Day-765 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: A
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is incorrect: Permanent Settlement was made with the rajas and taluqdars of Bengal. They were classified as zamindars, and they had to pay the revenue demand that was fixed in perpetuity. In terms of this definition, the zamindar was not a landowner in the village, but a revenue collector of the state.
● Statement 2 is correct: Zamindars could sell or transfer the land under the Permanent Settlement.
● Statement 3 is incorrect: Permanent Settlement initially limited the power of the zamindar to collect rent from the ryot and manage his zamindari. The zamindars’ troops were disbanded, customs duties abolished, and their “cutcheries” (courts) brought under the supervision of a Collector appointed by the Company. Zamindars lost their power to organise local justice and the local police. Over time the collectorate emerged as an alternative centre of authority, severely restricting what the zamindar could do.
Additional information:
● Permanent Settlement was a grand contract signed in 1793 between the government of the East India Company in Bengal and individual landholders of Bengal- zamindars and talukdars.
● Under the contract, the zamindars were admitted into the colonial state system as the absolute proprietors of landed property in Bengal.
● The government revenue payable to the government was fixed permanently.
● The rules of the Permanent Settlement made every individual zamindar and talukdar the permanent and absolute proprietors of the land under their control.
● As absolute proprietors of land, zamindars and talukdars were required to pay revenue to the government at a rate fixed permanently. But cultivating raiyats was denied such a privilege.
● The landholders were free to change the rent rate of their tenants. They could even evict their tenants if they wanted to. But if they defaulted, their lands proportionate to their default would be realised through the public sale of their land. This strong law was called the Sun-set Law.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Adhiyars and Bargadars were sharecroppers who brought their own ploughs, laboured in the field, and handed over half the produce to the jotedars after the harvest.
Additional information:
● By the early nineteenth century, jotedars had acquired vast areas of land – sometimes as much as several thousand acres. They controlled local trade as well as moneylending, exercising immense power over the poorer cultivators of the region.
● A large part of their land was cultivated through sharecroppers (adhiyars or bargadars).
● Local trade and money lending were also under the control of the jotedars.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is correct: Commercialization of agriculture under the colonial land revenue policies burdened small peasants by placing a premium on access to credit to finance productive investments in the land which led to the Deccan revolt.
● Statement 2 is correct: In this revolt, ryots from surrounding rural areas attacked the shopkeepers and burnt bahi khatas and debt bonds.
● Statement 3 is correct: The revolt got support from educated members including those of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.
Additional information:
● British rulers introduced the Ryotwari system in the Deccan region of Maharashtra to increase revenue from the landowners.
● The collected payment was fixed under this system. The new land revenue was an agreement signed between the cultivator and the E.I.C. The determined amount was too high for the farmers to repay the amount.
● Farmers started facing difficulties in paying their debts to the E.I.C. Any interruption or delay in the rains that pushed delayed the cultivation would worsen the circumstances.
● Due to the conduct of the Civil War in the United States in 1861, India became the largest exporter of cotton to Britain. The cultivation of cotton in India faced an unexpected rise.
● After the end of the Civil War, the US started to export cotton. Thus, the farmers were facing more issues in repaying the determined amount in the land revenue agreement.
● Furthermore, the farmers were left with the only choice to take loans from the moneylenders and pay more amounts for a higher rate of interest. The final consequence of these circumstances led to the beginning of the riots of Deccan in 1875.

Answer: A
Explanation:
● Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was popularly called Danka Shah, the maulvi with the drum (danka). British officials panicked as thousands began following the maulvi and many Muslims began seeing him as an inspired prophet.
● When he reached Lucknow in 1856, he was stopped by the police from preaching in the city. Subsequently, in 1857, he was jailed in Faizabad.
● When released, he was elected by the mutinous 22nd Native Infantry as their leader. He fought in the famous Battle of Chinhat in which the British forces under Henry Lawrence were defeated. He came to be known for his courage and power.
● Many people in fact believed that he was invincible, had magical powers, and could not be killed by the British. It was this belief that partly formed the basis of his authority.
Additional information:
● Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was one of the many maulvis who played an important part in the revolt of 1857. Educated in Hyderabad, he became a preacher when young. In 1856, he was seen moving from village to village preaching jehad (religious war) against the British and urging people to rebel. He moved in a palanquin, with drumbeaters in front and followers at the rear.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Subsidiary Alliance had been imposed on Awadh in 1801.
● In May 1816 the Kingdom of Awadh became a British protectorate.
● Lord Dalhousie annexed Awadh completely for the British in 1856.
Additional information:
● The English came into contact with the state of Awadh first during the course of the battle of Buxar. Awadh was defeated and Clive made a settlement with it some time after. It surrendered Allahabad and Kara to the Mughal emperor and paid rupees fifty lakhs to the Company.
● In 1773, Warren Hastings restored Allahabad and Kara to Awadh after payment of rupees fifty lakhs. The English also helped it in conquering Rohilkhand.
● By a treaty in 1775, Awadh handed over Banaras and Ghazipur to the English. The Nawab of Awadh extracted the wealth of his father from the Begums with the support of the English. He also agreed to pay a fixed annual amount for the expenses of the English army.
● When Cornwallis came as the governor-general, the finances of Awadh were in a bad shape. Cornwallis criticised the administration in a serious tone. Yet, by that time, the English desired to keep Awadh as a buffer state between their territories and the Marathas. Therefore, they did not want to weaken it.
● Cornwallis, therefore, reduced the annual amount which the Nawab used to pay to the Company. In 1797, Nawab Asaf-ud-daula died and the gaddi was claimed both by his brother Sadat Ali and son Vazir Ali.
● Sir John Shore, the then governor-general, interfered in this disputed succession, placed Sadat Ali on the gaddi and made a fresh treaty with him. The terms of the treaty put an additional financial burden on Awadh which adversely affected its administration.
● The takeover of Awadh in 1856 was expected to complete a process of territorial annexation that had begun with the conquest of Bengal almost a century earlier.

Answer: D
Explanation:
Conditions of Subsidiary Alliance:
a) The British would be responsible for protecting their ally from external and internal threats to their power.
b) In the territory of the ally, a British armed contingent would be stationed.
c) The ally would have to provide the resources for maintaining this contingent.
d) The ally would completely lose its independence. It cannot enter into any relationship with any other European powers.
Additional information:
● Subsidiary Alliance System was first introduced by the French East India Company Governor Joseph Francois Dupleix.
● It was later used by Lord Wellesley who was the Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805. Early in his governorship, Lord Wellesley adopted a policy of non-intervention in the princely states. However, later, he adopted the policy of forming subsidiary alliances, which played a major role in the expansion of British rule in India.
● The subsidiary alliance took different forms in its gradual evolution:
1. In its first form, the English agreed to help the native rulers with a fixed force in return for a fixed sum of money.
2. In its second form, the English agreed to maintain a fixed and permanent military force to help their ally in return for a fixed annual amount of money. The subsidiary force, however, was kept in the territory of the Company.
3. In its third form, the English not only agreed to maintain a permanent and fixed subsidiary force to help their ally in return for a fixed annual amount of money but also kept the force within the territory of the ally.
4. In its fourth and final form, which was introduced by Lord Wellesley, the English agreed to maintain a permanent and fixed subsidiary force within the territory of their ally. However, in return, they did not take money but took over a part of the territory of the ally permanently to themselves. This is how the subsidiary alliance system became a means of extending the Company’s territory in India.

Answer: B
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is incorrect: The first all-India census was attempted in 1872 but it was unsuccessful and later in 1881 first all India census was successfully completed. Thereafter, the decennial census became the norm.
● Statement 2 is correct: Bombay was given to the Company in 1661 by the English king, who had got it as part of his wife’s dowry from the king of Portugal. In 1661, Bombay was handed over to the British as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry when she married Charles II of England.
● Statement 3 is correct: The British Parliament passed a new Act in 1858 and transferred the powers of the East India Company to the British Crown in order to ensure a more responsible management of Indian affairs. A member of the British Cabinet was appointed Secretary of State for India and made responsible for all matters related to the governance of India. He was given a council to advise him, called the India Council. The Governor-General of India was given the title of Viceroy, that is, a personal representative of the Crown. Through these measures the British government accepted direct responsibility for ruling India.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Charles Cornwallis was the commander of the British forces during the American War of Independence and the Governor General of Bengal when the Permanent Settlement was introduced there in 1793.
Additional information:
● Cornwallis was possibly the most capable British general in that war, but he was more important for his achievements as British Governor-General of India (1786–93, 1805) and Viceroy of Ireland (1798–1801).
● A veteran of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63)—during which (1762) he succeeded to his father’s earldom and other titles.
● Cornwallis, who had opposed the British policies that antagonized the North American colonists, nonetheless fought to suppress the American Revolution.
● Late in 1776 he drove General George Washington’s patriot forces out of New Jersey, but early in 1777 Washington recaptured part of that state.
● As British commander in the South from June 1780, Cornwallis won a great victory over General Horatio Gates at Camden, South Carolina, on August 16 of that year.
● Marching through eastern North Carolina into Virginia, he established his base at the tidewater seaport of Yorktown.
● Trapped there by American and French ground forces under Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau and a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse, he surrendered his large army after a siege.

Answer: D
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is incorrect: It was the hinterland from where raw materials and labour were drawn to port cities.
● Statement 2 is correct: From the mid-nineteenth century, the expanding network of railways linked port cities to the hinterland of the countries.
Additional information:
● Although a British program for railway expansion in India had first been proposed in 1832, London was the driving force behind the construction of railways in the 1840s.
● Private businesses were allowed to start a railway system under Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General of India, in 1844.
● The railway era began in India on April 16, 1853, when the first train went from Bori Bunder in Bombay to Thane, a journey of 21 miles, which was commemorated with a 21-gun salute.
● The length of India’s rail network increased from 838 miles in 1860 to 15,842 miles in 1880, with the majority of the lines stretching inland first from three major ports of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.
● Lord Dalhousie dedicated the nation’s first train line, which travelled through Bombay’s Bori through various stations in Thane on April 16, 1853. The three steam locomotives- Sahib, Sindhi, and Sultan, pulled the 14-car train. The railway carried 400 passengers over a distance of 34 kilometres (21 miles).
● The railway has benefited British India in a variety of ways, including:
1. It aided in developing the Indian economy by providing the government with a 5% return on investment.
2. It transformed India’s internal and international trade position by allowing raw and agricultural items to be transported quickly.
3. Expanding the market to an international level became a forerunner of industrial progress.
4. It raised agricultural output, grain exports, and grain imports and elevated agriculture to a commercial scale.
5. It reduced the cost of transportation for everything.

Answer: B
Explanation:
Hill stations were a distinctive feature of urban colonial development. The founding and settling of hill stations was connected with the needs of the British army.
● Statement 1 is correct: Shimla was founded during the course of the Gurkha War (1815-16).
● Statement 2 is incorrect: Anglo-Maratha War of 1818 led to British interest in Mount Abu.
● Statement 3 is correct: Darjeeling was wrested from the rulers of Sikkim in 1835.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Binodani Das was a pioneering figure in Bengali theatre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and worked closely with the dramatist and director Girish Chandra Ghosh (1844-1912). She was one of the prime movers behind the setting up of the Star Theatre (1883) in Calcutta which became a centre for famous productions. Between 1910 and 1913 she serialised her autobiography, Amar Katha (My Story). A remarkable personality, she exemplified the problem women faced in recasting their roles in society. She was a professional in the city, working in multiple spheres – as an actress, institution builder and author – but the patriarchal society of the time scorned her assertive public presence.
Additional information:
● Kadambini Ganguly was one of the first women graduates from India and the entire British Empire, who moved on to become one of the first female physicians trained in western medicine in the whole of South Asia. Born Kadambini Bose in Bhagalpur, she was raised in Changi, Barisal (now in Bangladesh). Her childhood was strongly influenced by the Bengal Renaissance and her father, Braja Kishore Basu, was a renowned champion of the Brahmo Samaj. As a headmaster, he was dedicated to female emancipation and co-founded Bhagalpur Mahila Samiti in 1863, the first of its kind women’s organisation in India. A young Kadambini completed her formal education from Banga Mahila Vidyalaya, later merged with the Bethune School. She was the first candidate from the Bethune School to appear for the University of Calcutta entrance exam and created history becoming the first woman to pass the test as early as 1878.
● Kalpana Dutt: Kalpana Dutta was one of the members of Master Da Surya Sen’s revolutionary group (an influential Indian revolutionary), who carried forward the work of Pritilata Waddedar. She was a member of Chattri Sangha (a semi-revolutionary organization for women, Kolkata). She was part of the armoury loot, and the first attempt at torching Pahartoli Club (which led to the death of Pritilata). During the second attempt, made by herself and Master Da, the British were better prepared. Kalpana Dutta escaped at that point in time, but Master Da was finally captured in the year 1933. Later, after three months, she was arrested and sentenced to life for taking part in the Chittagong Armoury Loot. She was released six years later.
● Bina Das was an Indian revolutionary and nationalist from West Bengal. She was born to social worker and educationist parents, who were deeply involved in the Brahmo Samaj and the freedom struggle. Das was a member of Chhatri Sangha, a semi-revolutionary organisation for women in Kolkata. On 6 February 1932, she attempted to assassinate the Bengal Governor Stanley Jackson, in the Convocation Hall of the University of Calcutta. The revolver was supplied by another freedom fighter Kamala Das Gupta. She fired five shots but failed and was sentenced to nine years of rigorous imprisonment. After her early release in 1939, Das joined the Congress party. In 1942, she participated in the Quit India movement and was imprisoned again from 1942 to 1945. From 1946 to 1947, she was a member of the Bengal Provincial Legislative Assembly and, from 1947 to 1951, of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.

Answer: D
Explanation:
The following are factors that led to the emergence of trade unions in India:
1) The Russian Revolution.
2) Rising prices of essential commodities.
3) Decline in the real wages of workers.
4) Increase in the demand for industrial products resulting in the expansion of Indian industries.
Additional information:
● Trade Unions, in general, emerged as a result of the Industrial Revolution, which can be traced back to the 18th century when the Industrial Revolution began in Britain.
● All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was established in 1920. Lokamanya Tilak, who had developed a close association with Bombay workers, was one of the moving spirits in the formation of the AITUC, which had Lala Lajpat Rai, the famous Extremist leader from Punjab, as its first president and Dewan Chaman Lal, as its general secretary.

Answer: B
Explanation:
● Santhals were given land and persuaded to settle in the foothills of Rajmahal. By 1832 a large area of their land was demarcated as Damin-i-Koh. They were to live within it, practice plough agriculture, and become settled peasants. The land grant to the tribe stipulated that at least one-tenth of the area was to be cleared and cultivated within the first ten years.
Additional information:
● The Santhals are an aboriginal tribe of India. They were a nomadic tribe for the longest until they settled in the Chotanagpur Plateau.
● By the end of the 18th century, they had started settling in the Santhal Paraganas of Jharkhand (earlier Bihar) and from there eventually started migrating to West Bengal, Odisha and other states of northern India.
● The Santhal uprising, one of the most noted events of revolt against the British Raj, took place in 1855 and 1857. This was India’s first major peasant uprising fueled by the implementation of the Permanent Land Settlement in 1793.
● Through the aforementioned policy, the British government seized properties and lands that had been cultivated by the Santhals for ages. The Zamindari (landlord) system was introduced and Santhals were exploited for the longest until in the 1850s, when they revolted against the British rulers.
● The Santhals took part in the guerrilla conflict. For Bihar, this was an unusual occurrence. In order to fight their oppressors, the Santhals organised their own army of peasants. Although the uprising proved successful for a short span, it failed to uproot the power and armies of the British raj.

Answer: A
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is correct: EIC constructed a trading post in Madraspatam or Chenapattanam in 1639.
● Statement 2 is incorrect: Company had purchased the right of settlement from the local Telugu lords, the Nayaks of Kalahasti.
● Statement 3 is incorrect: Rivalry in 1746-63 with the French East India Company led the British to fortify Madras.
Additional information:
● The Company had first set up its trading activities in the well-established port of Surat on the west coast. Subsequently the search for textiles brought British merchants to the east coast. In 1639 they constructed a trading post in Madraspatam.
● With the defeat of the French in 1761, Madras became more secure and began to grow into an important commercial town. It was here that the superiority of the British and the subordinate position of the Indian merchants was most apparent.
● Fort St George became the nucleus of the White Town where most of the Europeans lived. Walls and bastions made this a distinct enclave. Colour and religion determined who was allowed to live within the Fort.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is correct: After the victory in battle of plassey, Company decided to build a new fort, one that could not be easily attacked. The Company cleared a site in the southernmost village of Govindapur and the traders and weavers living there were asked to move out. Around the new Fort William they left a vast open space which came to be locally known as the Maidan or garer-math.
● Statement 2 is incorrect: The Battle of Plassey had already taken place before the development of Fort William. The Company left vast spaces around the fort so that there would be no obstructions to a straight line of fire from the fort against an advancing enemy army.
Additional information:
● Subsequently, in 1757, when Sirajudaula was defeated in the Battle of Plassey, the East India Company decided to build a new fort, one that could not be easily attacked. Calcutta had grown from three villages called Sutanati, Kolkata and Govindapur.
● The Company cleared a site in the southernmost village of Govindapur and the traders and weavers living there were asked to move out.
● In 1798, Lord Wellesley became the Governor General. He built a massive palace, Government House, for himself in Calcutta, a building that was expected to convey the authority of the British.

Answer: A
Explanation:
● After Wellesley’s departure the work of town planning was carried on by the Lottery Committee (1817) with the help of the government.
● The Lottery Committee was so named because funds for town improvement were raised through public lotteries.
● In other words, in the early decades of the nineteenth century raising funds for the city was still thought to be the responsibility of public minded citizens and not exclusively that of the government.
● The Lottery Committee commissioned a new map of the city so as to get a comprehensive picture of Calcutta. Among the Committee’s major activities was road building in the Indian part of the city and clearing the river bank of “encroachments”.
● In its drive to make the Indian areas of Calcutta cleaner, the committee removed many huts and displaced the labouring poor, who were now pushed to the outskirts of Calcutta.

Answer: B
Explanation:
● Statement 1 is incorrect: In 1896, bubonic plague broke out in Bombay.
● Statement 2 is correct: First Indian cholera epidemic of the 19th century began in 1817. Its spread was linked to British military campaigns, but it affected soldiers and civilians.
● Statement 3 is correct: Decade between 1911 and 1921 was the only census period in which India’s population fell, mostly due to devastation of the Spanish flu pandemic.

Answer: C
Explanation:
Given below are the correctly matched pairs:
Architecture styles – Examples
1) Neo-Classic – Elphinston circle
2) Neo-Gothic – Victoria Terminus
3) Indo-Saracenic – Gateway of India
Additional information:
● Neo-classical characteristics included construction of geometrical structures fronted with lofty pillars. The Town Hall in Bombay was built in this style in 1833. Another group of commercial buildings, built during the cotton boom of the 1860s, was the Elphinstone Circle
● Neo-Gothic, characterised by high-pitched roofs, pointed arches and detailed decoration and the most spectacular example of the neo-Gothic style is the Victoria Terminus.
● Towards the beginning of the twentieth century a new hybrid architectural style developed which combined the Indian with the European. This was called Indo-Saracenic. “Indo” was shorthand for Hindu and “Saracen” was a term Europeans used to designate Muslim. The inspiration for this style was medieval buildings in India with their domes, chhatris, jalis, arches.
● By integrating Indian and European styles in public architecture the British wanted to prove that they were legitimate rulers of India. The Gateway of India, built in the traditional Gujarati style to welcome King George V and Queen Mary to India in 1911, is the most famous example of this style. The industrialist Jamsetji Tata built the Taj Mahal Hotel in a similar style.

Answer: D
Explanation:
● The first railway on the Indian sub-continent ran over a stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane in 1853. The idea of a railway to connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan, and with the Thal and Bhore Ghats inclines first occurred to Mr George Clark, the Chief Engineer of the Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843.
● Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company was the first cotton mill to be established in Bombay, India, on 7 July 1854 at Tardeo by Cowaszee Nanabhoy Davar (1815–73) and his associates.
● The Acland Mill was the first jute mill established in India. The mill was established in 1855 by British entrepreneur George Acland and Bengali financier Babu Bysumber Sen in Rishra, Bengal Presidency, British India.

Answer: D
Explanation:
● University of Allahabad was established on 23rd September 1887, it is the fourth oldest University of India after Calcutta, Bombay and Madras University.
● Indian higher education as it developed in the nineteenth century was not surprisingly influenced by British models. Not only was India under British rule but from 1835 onwards, Government policy was to support the spread of knowledge of Western arts and science through the medium of the English language.
● English higher education in India can be said to have begun with the establishment of Hindu College in Calcutta in 1817, the first ‘Europanized’ institution of higher learning in Asia.
● The first three universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, established in 1857 were modeled on London. Subsequently also, when university reforms were undertaken, the models sought to be emulated were always British.