the Swaraj flag, a flag of the Indian National Congress designed by Pingali Venkayya. During the National conference of Indian National Congress at Kakinada, Venkayya suggested that India should have a national flag of its own and Mahatma Gandhi liked this proposal. He suggested that Venkayya could come up with a design.
During colonial period, British capital was mainly invested in:
(a) Infra structure
(b) Industry
(c) Agriculture
(d) Services
Solution: (c)
Company rule in India brought a major change in the taxation and agricultural policies, which tended to promote commercialisation of agriculture with a focus on trade, resulting in decreased production of food crops, mass impoverishment and destitution of farmers, and in the short term, led to numerous famines. After the removal of international restrictions by the Charter of 1813, Indian trade expanded substantially and over the long term showed an upward trend. The result was a significant transfer of capital from India to England, which, due to the colonial policies of the British, led to a massive drain of revenue rath er than any systematic effort at modernisation of the domestic economy.
Who among the following controlled maximum trade in the western coastal region during 17th century?
(a) Portuguese
(b) Dutch
(c) The house of Jagat Seth
(d) Mulla Abdul Gaffar
Solution: (a)
The English, French and Dutch East Indies Companies (EIC’s) became active in Far East trading in a meaningful way about a hundred and fifty years after the Portuguese. They too set up their posts throughout the Indian Ocean. By the middle of the 17th century there were several thousand Portuguese and Indo Portuguese in India and a relatively small population of other Indo Europeans.
The ‘Doctrine of Lapse’ was first applied to the Princely State of
(a) Satara
(b) Jhansi
(c) Oudh
(d) Jaunpur
Solution: (a)
The Doctrine of Lapse was an annexation policy purportedly devised by Lord Dalhousie, who was the Governor General for the East India Company in India between 1848 and 1856. The company took over the princely states of Satara (1848), Jaipur and Sam balpur (1849), Nagpur and Jhansi (1854), Tanjore and Arcot (1855) and Awadh(Oudh)(1856) and Udaipur using this doctrine.
