History Full Test - 1 - UPSC MCQ

All three books are written by Kalidasa.
Abhigyanshakuntalam : Story of Dushyant and
Shakuntala Meghdoot : Lyrical poems
Raghuvamsa : Story of Raghu dynasty 

Associations and their Founder

• The East India Association was organised by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866 in London.
• Its aim was to discuss the Indian question and influence public men in England to promote Indian welfare.
• Later, branches of the association were started in prominent Indian cities.
• The Bombay Presidency Association was started by Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozshah Mehta and K.T. Telang in 1885.
• The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha was founded in 1867 by Mahadeo Govind Ranade, S. H. Chiplunkar and Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi.
• It had the objective of serving as a bridge between the government and the people. 

• All statements are correct

Patterns of Village Life under Mughals

• It is difficult to compute the average size of the holding of the peasant. The information available to us shows that there was a great deal of inequality in the villages.
• The peasant who did not have his own ploughs and bullocks of ten tilled the land of the zamindars or the upper castes, and could eke out a bare existence.
• The landless peasants and laborers often belonged to the class of people called ‘untouchables’ or kamin.
• Whenever there was a famine and famines were frequent-it was this class of peasants and the village artisans who suffered the most.
• The peasants who owned the land they tilled were called khudkasht. They paid land revenue at customary rates. Some of them had many ploughs and bullocks which they let out to their poorer brethren, the tenants or muzarain who generally paid land revenue at a higher rate.
• These two groups were the largest section among the cultivators in the village. Thus, the village society was highly unequal. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Principle of Anekantavada is also known as the doctrine of non-one-sidedness.
• Statement 2 is incorrect: Principle of Syadavada emphasises on the relativity of all knowledge.

Doctrines of Jainism

• The core of Jaina doctrine is expressed in the following principles :
  1. Principle of Anekantavada or the doctrine of manifold nature of reality - It is literally the doctrine of ‘non-one-sidedness’. According to this doctrine, truth and reality are perceived differently from different points of view, and no single point of view is a complete truth.
  2. Principle of Syadavada or the theory of conditioned predication - It emphasises on the relativity of all knowledge. According to this doctrine, all judgments are conditional, holding good only in certain conditions, circumstances, or senses.
  3. Principle of Nayavada or the theory of partial standpoints - It signifies the system of describing reality from different points of view.
  4. Principle of Triratna - A Jaina must follow the three jewels of Jaina ethics, popularly called Triratna. These are Right faith, Right knowledge and Right conduct.
  5. Principle of Pancha Mahavrata or the five great vows - In order to help attain Triratna one must observe Pancha Mahavrata or the five great vows. These are Non-violence (Ahimsa), Truth (Satya), Non-stealing (Asteya), Chastity (Brahmacharya) and Nonpossession (Aparigraha) Principle of Ahimsa or the doctrine of non-violence 

• Both statements are correct

Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress (1916) Readmission of Extremists to Congress

• The Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress presided over by a Moderate, Ambika Charan Majumdar, finally readmitted the Extremists led by Tilak to the Congress fold.

Various factors facilitated the reunion of Moderates and Extremist:

• Old controversies had become meaningless now.
• Both the Moderates and the Extremists realised that the split had led to political inactivity. 
• Annie Besant and Tilak had made vigorous efforts for the reunion. To allay Moderate suspicions, Tilak had
• Declared that he supported a reform of administration and not an overthrow of the government. He also denounced acts of violence.
• The death of two Moderates, Gokhale and Pherozshah Mehta, who had led the Moderate opposition to the Extremists, facilitated the reunion.

Lucknow Pact between Congress and Muslim League

• Another significant development to take place at Lucknow was the coming together of the Muslim League and the Congress and the presentation of common demands by them to the government.
• This happened at a time when the Muslim League, now dominated by the younger militant nationalists, was coming closer to the Congress objectives and turning increasingly anti-imperialist.

The Nature of the Pact

• The Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League could be considered an important event in the course of the nationalistic struggle for freedom.
• While the League agreed to present joint constitutional demands with the Congress to the government, the Congress accepted the Muslim League’s position on separate electorates which would continue till any one community demanded joint electorates.
• The Muslims were also granted a fixed proportion of seats in the legislatures at all-India and provincial levels.

The joint demands were—

• Government should declare that it would confer self-government on Indians at an early date.
• The representative assemblies at the central as well as provincial-level should be further expanded with an elected majority and more powers given to them.
• The term of the legislative council should be five years.
• The salaries of the Secretary of State for India should be paid by the British treasury and not drawn from Indian funds.
• Half the members of the viceroy’s and provincial governors’ executive councils should be Indians. 

The Vedas

• Vedas are a collection of hymns, prayers, charms, litanies and sacrificial formulae.
• The Vedas formed the earliest segment of Vedic literature and amongst the Vedas, Rigveda is the oldest.
• There are four Vedas, namely:
  1. Rigveda - a collection of hymns
  2. Samveda - a collection of songs mostly taken from Rig Veda
  3. Yajurveda - a collection of sacrificial formulae
  4. Atharvaveda - a collection of spells and charms 

• Statement 2 is incorrect: The simon Commission was an all-white, seven membered commission.

Simon Commission

• The Government of India Act, 1919 had a provision that a commission would be appointed ten years from the date to study the progress of the government scheme and suggest new steps.
• An all-white, seven-member Indian Statutory Commission, popularly known as the Simon Commission (after the name of its chairman, Sir John Simon), was set up by the British government in 1927.
• The commission was to recommend to the British government whether India was ready for further constitutional reforms and along what lines.
• Thus there was the exclusion of Indians from the commission and the basic notion behind the exclusion that foreigners would discuss and decide upon India’s fitness for self-government.
• Recommendations of Commission :
  1. It proposed the abolition of dyarchy and the establishment of representative government in the provinces which should be given autonomy.
  2. It said that the governor should have discretionary power in relation to internal security and administrative powers to protect the different communities.
  3. The number of members of the provincial legislative council should be increased. 

• All statements are correct

Mohammad Bin Tughlaq

• Mohammad Bin Tughlaq is considered an ill-fated idealist owing to his ambitious schemes and novel experiments.
• He transferred his capital from Delhi to Devagiri (Daulatabad) but the capital shifted back to Delhi after two years because of the lack of water supply in Daulatabad.
• He modeled the idea of token currency on the basis of the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan who issued paper money in China.
• He issued copper coins at par with the value of the silver tanka coins. Later on, he repealed his verdict, and all coins were redeemed in silver/gold, making the treasury empty.
• During his reign, the famous traveler Ibn Batuta came to India in 1334 CE and acted as a Qazi at Delhi for eight years.
• He was the only Delhi Sultan who had received a comprehensive literary, religious, and philosophical education and is known to have built the fort of Adilabad and the city of Jahanpanah. 

• Statement 2 is incorrect : It was launched against the Rowlatt Act, 1919. 

Satyagraha Sabha

• Gandhi was aroused by the Rowlatt Act because he argued that not everyone should be punished in response to isolated political crimes.
• In February 1919, he founded the Satyagraha Sabha whose members took a pledge to disobey the Act and thus to court arrest and imprisonment.
• Gandhi did not believe that the existing institutions could handle such a noble weapon. So a separate institution named Satyagraha Sabha was formed, its headquarters were in Bombay.
• Satyagraha immediately raised the movement to a new higher level. Nationalists could now act in place of giving only verbal expression to their dissatisfaction and anger. The National Congress was now to become an organisation for political action. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Later Vedic polity did not experience a monarchical system
• Statement 2 is correct : It gave a great importance to Hereditary Rulership
• Statement 3 is incorrect: Vidatha disappeared from the later vedic texts.

Later Vedic polity

• It covers the time period around 1000-600 BC.
• There was a conspicuous urge in the later Vedic texts for increasing the power of the raja through performances of elaborated sacrifices such as Vajpeya, asvamedha, etc.
• The raja’s position became more powerful than his Rigvedic counterpart.
• The polity gave greater stress on hereditary rulership, paving the way for dynastic succession as an integral feature of a monarchical polity of subsequent times.
• Despite the growth of the ruler’s power, the later Vedic period did not experience a monarchical system. It was a protostate, on the threshold of a state system.
• The absence of a regular well-defined revenue as the rate of Bali was nowhere specified indicating the absence of its proper and adequate assessment resulted in the absence of enough resources which precluded the formation of military organization.
• Tribal units were mustered in times of war and, according to one ritual, for success in war, the king had to eat along with his people (vis) from the same plate.
• In later Vedic times, the Rig Vedic tribal assemblies lost importance, and royal power increased at their cost. The vidatha completely disappeared. Sabha and Samiti appeared more prominently in later Vedic texts.
• The sabha was a smaller select body and also functioned as the lower court, while the Samiti was the larger GeneralAssembly of the people. Accordingly, the latter is referred to as expressing the voice of vis (people). 

• Both statements are correct

Attitude of Government towards INC

• The British Indian Government was hostile to the Congress from the beginning despite the latter’s moderate methods and emphasis on loyalty to the British Crown.
• The official attitude stiffened further after 1887 when the government failed to persuade Congress to confine itself to social issues when Congress was becoming increasingly critical of the colonial rule.
• The Government openly condemned the Congress calling the nationalists “seditious brahmins”, “disloyal babus”, etc. Dufferin called Congress “a factory of sedition”.
• Later, the government adopted a ‘divide and rule’ policy towards Congress. The officials encouraged reactionary elements like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Raja Shiv Prasad Singh of Benaras to organize the United Indian Patriotic Association to counter Congress propaganda.
• The government also tried to divide the nationalists on the basis of religion, and, through a policy of ‘carrot and stick’, pitted the Moderates against the Extremists.

• All statements are correct

State and Religion under Akbar 

• Akbar followed a policy of broad religious toleration.
• In 1564, he abolished the Jizyah which was sometimes used by the Ulama to humiliate non-Muslims and was often considered a symbol of Muslim domination and superiority. He had earlier abolished the pilgrim tax, and the practice of forcible conversion of prisoners of war.
• The liberal principles of the empire were strengthened by bringing able Hindus into the nobility.
• Akbar’s attitude towards his Hindu subjects is closely linked with his views of how a sovereign should behave towards his subjects. According to Abul FazI, the office of a true ruler was a very responsible one which depended on divine illumination (farr-i-izadi). Hence, no one could stand between God and a true ruler. A true ruler was distinguished by a paternal love towards his subjects without distinction of sect or creed and it was his duty to maintain equilibrium in society by not allowing the dust of sectarian strife to rise. All this constituted what has been called the policy of sulh-i-kul or ‘peace to all’.
• Akbar was deeply interested in religion and philosophy. In 1575, Akbar built a hall called Ibadat Khana or the Hall of Prayer at his new capital, Fatehpur Sikri. To this he called selected theologians, mystics and those of his courtiers and nobles who were known for their scholarship and intellectual attainments. The proceedings, at first, were confined to the Muslims and were later opened to people of all religionsChristians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jains, even atheists.
• But Akbar was less successful in his effort to find a meeting ground between the votaries of different religions in the country. The debates in the Ibadat Khana had not led to a better understanding between different religions, but to greater bitterness, as the representatives of each religion denounced the others and tried to prove that their religion was superior to others. Hence, in 1582, Akbar discontinued the debates in the Ibadat Khana.
• Badayuni asserts that as a result, Akbar gradually turned away from Islam and set up a new religion which was compounded of many existing religions-Hinduism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc. The word used by Abul Fazl and Badayuni for the so called new path was tauhid-i-ilahi which literally means ‘Divine Monotheism’ which was later called as Din-i-ilahi or ‘Divine Faith’. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: As per Indica, there were no slaves in India during the mauryan period.

Megasthenes’s Indica

• Indica is an account left by a Greek ambassador, Megasthenes, sent by Seleucus Nikator to the court of Chandragupta Maurya.
• He lived in the Maurya capital of Pataliputra and wrote an account not only of the administration of the city of Pataliputra but also of the Maurya Empire as a whole.
• According to Megasthenes, the king was at the head of the government and assisted by a council of ministers whose members were noted for wisdom. There is nothing to show that their advice was binding on him.
• The administration of the armed forces, according to Megasthenes, was carried on by a board of thirty officers divided into six committees, each committee consisting of five members. It seems that each of the six wings of the armed forces, the army, the cavalry, the elephants, the chariots, the navy, and the transport, was assigned to the care of a separate committee.
• Megasthenes states that he did not notice any slaves in India, but there is little doubt that there had been domestic slaves from Vedic times onwards. It seems that during the Maurya period slaves were engaged in agricultural work on a large scale.
• Megasthenes speaks of the wooden structure at the Maurya capital Pataliputra. Excavations show that logs of wood were also used as an important line of defence against flood and invasion.
• The Pandyas are first mentioned by Megasthenes, who says that their kingdom was celebrated for pearls. He also speaks of it being ruled by a woman, which suggests some matriarchal influence in Pandya society.
• The major faults of Megasthenes’ work were mistakes in details, the uncritical acceptance of Indian folklore, and a tendency to idealise Indian culture by the standards of Greek philosophy.
• However, Megasthenes did identify two of the most important aspects of the Indian caste system : endogamy and hereditary occupation.

Cabinet Mission Members

• The Attlee government announced in February 1946 the decision to send a high powered mission of three British cabinet members (Pethick Lawrence, Secretary of State for India; Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade; and A.V. Alexander, First Lord of Admiralty) to India to find out ways and means for a negotiated, peaceful transfer of power to India. (Pethick Lawrence was the chairman of the mission.)

• Statement 1 is incorrect : National education with its negligible job prospects failed to attract, however, the bulk of the student community.

Swadeshi Movement

• Down to July 1905, the partition plan had been opposed through an intensive use of the conventional ‘Moderate’ methods of press campaigns, numerous meetings and petitions (particularly in Dacca and Mymensingh districts), and big conferences at the Calcutta Town Hall in March 1904 and January 1905 attended by many district delegates.
• As in other fields, a considerable variety may be noticed within the national education efforts in Swadeshi Bengal, ranging from pleas for more technical training, through advocacy of the vernacular medium (urged most powerfully by Rabindranath), to Tagore’s Santiniketan and Satis Mukherji’s somewhat eclectic Dawn Society plans to combine the traditional and the modern in a scheme for ‘higher culture’ for selected youth. National education with its negligible job prospects failed to attract the bulk of the student community.
• There were no really political strikes (unlike in Bombay during Tilak’s trial in 1908), plantation and mine labour remained unaffected, Swadeshi contacts were developed in the main only with clerks or at best Bengali jute workers (hence the importance of mills like Fort Gloster or Budge Budge, where the upcountry element was less prominent than elsewhere)—and nationalist interest in labour slumped suddenly and totally after the summer of 1908, and would not be renewed before 1919-22.
• The sudden emergence of the samitis or ‘national volunteer’ movement was one of the major achievements of the Swadeshi age. The Calcutta-based Anti-Circular Society stood out due to its secularism (it was the only samiti with important Muslim associates, like Liakat Husain, Abul Hossain, Dedar Bux, and Abdul Gafur). 

• Statement 2 is incorrect: The Charter Act of 1793 provided that the entire burden of the expenses of the Board of control and their staff should be on the Indian revenues.
• Statement 3 is incorrect: The Act of 1786 allowed Governor-general to override the council’s decision.

Regulation act under the Company’s rule 

• The defects of the Regulating Act of 1773 and the exigencies of British politics necessitated the passing in 1784 of another important act known as Pitt’s India Act
  1. This Act gave the British Government supreme control over the Company’s affairs and its administration in India.
  2. It established six Commissioners for the affairs of India, popularly known as the Board of Control, including two Cabinet Ministers. The Board of Control was to guide and control the work of the Court of Directors and the Government of India.
  3. The Act placed the Government of India in the hands of the Governor-General and a Council of three.
  4. The Act subordinated the Bombay and Madras Presidencies to Bengal in all questions of war, diplomacy, and revenues.
  5. The most notable feature of the Act was that it called the Company’s territories as the ‘British Possessions in India’ for the first time. The territories, under the company’s control, became a part of the British Empire.
• The Act of 1786 gave a single office the powers of both the governor-general and the commander-in-chief. Also, it allowed Governor-general to override the council’s decision if he owned the responsibility for the decision.
• Charter Act of 1793 provided that the entire burden of the salaries and the expenses of the Board of control and their staff should be on the Indian revenues. That burden of revenues continued until the Act of 1919. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: He is the leader of the Young Bengal Movement.

Young Bengal Movement and Henry

• During the late 1820s and early 1830s, there emerged a radical, intellectual trend among the youth in Bengal, which came to be known as the ‘Young Bengal Movement’.
• A young Anglo-Indian, Henry Vivian Derozio (1809-31), who taught at the Hindu College from 1826 to 1831, was the leader and inspirer of this progressive trend.
• Drawing inspiration from the great French Revolution, Derozio inspired his pupils to think freely and rationally, question all authority, love liberty, equality and freedom, and oppose decadent customs and traditions.
• The Derozians also supported women’s rights and education. Also, Derozio was perhaps the first nationalist poet of modern India. The Derozians, however, failed to have a long-term impact. Derozio was removed from the Hindu College in 1831 because of his radicalism.
• The main reason for their limited success was the prevailing social conditions at that time, which were not ripe for the adoption of radical ideas. Further, there was no support from any other social group or class.
• The Derozians lacked any real link with the masses; for instance, they failed to take up the peasants’ cause. In fact, their radicalism was bookish in character. But, despite their limitations, the Derozians carried forward Rammohan Roy’s tradition of public education on social, economic and political questions. For instance, they demanded induction of Indians in higher grades of services, protection of ryots from oppressive zamindars, better treatment to Indian labor abroad in British colonies, revision of the Company’s charter, freedom of press and trial by jury. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: A subcommittee was appointed under the chairmanship of Motilal Nehru to draft a constitution.

Nehru Report 

• An All Parties Conference met in February 1928 and appointed a subcommittee under the chairmanship of Motilal Nehru to draft a constitution.
• This was the first major attempt by the Indians to draft a constitutional framework for the country. • The committee included TejBahadur Sapru, Subhash Bose, M.S. Aney, Mangal Singh, Ali Imam, Shuab Qureshi and G.R. Pradhan as its members.
• The report was finalized by August 1928.
• The recommendations of the Nehru Committee were unanimous except in one respect—while the majority favored the “dominion status” as the basis of the Constitution, a section of it wanted “complete independence” as the basis, with the majority section giving the latter section liberty of action. 

Muzaffar Ahmad, S.A.Dange, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini Gupta were jailed in the Kanpur Bolshevik conspiracy case in 1924.
Kanpur Bolshevik conspiracy case 1924

• In this case, newly emerged communists of India were execrated by the British Government. M N Roy, Muzaffar Ahamed, S A Dange, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini Gupta, Singaravelu Chettiar, Ghulam Hussain were caught by the Government and were trailed for conspiring against the Government.
• They were charged:
• “to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution.”
• This case was not people movement but British movement to sack the upcoming communist leaders of the time.
• But this case, brought the communists in the lime light. The newspapers covered the matter exhaustively and this was for the first time the people of India could know the communist doctrine in details.
• So, this case was responsible for introduction of Communism to the Indian Public.
• In this case, M N Roy was charged in absentia, so he was not arrested. Ghulam Hussain turned a British informer and was pardoned. Rest all people were arrested and sent to jail for 4 years. 

Wahabi / Walliullah Movement

• The teachings of Abdul Wahab of Arabia and the preachings of Shah Walliullah (1702-1763) inspired an essential revivalist response to Western influences and the degeneration which had set in among Indian Muslims and called for a return to the true spirit of Islam.

Faraizi Movement

• The movement, also called the Fara’idi Movement because of its emphasis on the Islamic pillars of faith, was founded by Haji Shariatullah in 1818.

Ahmadiyya Movement

• The Ahmadiyya forms a sect of Islam which originated from India. It was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889. It was based on liberal principles. It described itself as the standard-bearer of Mohammedan Renaissance, and based itself, like the Brahmo Samaj, on the principles of the universal religion of all humanity, opposing jihad (sacred war against non-Muslims).

The Deoband School (Darul Uloom)

• The Deoband Movement was begun at the Darul Uloom (or Islamic academic centre), Deoband, in Saharanpur district (United Provinces) in 1866 by Mohammad Qasim Nanotavi (1832-80) and Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (1828-1905) to train religious leaders for the Muslim community.

Pairs 2 and 4 are incorrectly matched : 

It was founded by M.G Ranade and Raghunath rao in 1887. It does not merged with theosophical society. It advocates inter caste marriage, opposed polygamy and inspired people.

The main temple tower called VIMANA is like a stepped pyramid which rises up geometrically rather than curving generally found in south temples. The word Shikhara is used only for the crowning element at the top of the temple called STUPIKA or an octagonal cupola. It is the main feature of Nagara temple. A gopuram or gopura is a monumental entrance tower, usually ornate, at the entrance of a Hindu temple, in the Dravidian architecture of the Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana states of Southern India. 

• Statement 1 is incorrect: The Middle Paleolithic tool technology is characterized by flake tool industry.
• Statement 2 is incorrect: Middle Paleolithic tools have mostly been found in Central and Deccan India.

The Stone Age Cultures

• The Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic Culture of India developed in the Pleistocene period of Ice Age. The Palaeolithic Age in India is divided into three phases in accordance with the type of stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of climatic change.
  1. The first phase is called Early or Lower Palaeolithic. The main tool types in this phase were hand axes and cleavers, along with chopper chopping tools. Lower Palaeolithic tools have been found over a large area, virtually from all over India, except the plains of the Indus, Saraswati, Brahmaputra and Ganga where raw material in the form of stone is not available.
  2. The second phase is called Middle Palaeolithic. The Middle Palaeolithic tool technology is characterized basically by the flake tool industry. The tools are made on flakes obtained by striking them out from pebbles or cobbles. The tools show regional variations both in as shapes and sizes. Middle Palaeolithic tools have mostly been found in Central India, Deccan, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Orissa.
  3. The third phase is called Upper Palaeolithic. The basic technological innovation of the Upper Palaeolithic period is the method of producing parallel sided blades from a carefully prepared core. The upper Palaeolithic tools have been found in Rajasthan, parts of the Ganga and Belan valleys, Central and Western India, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
• In 9000 BC began an intermediate stage in Stone-Age culture, which is called the Mesolithic age or Late Stone Age. It intervened as a transitional phase between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic or New Stone ages. The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing, and food gathering; at a later stage they also domesticated animals. The characteristic tools of the Mesolithic age are microliths or tiny tools characterized by parallel-sided blades taken out from prepared cores of such fine material as chert, chalcedony, crystal, jasper, carnelian, agate, etc. Mesolithic sites abound in Rajasthan, southern UP, central and eastern India, and also south of the river Krishna. 

It is a Jain literature written in Prakrit language and it described how a queen named Kamlavati tried to persuade her husband to renounce the world.