Day-780 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Paraiyars and Vanniyars were laboring poor.
  • By the early 19th century, the Paraiyars and Vanniyars had a degraded status in Tamil Francis Buchanan’s report on the socio-economic condition of South Indians described them (“Pariar”) as inferior caste slaves, who cultivated the lands held by Brahmins.
  • This report largely shaped the perceptions of British officials about contemporary society. They regarded Pariyars and Vanniyars as an outcaste, untouchable community.
  • In the second half of the 19th century, there were frequent descriptions of the Paraiyars and Vanniyars in official documents and reformist tracts as being “disinherited sons of the earth”.
  • English officials such as Ellis believed that the Paraiyars and Vanniyars were serfs toiling under a system of bonded labour that resembled the European villeinage. However, scholars such as Burton Stein argue that the agricultural bondage in Tamil society was different from the contemporary British ideas of slavery.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: The Charter of 1726 led to the introduction of Mayor’s Courts in India. These courts were set up in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: The Supreme court was set up in Calcutta by East India Company under the Regulating Act 1773.
  • Statement 3 is incorrect: Government of India Act was passed in 1935, and Section 200 of this Act held the provision for building a Federal Court in India.

Additional information:

• • Mayor Courts Of India: These courts were set up in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Till 1726, the East India Company had no power to manage Capital Offences and Capital Punishments and the Company only possessed Civil Jurisdiction in these Presidencies. King George issued this Charter on 24th September 1726. The Charter was issued to the East India Company. Mayors Courts were specially commissioned to undertake the task of hearing cases against the Company.
  • First Supreme Court of India: The East India Company was facing a huge financial crisis by the late 18th Century. It was indebted both to the bank of England and the government of England. The introduction of the Regulation Act in 1773 envisaged revamping the entire administration system of the East India Company. This Act can also be seen as the first move towards the control of Indian governance post-1858.
  • Establishment Of High Courts: In the Presidency towns of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, two different systems were prevailing for dispensing justice. They were the Sadar Diwani Adalat and the Sadar Nizamat Adalat on one hand and the Supreme Court on the other hand. The co-habitation of both these systems was problematic for the residents of these Presidencies because they often clashed and conflicted with each other. Ultimately, the introduction of the Indian High Courts Act in 1861 by the British Parliament, brought a solution to this problem.
  • Federal Court: All the appeals from the Indian High court went to the Privy Council. But approaching the Privy Council demanded enormous expenses and was also extremely time-consuming. Thus, a need was felt to establish a Court of superior authority and this need was fulfilled by the establishment of a Federal Court in India. A joint select committee of the House of Lords, as well as the House of Commons of the Parliament of Britain, was set up in November 1934 and it advised setting up a Federal Court. Accordingly, the Government of India Act was passed in 1935, and Section 200 of this Act held the provision for building a Federal Court in India. The seat of the Federal Court was in the Parliament building located in Delhi. Sir Maurice Linford Gwyer was appointed as its 1st chief justice. After the setting up of the Federal Court, the workload of the Privy Council was reduced and the time and expenses of the litigants also diminished.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Chintz, cossaes and bandanna referred to Printed cotton clothes. The cotton textiles which they took back to Europe, along with the spices, came to be called “calico”. When the Portuguese first came to India in search of spices, they landed in Calicut on the Kerala coast in south-west India. The cotton textiles which they took back to Europe, along with the spices, came to be called “calico” (derived from Calicut), and subsequently calico became the general name for all cotton textiles. Now look at the names of the different varieties of cloth in the book

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Pulicat was not a centre of weaving in the late 18^th It was a port town in Andhra Pradesh.

Important weaving centres of 18^th century were mentioned in the map below:

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: Wootz steel was a special type of high carbon steel which was used for making swords. Wootz steel when made into swords produced a very sharp edge with a flowing water pattern. This pattern came from very small carbon crystals embedded in the iron. The sword of Tipu Sultan who ruled Mysore till 1799, was made from this steel.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Technique used to make this was not unique to south India only. Through an intricate control of temperatures, the smelters produced steel ingots that were used for sword making not just in India but in West and Central Asia too.
  • Statement 3 is correct: It was referred to as ukku in Kannada, hukku in Telugu and Tamil and urukku in Malyalam.

Additional information:

• • When made into swords produced a very sharp edge with a flowing water pattern called Wootz which was produced all over south India.
  • Wootz steel when made into swords produced a very sharp edge with a flowing water pattern.
  • Francis Buchanan who toured through Mysore in 1800, a year after Tipu Sultan’s death, has left us an account of the technique by which Wootz steel was produced in many hundreds of smelting furnaces in Mysore.
  • In these furnaces, iron was mixed with charcoal and put inside small clay pots. Through an intricate control of temperatures, the smelters produced steel ingots that were used for sword making.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Calcutta Madrasa was set up by Warren Hastings in 1781 for the study and learning of Persian and Arabic. Hastings and other Orientalists needed Indian scholars to teach them the “vernacular” languages, tell them about local customs and laws, and help them translate and interpret ancient texts. Hastings took the initiative to set up the Calcutta Madrasa, and believed that the ancient customs of the country and Oriental learning ought to be the basis of British rule in India.
  • Asiatic Society of Bengal, scholarly society founded on Jan. 15, 1784, by Sir William Jones, a British lawyer and Orientalist, to encourage Oriental studies. Asiatic Society of Bengal, was set up in Calcutta in 1781 to promote the study of Arabic, Persian and Islamic law. Along with Jones, Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed also believed in Orientalists learning.
  • Hindu College by Jonathan Duncan was established in Benaras in 1791 to encourage the study of ancient Sanskrit texts that would be useful for the administration of the country.

Answer: C

Explanation:

• • Thomas Babington Macaulay saw India as an uncivilised country that needed to be civilised. No branch of Eastern knowledge, according to him, could be compared to what England had produced. He declared that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”. He urged that the British government in India stop wasting public money in promoting Oriental learning, for it was of no practical use.

Additional information:

• • Mountstuart Elphinstone was a Scottish statesman and historian, associated with the government of British India. He later became the Governor of Bombay (now Mumbai) where he is credited with the opening of several educational institutions accessible to the Indian population. Besides being a noted administrator, he wrote books on India and Afghanistan.
  • Warren Hastings was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-General of Bengal in 1772–1785. He and Robert Clive are credited with laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He was an energetic organizer and reformer. In 1779–1784 he led forces of the East India Company against a coalition of native states and the French. Finally, the well-organized British side held its own, while France lost influence in India. In 1787, he was accused of corruption and impeached, but after a long trial acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.
  • William Jones was a British philologist, orientalist and a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and a scholar of ancient India. He is particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among European and Indo-Aryan languages, which later came to be known as the Indo-European language.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: It rejected downward filtration theory to educate native Indians so as to produce a class of public servants.
  • Statement 2 is correct: Education departments were set up in all provinces.
  • Statement 3 is incorrect: It emphasised once again the practical benefits of a system of European learning, as opposed to Oriental knowledge.

Additional information:

• • In 1854, Sir Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the British East India Company, sent a formal dispatch to Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General of India, suggesting a large shift to English language use within India.
  • Sir Charles recommended that primary schools adopt vernacular languages, high schools adopt Anglo-vernacular language and that English be the medium of education in colleges. This communiqué is informally known as Wood’s dispatch.
  • Wood’s letter played an important role in the spread of English learning and female education in India. One of the most favorable steps taken was to create an English class among Indian people to be used as workforce in the company’s administration. Vocational and women’s education were also emphasised more heavily.
  • This period of time in the British Raj was part of a final phase where the British governmental administration brought social reforms into India. After this period, the governing policies tended to become more reactionary, notably in the wake of major social and political unrest surrounding the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Answer: C

Explanation:

• • Introduction of railways in 1853 meant a change in the fortunes of towns. Economic activity gradually shifted away from traditional towns which were located along old routes and rivers.
  • This led to development of railway towns such as Jamalpur, Waltair and Bareilly.
  • Every railway station became a collection depot for raw materials and a distribution point for imported goods. For instance, Mirzapur on the Ganges, which specialised in collecting cotton and cotton goods from the Deccan, declined when a railway link was made to Bombay.
  • With the expansion of the railway network, railway workshops and railway colonies were established.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: Both Gandhi and Tagore believed in autonomy at the ground level. But their means were different.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Gandhiji was highly critical of Western Civilisation and its worship of machines and technology. Tagore wanted to combine elements of modern Western civilisation with what he saw as the best within Indian tradition.

Additional information:

• • Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore were two extremely different personalities, politically and ideologically. However, they had a great sense of mutual respect and fellowship for each other.
  • Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, two great Indians of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century had between them a kinship and appreciation of deepest character.
  • They both were for Indianism, humanism and emancipation of the dispossessed.
  • On them Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1941, wrote in his jail diary, “Gandhi and Tagore, two types entirely different from each other and yet both of them typical of India, both in the long line of India’s great men…, I have felt for long that they were the outstanding examples in the world today. There are many of course who may be abler than them or greater geniuses in their own line. It is not so much because of any single virtue but because of the tout ensemble, that I felt that among the world’s great men today Gandhi and Tagore were supreme as human beings. What good fortune for me to have come into close contact with them”.
  • Tagore first called Gandhi a Mahatma or a great soul. He said at “Gandhiji’s call India blossomed forth to new greatness, just as once before, in earlier times, when Buddha proclaimed the truth of fellow feeling and compassion among all living creatures”. Gandhiji called him the Great Sentinel or Gurudev”.

Answer: D

Explanation:

The European commercial Companies had set up base in different places early during the Mughal era:

• • The Portuguese in Panaji in 1510,
  • The Dutch in Masulipatnam in 1605,
  • The British in Madras in 1639 and
  • The French in Pondicherry (present-day Puducherry) in 1673

Additional information:

• • The discovery of the sea routes for trade purposes and the advent of Europeans like Portuguese, Dutch, French and British in India during the mid 15th Century also was the beginning of a long period of colonialism in India.
  • Changes in the networks of trade were reflected in the history of urban centres.
  •  With the expansion of commercial activity, towns grew around these trading centres.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: He founded Amitya Sabha in 1814 to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Anand Mohan Bose set up the Calcutta Students Association in 1875, was the earliest attempt made to organise students for constructive political work.
  • Statement 3 is correct: He was given the title ‘Raja’ by the Mughal Emperor of Delhi, Akbar II whose grievances he presents before the British king.

Additional information:

• • R. Mohan Roy tirelessly criticized what he saw as the idolatry and superstition of traditional Hinduism.
  • He denounced the caste system and attacked the custom of ‘sati’ (ritual burning of widows upon the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands).
  • His writings emboldened the British East India Governing Council to act decisively on the matter, leading to the prohibition of sati in 1829.
  • In his textbooks and treatises, he contributed to the popularization of the Bengali language, while at the same time he was the first Indian to apply to the Indian environment the fundamental social and political ideas of the French and American revolutions.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, used the ancient texts to suggest that widows could remarry. His suggestion was adopted by British officials, and a law was passed in 1856 permitting widow remarriage. Those who were against the remarriage of widows opposed Vidyasagar, and even boycotted him.
  • Veerasalingam was a social reformer. He supported and encouraged the issues which were considered taboo during that time. He stood up against the notion of Patriarchy and always fought for the cause of the oppressed. Veerasalingam Pantulu formed an association for widow remarriage in the Telugu- speaking areas of the Madras Presidency.
  • Swami Dayananda Saraswati was the creator of the Arya Samaj and one of the architects of modern India. He intended to build a modern social, religious, economic, and administrative order in India from an indigenous standpoint. The Arya Samaj attempted to not only spiritually reorganize the Indian mentality, but also to eliminate numerous social difficulties. Widow remarriage and women’s education were two of the most important.
  • Henry Louis Vivian Derozio wanted to spread intellectual revolution among young students. This brought an intellectual revolution in Bengal called the Young Bengal Movement. His followers were also known as Derozians. His brilliant lectures presented closely-reasoned arguments based on his wide reading. He encouraged students to read Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and other free-thinking texts. Derozio promoted radical ideas through his teaching and by organizing an association for debate and discussions on literature, philosophy, history and science.

Answer: D

Explanation:

Given below are correctly matched pairs:

Caste associations                                        –           Leaders

1. Satyashodhak Samaj                                          –           Jyotiba Phule

2. All India Scheduled Castes Federation         –           B R Ambedkar

3. All India Depressed Classes Association      –           M C rajah

Additional information:

• • Jyotiba Phule founded Satyashodhak Samaj in Pune, Maharashtra, on 24^th September 1873. It was a reformational society that promoted education, increased social rights, justice and political access in the deprived sections. Jyotirao established it to stand against the unfair caste system and orthodox, illogical brahminical status in this society. He challenged the brahmins who claimed themselves to be God’s messenger and a connecting medium to the Almighty. The Samaj rejected the approach of Vedic culture, Upanishad, and the predominance of Aryan society. Instead, according to him, Aryan society tries to suppress and deprive the non-Aryans, which he protested.
  • R Ambedkar actively supported the rights of the Dalits. He established the All India Scheduled Caste Federation in 1942 to put forth the issues of Dalits in an effective manner.
  • M C Rajah was born to a Tamil family of Madras. He entered politics after graduation and was a leader in the Justice Party. However, he quit the party in 1923 over the party’s treatment of the then Depressed Classes. He was the first leader who organized the Scheduled Classes at the national level in India, and the most prominent Scheduled Classes leader of pre-independent India. In his heyday, Rajah was considered to be a person equal in stature to B. R. Ambedkar. He was the pioneer of the mid-day meal scheme in India.

Answer: C

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: He became a member of the Congress, only to leave it in disgust when he found that at a feast organised by nationalists, seating arrangements followed caste distinction.
  • Statement 2 is correct: He founded the Self Respect Movement to destroy the contemporary Hindu social order in its totality and create a new, rational society without caste, religion and God.
  • Statement 3 is correct: He argued that untouchables were the true upholders of an original Tamil and Dravidian culture which had been subjugated by Brahmans.

Additional information:

• • Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, commonly known as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. He is known as the ‘Father of the Dravidian movement’.
  • He rebelled against Brahminical dominance and gender and caste inequality in Tamil Nadu.
  • In 1939, E.V. Ramasamy became the head of the Justice Party, and in 1944, he changed its name to Dravidar Kazhagam. The party later split, with one group led by C. N. Annadurai formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949. While continuing the Self-Respect Movement, he advocated for an independent Dravida Nadu (land of the Dravidians).
  • E.V. Ramasamy promoted the principles of rationalism, self-respect, women’s rights and eradication of caste. He opposed the exploitation and marginalisation of the non-Brahmin Dravidian people of South India and the imposition of what he considered Indo-Aryan India.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: Nawab of Arcot settled in Triplicane which became the nucleus of a substantial Muslim settlement.
  • Statement 2 is correct: Mylapore and Triplicane were earlier Hindu religious centres that supported a large group of Brahmins.
  • Statement 3 is correct: San Thome with its cathedral was the centre of Roman Catholics.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: Temple Entry Movement of 1927 was started by Bhimrao Ambedkar. It was a movement to allow lower caste people to enter temples. Its result led to people of lower caste being allowed to enter temples and also use and draw water from temple wells. He led three such movements for temple entry between 1927 and 1935.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Sri Narayana Guru started the Aravipuram movement as a response to caste and Brahmanical supremacy.
  • Statement 3 is correct: Vaikom Satyagraha was a large-scale protest that called for the right of lower caste individuals to utilise a public route in front of the well-known Vaikom temple.

Answer: A

Explanation:

Given below are correctly matched pairs:

Reform movements     –          Places

1. Ramakrishna Mission   –        West Bengal

2. Veda Samaj                     –        Madras

3. Arya Samaj                      –        Bombay

Additional information:

• • Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) is a Hindu religious and spiritual organisation headquartered in Belur Math, West Bengal. The mission is named after an Indian spiritual Guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and founded by Ramakrishna’s chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on 1 May 1897.The organisation mainly propagated the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta–Advaita Vedanta and four yogic ideals – Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja yoga.
  • Veda Samaj was an extremely important social reform in the Southern India. The Samaj was established in Madras in the year 1864 mainly with the efforts of Sridharalu Naidu and Keshab Chandra Sen. The main philosophies of Veda Samaj were very similar to that of Brahmo Samaj, at least in their theistic principals.
  • Arya Samaj, vigorous reform movement of modern Hinduism, founded in 1875 by Dayananda Sarasvati, whose aim was to reestablish the Vedas, the earliest Hindu scriptures, as revealed truth. He rejected all later accretions to the Vedas as degenerate but, in his own interpretation, included much post-Vedic thought.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: The Sabhas sought to rid Sikhism of superstitions, caste distinctions and practices seen by them as non-Sikh. It sought to release the Gurudwaras from Sikh mahants.
  • Statement 2 is correct: They promoted education among the Sikhs, often combining modern instruction with Sikh teachings.
  • Statement 3 is correct: The first Singh Sabhas were formed at Amritsar in 1873 and at Lahore in 1879.

Additional information:

• • In response to Muslim, Christian, and Hindu reform movements (Brahmo Samajis, Arya Samaj), the Singh Sabha Movement was founded in Punjab in the 1870s (Aligarh movement and Ahmadiyah).
  • The movement was started at a period when the Sikh Empire had been dismantled and conquered by the British, the Khalsa had lost its reputation, and the majority of Sikhs were quickly converting to other religions.
  • In order to “promote the authentic Sikh religion and restore Sikhism to its original grandeur,” the organization wrote and distributed Sikh historical and religious publications. It also worked to spread Gurmukhi Punjabi through magazines and other media.
  • The Singh Sabha movement aimed to bring back the Sikh religion to its former splendour and re-accept apostates who had switched to other faiths. The Singh Sabha purposefully avoided discussing political subjects and causing the British rulers any difficulty in order to focus on social and religious reform through education.

Answer: D

Explanation:

Continuing misconduct by the EIC against Siraj-Ud-Daulah led to the battle of Plassey in 1757.

Few reasons for this:

• • Rampant misuse by EIC officials of trade privileges infuriated Siraj-ud- daula.
  • Non-payment of tax and duty by the workers of the British East India Company
  • Fortification of Calcutta by the British without the Nawab’s permission

Additional information:

• • The Battle of Plassey was fought on 23rd June 1757 in the Plassey region, West Bengal. This battle was fought between the British East India Company led by Robert Clive and the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-daula. The French troops were also a part of this battle and fought with Siraj-ud-daula against Robert Clive.
  • The Battle of Plassey is known as the historic battle for the Britishers and a turning point in the history of India in favour of Britishers. It established the military and political supremacy of the British in Bengal. Most historians regard the battle of Plassey as the decisive event having the roots to British dominance and rule over India.
  • However, the conspiracy of Robert Clive and the subsequent betrayal by Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh and others became the reason for the defeat of Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-daula in the Battle of Plassey.