Test: CLAT 2011 Past Year Paper - CLAT MCQ

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
Philip Spratt came to India because he:

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
The author that A.D. Shroff’s ideas were somewhat at odds with the views of Planning Commission because:

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
The ideological shift of Philip Spratt to the right was caused by:

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
Select the statement that could be most plausibly inferred from this passage.

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
The author alludes to nationalization of industries in 1969 in order to:

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.
“Neither Philip Spratt nor A.D. Shroff ______ able to convince Mahalanobis.” Select the most appropriate phrase out of the four options for filling the blank space in the aforesaid sentence.

The questions in this section are based on a single passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Please note that for some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question.

Passage for Question

In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a Forum of Free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the ‘indifference, if not discouragement’ with which the state treated entrepreneurs.

At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in 1920s to foment revolution in the subcontinent. Detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterwards, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Bangalore, called MysIndia. There he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur ‘as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis, had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in ‘rigid control by the government over all activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be ‘the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.’

The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime, and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its ‘left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.

Q.

The word ‘inveighed’ in this passage means:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
Which of the following is the closest description of the central argument of this passage:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
According to this passage, Premchand and Mulk Raj Anand:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
The writer refers to the ‘anti-reservation discourse’ in order to argue that:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
Which of the following statements is least likely to be inferred from this passage.

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
According to the information available in the passage, the writer attributes the prevalence of representation of Dalits by non-Dalits in literature, art and media to:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
Which of the following is not among the reasons suggested by the writer for engaging with Dalit writing:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
Which of the following statement cannot be inferred from the passage:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
The writer of this passage is critical of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance for the reason that:

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
Which of the following words would be the best substitute for the word ‘sly’ in this passage.

Passage for Question 

In Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani; is a sly, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire—where almost every character cuts a sorry figure—gives the author the licence to offer one of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters—or perhaps because of it?—Serious Men has won critical appreciation from a cross-section of readers and critics.

At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature—writing by Dalits about Dalit lives—has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature—and particularly in the case of African-American authors and character—these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life—and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production—have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.

The journey of modern Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers we must engage with what Dalits are writing—not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognize Dalits as equal, rights-bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanize non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.

Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters— uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash—who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar’s father Dukhi belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi’s visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the “Mahatma’s message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice,” and wiping out “the disease of untouchability, ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings.”

Neither in the 1940s, where the novel’s past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970s—when the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state—do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his ‘nationalist’ understanding of modern Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry’s literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.

Q.
"It is not as if Dalit movements ________ not active during the periods that form A Fine Balance’s backdrop.” Select the most appropriate choice to fill in the blank in the above sentence:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
Which of the following statements is least likely to be inferred from the passage:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
Which of the following would be the best substitute for the word, ‘fusillade’ in the passage?

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
The writer uses the phrase, ‘who gets to write about India contingent’ in this passage to refer to:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
The writer believes that the most peculiar aspect of the criticisms that Patrick French and William Dalaymple have received is that:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
Which of the following statements can be inferred from the passage:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
According to the information available in the passage, the writer is of the opinion that:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
The writer refers to the history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together in India for millions of years in order to:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
The writer argues that the nature of criticism he, Dalrymple and French have received for their books renders reading their books superfluous because:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
According to the passage, the question ‘who gets to write about India’ is complicated because:

Passage for Question 

In recent weeks the writers William Dalrymple and Patrick French, among others, have come before a fusillade of criticism in India, much of it questioning not their facts, not their interpretations, but their foreignness.

“Who gets to write about India?” The Wall Street Journal asked on Wednesday in its own report on this Indian literary feuding. It is a complicated question, not least because to decide who gets to write about India, you would need to decide who gets to decide who gets to write about India. Rather than conjecturing some Committee for the Deciding of the Deciding of Who Gets to Write About India, it might be easier to let writers write what they please and readers read what they wish.

The accusations pouring forth from a section of the Indian commentariat are varied. Some criticism is of a genuine literary nature, fair game, customary, expected. But lately a good amount of the reproaching has been about identity.

In the case of Mr. Dalrymple, a Briton who lives in New Delhi, it is—in the critics’ view—that his writing is an act of re-colonization. In the case of Mr. French, it is that he belongs to a group of foreign writers who use business-class lounges and see some merit in capitalism and therefore do not know the real India, which only the commentarial member in question does.

What is most interesting about these appraisals is that their essential nature makes reading the book superfluous, as one of my Indian reviewers openly admitted. (His review was not about the book but about his refusal to read the book). The book is not necessary in these cases, for the argument is about who can write about India, not what has been written.

For critics of this persuasion, India surely seems a lonely land. A country with a millennial history of Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists living peaceably together; a country of hundreds of dialects in which so many. Indians are linguistic foreigners to each other, and happily, tolerantly so; a country that welcomes foreign seekers (of yoga poses, of spiritual wisdom, of ancestral roots) with open arms; a country where, outside the elite world of South Delhi and South Bombay, I have not heard an Indian ask whether outsiders have a right to write, think or exist on their soil.

But it is not just this deep-in-the-bones pluralism that challenges the who-gets-to-write-about-India contingent. It is also that at the very heart of India’s multifarious changes today is this glimmering idea: that Indians must be rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

Identities you never chose—caste, gender, birth order—are becoming less important determinants of fate. Your deeds—how hard you work, what risks you take—are becoming more important. It is this idea, which I have found pulsating throughout the Indian layers, that leaves a certain portion of the intelligentsia out of sync with the surrounding country. As Mr. French has observed, there is a tendency in some of these writers to value social mobility only for themselves. When the new economy lifts up the huddled masses, then it becomes tawdry capitalism and rapacious imperialism and soulless globalization.

Fortunately for those without Indian passports, the nativists’ vision of India is under demographic siege. The young and the relentless are India’s future. They could not think more differently from these literatis. They savour the freedom they are gaining to seek their own level in the society and to find their voice; and they tend to be delighted at the thought that some foreigners do the same in India and love their country as much as they do.

Q.
“But with many outsiders’ India-related books recently hitting bookstores there, the sensitivity—flared into a bout of vigorous literary nativism, with equally vigorous counterpunches.” Select the most appropriate choice to fill in the blank in the above sentence: