Which of the following events made the English East India Company the legitimate masters of the Bengal Suba?
(a) Battle of Buxar, 1764
(b) Battle of Plassey, 1757
(c) Farrukh Siyar’s Farman, 1717
(d) Ibrahim Khan’s Farman, 1690
Solution: (a)
The Battle of Buxar was fought on 23 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the British East India Company led by Hector Munro, and the combined Muslim army of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal; Shuja-ud-Daula the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal King Shah Alam II. The prime victim Shah Alam II, signed the Treaty of Allahabad that secured Diwani Rights for the Company to collect and manage the revenues of almost 100,000,000 acres of real estate which form parts of the modern states of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh, as well as areas in the neighbouring country of Bangladesh. The Treaty of Allahabad heralded the establishment of the rule of the East India Company in one-eighth of India proper with a single stroke. The battles of Plassey and Buxar secured a permanent foothold for the British East India Company in the rich province of Bengal, and secured its political ascendancy in the entire region later to be named India.
Satyagraha finds expression in
(a) Sudden outbursts of violence
(b) Armed conflicts
(c) Non-cooperation
(d) Communal riots
Solution: (c)
Satyagraha and sarvodaya were Mahatma Gandhi’s most significant and revolutionary contributions to contemporary political thought. He felt that the exercise of satyagraha could be carried out through non-cooperation. Civil disobedience and non-cooperation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the “law of suffering”, a doctrine that the endurance of suffering is a means to an end. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-cooperation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the cooperation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice.
Who was the first Indian to be made a fellow of the Royal Society of London?
(a) Srinivas Ramanujam
(b) A.C. Wadia
(c) C.V. Raman
(d) P.C. Mahalanobis
Solution: (b)
Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia was the first Indian to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society on May 27, 1841 which credited him with both the introduction of gas lighting to Bombay, as well as having “built a [seagoing] vessel of 60 tons to which he adapted a Steam Engine. He was an Indian shipbuilder and engineer.
The English established their first factory in India at
(a) Bombay
(b) Surat
(c) Sutanati
(d) Madras
Solution: (b)
The British presence in India dates back to the early part of the seventeenth century. On 31 December, 1600, Elizabeth, then the monarch of the United Kingdom, acceded to the demand of a large body of merchants that a royal charter be given to a new trading company, “The Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East-Indies.” Between 1601 and 1613, merchants of the East India Company took twelve voyages to India, and in 1609 William Hawkins arrived at the court of Jahangir to seek permission to establish a British presence in India. Hawkins was rebuffed by Jahangir, but Sir Thomas Roe, who presented himself before the Mughal Emperor in 1617, was rather more successful. Two years later, Roe gained Jahangir’s permission to build a British factory in Surat, and in 1639, this was followed by the founding of Fort St. George (Madras).
Permanent Revenue Settlement of Bengal was introduced by
(a) Clive
(b) Hastings
(c) Wellesley
(d) Cornwallis
Solution: (d)
In 1784 British Prime Minister Pitt the Younger tried to alter the Calcutta Administration with Pitt‘s India Act and in the year 1786 Charles Cornwallis was sent out to India to supervise the alteration. In 1786 the Court of Directors of East India Company first proposed The Permanent Settlement Act for Bengal. Between 1786 and 1790 the Governor General Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Shore (the later Gover nor General himself) debated over whether or not to introduce Permanent settlement Act in Bengal. Shore‘s point of argument was that the native Zamindars could not trust the permanent Settlement and it would take a long time for them to realize the genuineness of this act. But Cornwallis believed that they would immedi ately accept Permanent Settlement Act and start in vesting in improving their land. In 1790 the Court of Directors passed a ten-year (Decennial) Settlement Act to the Zamindars, which was later changed to Permanent Settlement Act on 1793.).
Sarvodaya stands for
(a) Total revolution
(b) Non-cooperation
(c) Upliftment of all
(d) Non-violence
Solution: (c)
Sarvodaya is a term meaning ‘universal uplift’ or ‘progress of all’. The term was first coined by Mahatma Gandhi as the title of his 1908 translation of John Ruskin’s tract on political economy, Unto This Last, and Gandhi came to use the term for the ideal of his own political philosophy. Later Gandhians, like the Indian nonviolence activist Vinoba Bhave, embraced the term as a name for the social movement in post-independence India
Who attended the Congress of Oppressed Nationalists at Brussels in 1927, on behalf of the National Congress?
(a) Jawaharlal Nehru
(b) Mahatma Gandhi
(c) Dr. Ansari
(d) Motilal Nehru
Solution: (a)
In February 1927, Jawaharlal Nehru on behalf of the National Congress attended the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities at Brussels organised by political exiles and revolutionaries from the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America suffering from economic or political imperialism. The Congress was called to coordinate and plan their common struggle against imperialism. Many left wing intellectuals and political leaders of Europe also joined the Congress.
Which Governor General had entertained Ranjit Singh with great honour at Ropar?
(a) Minto I
(b) William Bentinck
(c) Hastings
(d) Auckland
Solution: (b)
Lord William Bentinck met with Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Ropar, on the bank of the Sutlej, in the spring of 1831. It was an occasion of a impressive ceremony and display. Both sides met on the either side of Sutlej with their full forces.
High Courts were established in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in
(a) 1935
(b) 1919
(c) 1892
(d) 1861
Solution: (d)
British India’s three presidency towns of Madras (Chennai), Bombay (Mumbai), and Calcutta (Kolkata) were each granted a High Court by letters patent dated 26 June, 1862. The letters patent were issued by Queen Victoria under the authority of the British parliament’s Indian High Courts Act 1861. The three courts remain unique in modern India, having been established under British royal charter; this is in contrast with the country’s other high courts, which have been directly established under Indian legislation.
Which of the following reform movements was the first to be started in the 19th century?
(a) Prarthana Samaj
(b) Brahmo Samaj
(c) Arya Samaj
(d) Rama Krishna Mission
Solution: (b)
The Brahmo Samaj was the first modern Hindu reform movement. It was founded in Calcutta in 1828 by Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833). As an expression of the social and religious views of a small but influential group of westernized Indians, the Brahmo Samaj sought to create a purified form of Hinduism, a Hindu dharma free of all Puranic elements such as temple rituals and image worship. Led by a series of prominent Bengali intellectuals, the movement was a major factor in shaping Hindu responses to both secular and Christian influence from the West and thus helped pave the way for the so-called Hindu Renaissance in the late 1800s.
