UPSC: History NCERT Based Test- 2 - UPSC MCQ

• Both are correct. For a variety of reasons, cultivators were unwilling to turn their fields over to poppy. First, the crop had to be grown on the best land, on fields that lay near villages and were well manured.

• On this land peasants usually produced pulses. If they planted opium on this land, then pulses could not be grown there. The price the government paid to the cultivators for the opium they produced was very low. It was unprofitable for cultivators to grow opium at that price.

They provided for noble families and the army.

• Soon after the observance of this “Independence Day”, Mahatma Gandhi announced that he would lead a march to break one of the most widely disliked laws in\ British India, which gave the state a monopoly in the manufacture and sale of salt.

• His picking on the salt monopoly was another illustration of Gandhiji’s tactical wisdom. For in every Indian household, salt was indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price. The state monopoly over salt was deeply unpopular; by making it his target, Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against British rule.

• In March 1859 thousands of ryots in Bengal refused to grow indigo. As the rebellion spread, ryots refused to pay rents to the planters and attacked indigo factories armed with swords and spears, bows and arrows.

• Women turned up to fight with pots, pans and kitchen implements. After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal. But the planters now shifted their operation to Bihar.

Kansaris were bell metalworkers. Many of the modest brick and terracotta temples in Bengal were built with the support of several “low” social groups, such as the Kolu (oil pressers) and the Kansaris. Regional states were emerging relationships with rich bankers and merchants.

• All are responsible for the fall of Calcutta in Siraj Ud Daulah's reign. When Siraj became Nawab he asked the East India Company to stop meddling in political affairs, stop fortifications and pay dues.

• When the British refused to cease their constructions, the Nawab led a detachment of 3,000 men to surround the fort and factory of Cossimbazar and took several British officials as prisoners, before moving to Calcutta.

• The defences of Calcutta were weak and negligible. The city was occupied on 16 June by Siraj's force and the fort surrendered after a brief siege on 20 June.

• Sepoys mutinied in several places beginning from Meerut. On 29 March 1857, a young soldier, Mangal Pandey, was hanged to death for attacking his officers in Barrackpore.

• Most Smaller rulers and chieftains controlled different territories on behalf of the Mughal ruler.

• Threatened by the expansion of British rule, many of them felt that if the Mughal emperor could rule again, they too would be able to rule their territories once more, under Mughal authority.

• Sepoys of the regiment at Meerut refused to do the army drill using the new cartridges which were suspected of being coated with the fat of cows and pigs.

• In most parts of the Western world, modern cities emerged during and due to Industrialisation. In Britain, for example, industrial cities like Leeds and Manchester grew rapidly in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the late 18th century, Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras rose in importance as Presidency cities, centres of British power in India.

• At the same time, historically important ports and cities such as Machilipatnam, Surat, and Seringapatam declined. The historic Mughal imperial city of Delhi also became a dusty provincial town in the 19th century before it was rebuilt as the capital of British India.

• Towns were often defined in opposition to rural areas. They came to represent specific forms of economic activities and cultures. In the countryside people subsisted by cultivating land, foraging in the forest, or rearing animals.

• Towns by contrast were populated with artisans, traders, administrators and rulers. Towns dominated over the rural population, thriving on the surplus and taxes derived from agriculture.

• Towns and cities were often fortified by walls which symbolised their separation from the countryside. However, the separation between town and country was fluid. Peasants travelled long distances on pilgrimage, passing through towns; they also flocked to towns during times of famine

• “Moderates” who preferred a more gradual and persuasive approach. Among these Moderates was Gandhiji’s acknowledged political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, as well as Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who, like Gandhiji, was a lawyer of Gujarati extraction trained in London.

• On Gokhale’s advice, Gandhiji spent a year travelling around British India, getting to know the land and its peoples.

Kujula Kadphises is regarded as founder of Kushana Empire. He amalgamated the five clans of Yue-chi tribe and laid the foundation of unified kushana empire. Kanishka was the most powerful ruler of the Kushana Empire.

• Towards the beginning of the twentieth century a new hybrid architectural style developed which combined the Indian with the European. This was called Indo-Saracenic. “Indo” was shorthand for Hindu and “Saracen” was a term Europeans used to designate Muslim.

• The inspiration for this style was medieval buildings in India with their domes, chhatris, jalis, and arches. By integrating Indian and European styles in public architecture the British wanted to prove that they were legitimate rulers of India.

• The Gateway of India, built in the traditional Gujarati style to welcome King George V and Queen Mary to India in 1911.

• Unwilling cultivators were made to produce opium through a system of advances. In the rural areas of Bengal and Bihar, there were large numbers of poor peasants. They never had enough to survive.

• It was difficult for them to pay rent to the landlord or to buy food and clothing. From the 1780s, such peasants found their village headmen (Mahato) giving them money advances to produce opium.

• The Irwin Declaration of October 1929 committed Britain to eventual Dominion Status for India. Despite such a policy having been implicit for a decade, the Declaration was denounced by many at the Tory Right New Delhi Conference of December 1929 between Irwin and the Indian leaders failed to reach agreement.

• Gandhi now began a campaign of civil disobedience with a view to achieving complete independence

In Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab, leaders such as Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai were beginning to explore more radical objectives and methods.

• The word stupa means a mound. While there are several kinds of stupas, round and tall, big and small, these have certain common features.

• Generally, there is a small box placed at the centre or heart of the stupa. This may contain bodily remains (such as teeth, bone or ashes) of the Buddha or his followers, or things they used, as well as precious stones, and coins.

Some of the new rules, moreover, violated their religious sensibilities and beliefs.