Day-552 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: D
Explanation:

The early idea which helped in shaping the policies of education during colonial rule was Orientalism. It focused on studying and understanding the scholarly knowledge of the language and culture of Asia.

Some of the early personalities who supported this idea were:

• William Jones who had an appointment as a junior judge at the Supreme Court that the Company had set up at Calcutta. He along with some of his followers like Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and started a journal called Asiatick Researches. So, statement 1 is incorrect.
• Warren Hastings took the initiative to set up the Calcutta Madrasa in 1781 to promote the study of Arabic, Persian and Islamic law and believed that the ancient customs of the country and Oriental learning ought to be the basis of British rule in India.
• From the early nineteenth century many British officials began to criticise the Orientalist vision of learning. The British effort ought to be to teach what was useful and practical. So Indians should be made familiar with the scientific and technical advances that the West had made, rather than with the poetry and sacred literature of the Orient.
• The most influential ideologues of these were James Mill and Thomas Babington Macaulay. With great energy and passion, Macaulay emphasised the need to teach the English language.
• Following Macaulay’s minute, the English Education Act of 1835 was introduced. The decision was to make English the medium of instruction for higher education, and to stop the promotion of Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College. So, statement 2 is incorrect.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• The hook-swinging ritual (known as charak puja in Bengal) was a form of devotion to the female deity Mari-amma. The devotee would be beaten on the back by a priest until the flesh there was numbed, at which point metal hooks would be passed through the flesh. He would then be raised on the gibbet and swung around, taking care not to show any pain and even to shout and laugh.
• In the vernaculars of the country “hook-swinging” is variously known as charak-puja, pota-puja, khidi-mari, bhokta-puja, chata-parab, soodaloo, and silloo.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Stripurushtulna (A Comparison between Women and Men) is authored by Tarabai Shinde from Poona criticising the social differences between men and women.
• Amar Jiban written by Rashsundari Devi (1800–1890), who was born in West Bengal, is the first known autobiography written by an Indian woman.
• Statement 2 is correct: Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922) was given the title ‘Pandita’ because she could read and write Sanskrit, a remarkable achievement as women then were not allowed such knowledge. She went on to set up a Mission in Khedgaon near Pune in 1898, where widows and poor women were encouraged not only to become literate but to be independent.
• Statement 3 is incorrect: Ladyland is a part of a remarkable story written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain titled Sultana’s Dream in 1905 to practise her English skills. This story imagined a woman called Sultana who reaches a place called Ladyland. Ladyland is a place where women had the freedom to study, work, and create inventions like controlling rain from the clouds and flying air cars.

Answer: C

Explanation:

• When the 2nd World War broke out in Europe, Subhas Chandra Bose was of the view that Indians must utilise this opportunity to take advantage of the empire’s weakest moment to gain Independence.
• In Bengal, he forged a link with the Muslim League, and decided to launch a civil disobedience movement to destroy the Holwell monument that stood in Calcutta as a reminder of a Black hole tragedy which most people believed did never happen and was invented only to tar the memory of Siraj-ud-daula, the last independent ruler of Bengal. It was a campaign that had an obvious appeal to the Muslims and thus could further strengthen the Hindu-Muslim pact in Bengal. But before it could start, he was arrested by the British on 3 July 1940 under the Defence of India Act.
• The Holwell Monument was erected by G. Holwell during the short tenure of his Calcutta Governorship in 1760 to commemorate those deceased in the Black Hole tragedy. The monument was a symbol representing the alleged savagery of the last Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula, and the bravery of the British soldiers who sacrificed their lives. It was argued, ‘the monument must go because it is not merely an unwarranted stain on the memory of the Nawab but has stood in the heart of Calcutta for the last 150 years or more as the symbol of our slavery and humiliation.’

Answer: D

Explanation:

• The term ‘dalams’ refers to revolutionary units. Mostly women played an active role in these organisations. They joined on their own, acted as couriers of secret messages, arranged shelter and few of them took up guns and became participating members of the dalams. One of the prominent examples of this was the Tebhaga movement which began in Bengal in 1946 under communist-led kisan sabhas with the sharecroppers’ demand for two-thirds share of the produce.