Test: Class 8 History NCERT Based- 1 - UPSC MCQ

James Mill was a Scottish economist and political philosopher. In 1817, he wrote 'A History of British India'. Mills divided the Indian history into three periods and called them Hindu, Muslim and British periods

The sea route through Mediterranean and Suez canal was dominated by Arabs during the 15th and 16th century. So, Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, discovered an alternate route from Portugal to India via the Cape of Good Hope by sailing through Africa coast. 

The Portuguese had established their first fort at Cochin in India in 1502.

The Treaty of Seringapatam signed 18 March 1792, ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Its signatories included Lord Cornwallis on behalf of the British East India Company, representatives of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha Empire, and Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore. Tipu Sultan lost against the combined forces and was forced to sign a treaty with the British by which two of his sons were taken away as hostages.

Important features of Regulating Act of 1773, passed by the British Parliament are:
The Act elevated Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings to Governor-General of Bengal
It subsumed the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay under Bengal's control.
A new court of appeal called the Sadar Nizamat Adalat was set up at Calcutta.
It prohibited the servants of the company from engaging in any private trade or accepting presents or bribes from the "natives". 

By the thirteenth century Indian indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth. The indigo plant grows primarily in the tropics, whereas Italy, France and Britain are temperate countries. Since indigo plantation was not possible in these European countries, they were dependent on India for its plantation.

Cloth dyers preferred indigo as a dye in comparison to other plants. Indigo produced in India had a rich blue colour, whereas the dye obtained from other plants in European countries was pale and dull.

The Ryotwari system was introduced by Sir Thomas Munro in 1820. This system was initially tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Read in some of the areas of Baramahal district and others in Karnataka region that were taken over by the Company after the wars with Tipu Sultan.

This system allowed the government to deal directly with the peasant (ryot) for revenue collection. It gave the peasant freedom to give up or acquire new land for cultivation.

The peasant was assessed for only the lands he was cultivating. However, driven by the desire to increase the income from land, revenue officials fixed too high a revenue demand.

The Treaty of Allahabad was signed on 12 August 1765, between the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and Robert Clive of the East India Company. It was as a result of defeat of combined forces of Nawab of Bengal and Mughal Emperor against Robert Clive at the Battle of Buxar of 1764. Based on the terms of the agreement under the treaty, Shah Alam granted the East India Company Diwani rights, or the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Emperor from the eastern province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

Songram Sangma was a tribal revolt that took place in 1906 in Assam. The forest law enacted by the British declared forests as state property and classified certain forests as reserved forests. Forest dwellers and tribal communities which depended on forests produce, land and timber were now not allowed hunting, jhum cultivation and gathering in the reserve forests areas. Due to this, tribes in Assam revolted against the British in 1906 and the revolt was called Songram Sangma revolt.

Jhum Cultivation is the process of growing crops by first clearing the land of trees and vegetation and burning them thereafter. In the uplands of northeast India shifting cultivation, locally known as jhum, continues to be a dominant mode of food production and the economic mainstay of many rural households.

It is a very primitive form of agriculture (not a new form), which is believed to have originated in the Neolithic period around 7000 B.C.

Shifting cultivation lands fall under the purview of ‘agricultural land’ category when they are in the cultivation phase, but the same lands come under ‘forest land’ category during the fallow phase.

In 1856, Governor-General Canning decided that Bahadur Shah Zafar would be the last Mughal king and after his death none of his descendants would be recognised as kings – they would just be called princes. In the countryside peasants and zamindars resented the high taxes and the rigid methods of revenue collection.

In Delhi, a large number of ghazis or religious warriors came together to wipe out the white people. Bakht Khan, a soldier from Bareilly, took charge of a large force of fighters who came to Delhi. He became a key military leader of the rebellion.

In Bihar, an old zamindar, Kunwar Singh, joined the rebel sepoys and battled with the British for many months. Leaders and fighters from across the land joined the fight. He led the revolt in Bhojpur region of Bihar. Ahmadullah Shah was a maulvi from Faizabad. He caught the imagination of the people and raised a huge force of supporters. He came to Lucknow to fight the British during the 1857 revolt.

The British Parliament passed a new Act in 1858 and transferred the powers of the East India Company to the British Crown in order to ensure a more responsible management of Indian affairs. All ruling chiefs of the country were assured that their territory would never be annexed in the future. They were allowed to pass on their kingdoms to their heirs, including adopted sons, thereby ending the doctrine of lapse.

A member of the British Cabinet was appointed Secretary of State for India and made responsible for all matters related to the governance of India

Paikas unfurled the banner of rebellion against the British under the leadership of Baxi Jagandhu Bidyadhar.

Paikas were essentially the peasant militias of the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who rendered military service to the king during times of war while taking up cultivation during times of peace.

Kandukuri veeresalingam pantulu was a social reformer, activist, writer, “the quintessential Renaissance man”. He was popularly known as "Gadya Tikkana". In the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency, he formed an association for widow remarriage. He was the first person to conduct a widow remarriage in Andhra Pradesh.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the reform association called Arya Samaj in 1875. Arya Samaj was aimed at promoting values and practices based on the belief in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Members of the Arya Samaj believe in one God and reject the worship of idols.

In the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency an Englishman called Holt Mackenzie devised the new system called mahalwari settlement which came into effect in 1822. 

As per the new system, collectors went from village to village, inspecting the land, measuring the fields, and recording the customs and rights of different groups. The estimated revenue of each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each village (mahal) had to pay. This demand was to be revised periodically, not permanently fixed. This system came to be known as the mahalwari settlement.

There were two main systems of indigo cultivation – nij and ryoti. Within the system of nij cultivation, the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled. He either bought the land or rented it from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers.
Under the ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement. At times they pressured the village headmen to sign the contract on behalf of the ryots. Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low rates of interest to produce indigo

The ‘Treaty of Srirangapatnam’ was signed on 18 March 1792. It ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War. During the third Anglo-Mysore war, Tipu Sultan forces were attacked by the combined forces of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the East India Company.

Lord Dalhousie was the Governor-General from 1848 to 1856. He devised a policy that came to be known as the Doctrine of Lapse. The doctrine declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir his kingdom would “lapse”, that is, become part of Company territory.

Several kingdoms were annexed simply by applying this doctrine: Satara , Sambalpur, Udaipur , Nagpur and Jhansi. Thus, Satara was the first kingdom to be annexed under the Doctrine of Lapse.

James Rennell was an English cartographer, geographer, and oceanographer. He was surveyor general of Bengal and published 'A Bengal Atlas' in 1779. He is known to have constructed the first approximately correct map of India in 1783. 

James Prinsep was an English scholar, orientalist and antiquary. He was the founding editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is best remembered for deciphering the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts of ancient India. 

Prarthana Samaj, or "Prayer Society" in Sanskrit, was a movement for religious and social reform in Bombay. It adhered to the tradition of Bhakti that believed in the spiritual equality of all castes. In Bombay, the Paramhans Mandali was founded in 1840 to work for the abolition of caste. Later in 1867, Atmaram Pandurang established Prarthana Samaj. Hence, statement 1 is correct. It had an aim to make people believe in one God and worship only one God.