Day-690 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: A
Explanation:
Statement 1 is incorrect: The Greek custom of etching portrait heads on coins was introduced by Indo-Greek and Kushana kings. On one side, a helmeted bust of the monarch was depicted, and on the reverse, the king’s favourite deity. The coins of the Greek kings in India were bilingual, i.e., written in Greek on the front side and in Pali language (in Kharosthi script) on the back.

Statement 2 is correct: The inscriptions on the coins were all in Sanskrit (Brahmi script) for the first time in the history of coins during the Gupta period.
Statement 3 is incorrect: The Satavahana kings mostly used lead as a material for their coins. Silver coins were rare. Satavahana coins are devoid of any beauty or artistic merit.
Additional information:
● The word Coin is derived from the Latin word Cuneus, and it is believed that the first recorded use of coins was in China and Greece around 700 B.C. and in India in the sixth century BC.
● Apart from the coins, another major medium of exchange in the early Indian market was the Cowrie Shell. Cowrie shells were used in large numbers by the ordinary masses for small-scale economic transactions. It is said that the cowrie shells carried definite value in the market just as the coins.
● The study of coins and medallions is known as Numismatics. Early coins were die-struck manually and therefore were not uniform in shape and design. Some of them were casted coins and were die-struck only on one side.
● Development of coins in India started from the Punch-marked coins and achieved the milestone of coin development in the Mughal era. The evolution of coins in India is as follows:
Punch-marked coins:
● Panini’s Ashtadhyayi cites that in punch marked coins, the metallic pieces were stamped with symbols. Each unit was called ‘Ratti’ weighing 0.11 gram. The first trace of this coin was available in the period between sixth and second century BCE.
● Punch-marked coins issued by various Mahajanapadas (around 6th century BCE): These coins had irregular shapes, standard weight and were made up of silver with different markings.
● Punch-marked coins during Mauryan Period (322–185 BCE): Coins had various symbols like, sun and six-armed wheel was most consistent and termed as Karshapanas.
Dynastic Coins:
• The earliest of these coins relate to those of the Indo-Greeks, the Saka-Pahalavas and the Kushanas. These coins are generally placed between the 2nd century BC and 2nd century AD.
Indo Greeks:
• Hellenistic traditions characterise the silver coins of the Indo-Greeks, with Greek gods and goddesses figuring prominently, apart from the portraits of the issuers.
Sakas:
• The Saka coinage of the Western Kshatrapas are perhaps the earliest dated coins, the dates being given in the Saka era which commences in AD 78.
• The Saka era represents the official calendar of the Indian Republic.
Kushanas:
• Kushans, who hailed from the Central Asian region depicted Oesho (Shiva), moon deity Miro and Buddha in their coinage.
• Earliest Kushana coinage is generally attributed to Vima Kadphises.
• The Kushana coins generally depicted iconographic forms drawn from Greek, Mesopotamian, Zoroastrian, and Indian mythology.
• Siva, Buddha and Kartikeya were the major Indian deities portrayed.
Satavahanas:
• Satavahanas rule started after 232 BC and lasted up to 227 AD. Next to lead, they used an alloy of silver and copper called ‘potin’. Many copper coins are also available.
• Although the Satavahana coins are devoid of any beauty or artistic merit, they constitute a valuable source-material for the dynastic history of the Satavahanas. Most of the Satavahana coins had on one side, the figure of an elephant, horse, lion, or Chaitya. The other side showed the Ujjain symbol – a cross with four circles.
Gupta:
• Gupta rulers issued coins depicting the emperors not only in martial activities like hunting lions/tigers, posing with weapons, etc., but also in leisurely activities like playing a Veena, with reverse side of the coin having images of goddess Lakshmi, Durga, Ganga, Garuda and Kartikeya.

Answer: A
Explanation:
Statement 1 is correct: Cornwallis set up a regular police force to uphold law and order. He relieved the zamindars of their police duties. He modernised the medieval system of thanas. This put India ahead of Britain, where a system of police had not developed yet.
Statement 2 is incorrect: Sir Charles Napier modelled his Police in the Sindh Province on the pattern of the Irish Police Organisation (1836).
Statement 3 is incorrect: Frazer Police Commission (1902-03) suggested two service branches:
1) the Imperial Service Branch, whose recruitment would take place in England, and
2) the Provincial Service Branch, whose recruitment would take place entirely in India
Additional information:
An important aspect of the Police organisation within the colonial state was its military character in its administrative and organisational form.
● Although law and order were attributed to the police, the army was frequently used to deal with ‘disturbances’.
● Even its perception of dealing with crime and the issue of social norm violation was influenced by its military orientation.
● Instead of just being concerned about lawlessness and the security of people and property, these were primarily seen as aspects of public safety and political stability, as well as aspects of rebellion and disorder.
● The police were forced to use selective control, in which they chose specific social groups as their targets, due to a lack of financial resources and political will.
● Additionally, the police continued to be corrupt, ineffective, poorly trained, and poorly equipped.
● To prevent the army from being overburdened, an armed police unit was established in the 1920s.
● This administrative agency was never trusted by colonial policymakers. There was a nagging fear of rebellion, of choosing sides, or of showing support for the masses.
● The colonial state’s police organisation was allied with the strong, dominant landed groups.
● In the majority of rural areas, the daroga and the local landowner played important roles as the government for the peasants and labourers, or, to put it another way, for every segment of rural society.

Answer: D
Explanation:
Reasons for growth of trade union in India after the World War-I:
● Rising prices of essential commodities.
● Decline in the real wages of workers.
● Increase in the demand for the industrial products resulting in the expansion of Indian industries.
● Gandhi’s call for the non-cooperation movement
● The Russian Revolution.
Additional information:
Rise of Working Class:
● The modern working class arose in India with the introduction of capitalism in the 19th century under colonial dispensation.
● It was a modern working class in the sense of relatively modern organisation of labour and a relatively free market for labour.
● This development was due to the establishment of modern factories, railways, dockyards and construction activities relating to roads and buildings.
● Plantations and railways were the initial enterprises to herald the era of colonial capitalism in the Indian subcontinent.
Emergence and Growth of Trade Unions:
● The Indian trade unions have developed in the specific context of colonialism and an underdeveloped economy. The problems of the developing economy still continue in the post-independence period.
● With lower levels of education, higher levels of unemployment and underemployment, and lower wages, the workers in India faced many problems which are also reflected in the growth of unions.
● The Madras Labour Union, formed in April 1918, is generally considered to be the first trade union in India.
● B. P. Wadia, a nationalist leader and an associate of Annie Besant, was instrumental for its organisation. It was mainly an organisation based on the workers of Carnatic and Buckingham Mills in Madras.
● But workers from other trades such as tramways, rickshaw-pullers, etc. also joined the union in the initial stage. For the first time in India, there was a regular membership, and the members were to contribute one anna as monthly subscription.
● On the basis of this struggle and on the principle of arbitration, the Textile Labour Association, also known as Majur Mahajan, was established in Ahmedabad in 1920. This union worked along Gandhian lines and became very strong over the years.
● The trade union movement now picked up momentum and many more trade unions were formed in many centres.
● By 1920, according to an estimate there were 125 unions consisting of 250,000 members.
● This was a fairly impressive growth by any standards. But if we consider the durability and consistency of these unions, we find that most of them were very temporary in nature and were little more than strike committees.
● They were formed basically to conduct strikes and dissolved soon after the strike ended. There was no regular membership, nor were there regular payments from the members. However, the impetus provided by the trade union growth was such that soon a national organisation of the working classes was established.

Answer: A
Explanation:
Statement 1 is correct: The Nij-abad and the Ryoti were the two main forms that were used to practise it. In the Nij, or “own,” system, the planter produced indigo on land under his direct control. In the Ryoti cultivation, the Ryots grew indigo as agreed in a contract with the planters on their own grounds.
Statement 2 is incorrect: Indigo planters persuaded peasants to plant indigo rather than food crops. They offered loans, known as dadon, at higher interest rates. Once a farmer took out such loans, he was in debt for the rest of his life before passing it on to his heirs. The planters paid a pittance, only 2.5 percent of the market price. Growing indigo was not profitable for the farmers.
Statement 3 is incorrect: Though, the revolt varied according to time and place but was mostly passive and non-violent. The British colonial authorities established the Indigo Commission in 1860 with the goal of putting an end to the repressions of indigo planters (by passing the Indigo Act 1862).
Additional information:
● The most militant and widespread of the peasant movements was the Indigo Revolt of 1859-60. The tenants were forced to grow indigo, which was processed in factories set up by indigo planters, almost all of whom were Europeans, in rural areas. From the beginning, indigo was grown under an extremely oppressive system, resulting in significant losses for the cultivators.
● The revolt began in the villages of Gobindapur and Chanugacha in Krishnanagar, Nadia district, where Bishnucharan Biswas and Digambar Biswas led the first rebellion against the planters in Bengal in 1859.
● It quickly spread through Murshidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan, Pabna, Khulna, and Narail. A public trial was held for some indigo planters, and they were executed.
● The methods of resistance in indigo revolt used by peasants differed from place to place. Bishnucharan and Digambar’s revolt in Chaugacha and Gobindapur was an armed conflict against the planters.
● According to historian Jogesh Chandra Bagal, the revolt was a nonviolent revolution, which is why the Indigo Revolt was more successful than the Sepoy Revolt.
● The farmers were completely unprotected from the indigo planters, who threatened them with mortgages or property destruction if they refused to obey them.
● The planters benefited from government policies that favoured them. The planters were given a free hand in oppression by an act passed in 1833. Even the zamindars supported the planters.

Answer: B
Explanation:
Statement 1 is correct: These were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials. The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala). Non-sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as menhirs.
Statement 2 is correct: ‘Black and red ware’ pottery is one of the characteristics of the megalithic period.
Statement 3 is incorrect: Megalithic period is characterised by the sedentary civilisation. However, the evidence clearly indicates that early iron age communities in the far south lived on a combination of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry. There is also evidence of well-developed craft traditions.
Additional information:
● Pottery and Roman coins have also been discovered in some of the settlements.
● These graves have yielded enlightening evidence regarding these cultural periods, such as animal bones, iron objects, pottery, ornaments, beads, and so on. As a result, the Megalithic period of human life is referred to as the megalithic culture.
● Villages were common among the Megalithic people. Megalithic people cultivated a variety of food grains, including rice and wheat.
● The thickness of the debris discovered at the megalithic settlement indicates that the megalithic people resided in one location for about 50-100 years, before moving on to new locations.
● Donkeys and buffalo were among the animals they domesticated. Agriculture had not yet reached the point of surplus.
● The iron object discovery in megalithic graves suggests that this period is associated with the Iron Age.
Megalithic sites
● Seraikala in Jharkhand
● Deodhoora in Almora district of Uttarakhand
● Koldihwa (Belan valley), Banda, Mirzapur, Prayagraj, and Varanasi districts of Uttar Pradesh
● Thrissur and Kunnattur in Kerala
● Waztal, Burzahom and Brah in Kashmir
● Maski, Hallur, Chandravalli, Hire Benkal, Coorg, Heggadehalli and Brahmagiri in Karnataka
● Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh
● Junapani, Khapa, Mahurjhari, and Naikund are near Nagpur and a few sites in the Pune district in Maharashtra.
● Adichanallue, Sanur, Kodumanal and Perumbair in Tamil Nadu

Social Organisation of Megalithic Culture
● Only a very rough social structure of the Indian Megalithic people can be derived, and information on settlement patterns is essentially non-existent.
● Division of labour: It appears that the communities may have included a variety of specialised groups, including goldsmiths, smiths, warriors, farmers, and carpenters.
● Economy: Primary agriculture, partly hunting
● Evidences of iron sickles and plough coulters
● Evidence of staples – Rice and ragi grains in the excavations at Kunnattur and Hallur, respectively.
● It is also shown by the hunting scenes in the Hire-Benkal rock paintings.