Day-785 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Raja Ravi Verma belonged to the family of the Maharajas of Travancore in Kerala, and was addressed as Raja. He mastered the Western art of oil painting and realistic life study, but painted themes from Indian mythology. He dramatised on canvas, scene after scene from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, drawing on the theatrical performances of mythological stories that he witnessed during his tour of the Bombay Presidency.

Additional information:

• • Nandalal Bose was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his “Indian style” of painting. He became the principal of Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan in 1921. He was influenced by the Tagore family and the murals of Ajanta; his classic works include paintings of scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life.
  • Jamini Roy began his career as a commissioned portrait painter. Somewhat abruptly in the early 1920s, he gave up commissioned portrait painting in an effort to discover his own. Roy changed style from his academic Western training and featured a new style based on Bengali folk traditions.
  • T.U. Subramaniam also known as Maniam, was an illustrator for Tamil magazines, known for his reconstructions of the past in illustrations for popular historical fiction. Maniam learned to draw at a young age by watching his uncle Lingayyah sketch. He studied at a school in Mylapore, Chennai, and later at School of Arts, Chennai under Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury. For his guru and guide, he illustrated the serialized novels Sivagamiyin Sapatham set in the Pallava kingdom, and the classic Ponniyin Selvan depicting the Chola age. Maniam’s illustrations for the latter classic employed a variety of techniques and mediums, from pen and ink to gouache and watercolour.

Answer: C

Explanation:

• • Madras Native Association- 1849
  • East India Association- 1866
  • Poona Sarvajanik Sabha- 1867
  • Indian League- 1875
  • Bombay Presidency Association- 1885

Additional information:

• • Madras Native Association (MNA), established in 1852 at present-day Chennai, was the first Indian political association to be formed in the Madras presidency. Founded by Gajula Lakshminarasu Chetty, the MNA was the political hub of the landed gentry of the presidency, who had grievances against the Company rule. The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government. Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867. The Association’s first President was Lord Lyveden.
  • East India Association produced a journal (Journal of the East India Association) from its inception which included the papers that were delivered before their meetings. Papers and proceedings of these meetings were then produced in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, which eventually superseded the Journal of the East India Association. The East India Association incorporated the National Indian Association in 1949 and became the Britain, India and Pakistan Association. In 1966 it amalgamated with the former India Society, now Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, to become the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.
  • The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha was established on 2 April 1870 at Poona originally because of the discontent of the people over the running of a local temple. The Deccan Association formed in 1850 and the Poona Association formed in 1867 had become defunct within a few years and the western educated residents of Poona felt the need for a modern socio-political organisation. Mahadev Govind Ranade, an eminent lawyer and scholar from the Bombay Presidency was also a keen social reformer. He played a major part in the formation of the Sarvajanik Sabha. The other key members who helped in its formation were Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi (ruler of the Aundh State who was also the organisation’s first president), Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi and S H Chiplunkar.
  • The India League was an England-based organisation that campaigned for the full independence and self-governance of India.The League was established in 1928 by Krishna Menon and has been described as “the principal organisation promoting Indian nationalism in pre-war Britain”. The India League emerged from the Commonwealth of India League, which was established in 1922 and itself emerged from the Home Rule for India League, established in 1916.
  • The Bombay Presidency Association was founded in January 1885 by three prominent Bombay leaders: Pherozeshah Mehta, K.T. Telang, and Badurddin Tyabji. The association has always had cordial relations with the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Pandita Ramabai was a great scholar of Sanskrit, felt that Hinduism was oppressive towards women, and wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women. She founded a widows’ home at Poona to provide shelter to widows who had been treated badly by their husbands’ relatives.

Additional information:

• • Tarabai Shinde, born in the Berar province of Buldhana, was a women’s right’s activist who protested patriarchy. Her first published work, Stri Purush Tulana, which translates to, A Comparison between Women and Men is considered to be one the country’s first modern feminist text.
  • Godavari Parulekar (1907- 1996) was the first woman law graduate in Maharashtra. She was active in the student movement against British rule and was irresistibly drawn to the freedom struggle and plunged into individual satyagraha, for which she was convicted by the British regime in 1932. Godavari then came to Mumbai, where she took up social service in the Servants of India Society, founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905, in the early 1930s. She became the first woman to be inducted as a life member of the Society. She was influenced by Marxist ideologies and led the armed struggle for the liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli from Portuguese rule and the Warli Adivasi Revolt in 1945.
  • Tarabai Modak was a prominent freedom fighter and social activist from Maharashtra. She played a significant role in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 and was also a part of the Quit India Movement in 1942.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: It was passed by Lord Lytton to confiscate the reports of newspapers if it was deemed
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: This act gave the District Magistrates the authority to require any printer or publisher to sign a bond promising not to publish anything that might “rouse” public discontentment without first receiving approval from the government. So, it was not compulsory to sign a bond, before publishing anything, rather signing of bond depended on the decision of the District Magistrate, if he considered anything as “objectionable”.
  • Statement 3 is correct: The Act excluded English-language publications.

Additional information:

• • Vernacular Press Act, in British India, was a law enacted in 1878 to curtail the freedom of the Indian-language (i.e., non-English) press.
  • Proposed by Lord Lytton, then Viceroy of India (governed 1876–80), the Act was intended to prevent the vernacular press from expressing criticism of British policies notably, the opposition that had grown with the outset of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80).
  • The law was repealed in 1881 by Lytton’s successor as viceroy, Lord Ripon (governed 1880–84). However, the resentment it produced among Indians became one of the catalysts giving rise to India’s growing independence movement. Among the act’s most vocal critics was the Indian Association (founded 1876), which is generally considered to be one of the precursors of the Indian National Congress (founded 1885).

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • The objective of the bill was to give power to Indian judges and magistrates to try British offenders in criminal cases at the district level. As of 1883, when the Ilbert Bill was introduced, the Europeans could not be tried in court by Indian native judges. Lord Ripon realised that this provision needed to be changed. Before the introduction of the bill, British subjects in 1873 had been exempted from trial by Indian magistrates. For cases that involved death or transportation, they could only be tried by a higher court. However, when the bill was brought, it received white opposition and forced the government to withdraw the bill.

Additional information:

• • Ilbert Bill, in the history of India, a controversial measure proposed in 1883 that sought to allow senior Indian magistrates to preside over cases involving British subjects in India.
  • The bill, severely weakened by compromise, was enacted by the Indian Legislative Council on Jan. 25, 1884. The bitter controversy surrounding the measure deepened antagonism between British and Indians and was a prelude to the formation of the Indian National Congress the following year.
  • British subjects in 1873 had been exempted from trial by Indian magistrates, and in cases involving death or transportation they could only be tried by a high court.
  • But by 1883 the viceroy, Lord Ripon, proposed to make British subjects amenable to sessions courts, over which Indians were now senior enough in the civil service to preside.
  • This proposal as embodied in the Ilbert Bill provoked furious protests, especially among the Calcutta (Kolkata) European business community and the Bengal indigo planters, and there was covert sympathy from many officials.
  • A compromise was reached by which a British subject could claim a jury, half of which would be Europeans. The new Westernized Indian middle class felt itself slighted by this arrangement, and the incident did much to give Indian national feeling a political form.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: Each district was to have two courts; a criminal court (faujdari adalat) and a civil court (diwani adalat).
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Maulvis and Hindu pandits interpreted Indian laws for the European district collectors who presided over civil courts while criminal courts were still under a qazi and a mufti, but under the supervision of collectors.

Additional information:

• • The pre-colonial Indian judicial system, whether during the Mughal era or even earlier (during the ancient period), did not adopt proper procedures, organise the law courts in a regular grading from the highest to the lowest, or distribute the courts proportionately to the areas they would be serving. Most Hindu court cases were determined by zamindars, local panchayats, or elders of the caste.
  • The unit of judicial administration for Muslims was the qazi, an office held by religious individuals, which was situated in provincial capitals, towns, and qasbas (large villages). As the purveyors of justice, the rajas and badshahs, the administration of justice may be arbitrary.

Judicial System in British India Reforms

1. Reforms under Warren Hastings

• • District Diwani Adalats, presided over by a collector, were established to handle civil disputes involving both Muslim and Hindu law. The District Diwani Adalats’ appeal was heard by the Sadar Diwani Adalat.
  • To handle criminal cases, District Fauzdari Adalats were established. They were managed by an Indian officer with the aid of qazis and muftis. The collector also had overall control over these adalats. Fauzdari Adalats were employed to enforce Islamic law.
  • Capital punishment and property acquisition were handled by the Sadar Nizamat Adalat in Murshidabad, which was led by a deputy Nizam (an Indian Muslim) and assisted by the main qazi and senior mufti.
  • The Regulating Act of 1773 established a Supreme Court in Calcutta with the power to hear cases involving all British subjects living in Calcutta and its associated factories, including Indians and Europeans. It was an appellate and original jurisdictional court.

2. Reforms under Cornwallis

• • Warren Hastings was succeeded as Governor-General by Lord Cornwallis in 1786. He implemented judicial changes in the years 1787, 1790, and 1793. These changes were known as the Judicial Plan of 1787, 1790, and 1793.

3. Reforms under William Bentinck

• • During the administration of Governor-General William Bentinck, the four Circuit Courts were abolished. Their duties were given to the Collector, who was in charge of them under the direction of the commissioner of revenue and circuit.
  • At Allahabad, William Bentinck erected Sadar Diwani Adalat and Sadar Nizamat Adalat for the comfort of the residents of the upper provinces.
  • The court’s official language in the past was Persian. The court sessions could now be held in Persian or a local language, nevertheless. The Supreme Court currently conducts all of its hearings in English.

Answer: C

Explanation:

Srinivasa Iyengar was not among the early leadership of congress.

Early leadership in Indian National Congress

• • Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta
  • Badruddin Tyabji, W.C. Bonnerji
  • Surendranath Banerji, Romesh Chandra Dutt
  • Subramania Iyer

Additional information:

• • The INC was the first national movement of a political kind in India with the initial aim of getting more Indians involved in the governance of the country. Later on, its purpose upgraded to complete independence. And, post-independence, it emerged as a major political party in the country.
  • For the first session, Hume obtained permission from the then Viceroy of India Lord Dufferin. It was initially supposed to be held in Poona but was moved to Bombay due to the outbreak of cholera in Poona.
  • The first session was attended by 72 delegates from all the Indian provinces. There were 54 Hindus, 2 Muslims and the rest were Jain and Parsi members.
  • The president of the first session was Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee.
  • Prominent attendees of the maiden session were Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, William Wedderburn, Pherozeshah Mehta, etc.
  • In its early years, the INC was a moderate organisation and limited its means to constitutional methods and dialogue. Its demands were limited to including more Indians in the civil service and the armed forces. It never talked of independence.
  • After a few years, the party became more radical in its demands and approach. By 1905, there was a clear rift in the party which was now divided between old moderates and the newer group, the extremists – who were so called because of their radical methodologies.
  • The 1905 partition of Bengal saw the party transforming into a mass movement. The extremist faction was led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The party split openly in the Surat session in 1907.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: Rabindranath Tagore expressed the pain and anger of the country by renouncing his knighthood.
  • Statement 2 is correct: It led to full-fledged Non-Cooperation Movement as Gandhiji urged the Congress to campaign against “Punjab wrongs’ ‘ (Jallianwala massacre), the Khilafat wrong and demand swaraj.
  • Statement 3 is incorrect: The Hunter Committee condemned the incident but did not impose any punishment on Dyer. Ultimately, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army directed Brig Gen Dyer to resign his appointment as Brigade Commander and informed him that he will receive no further employment in India.

Additional information:

• • The Jallianwala Bagh massacre marked a turning point in India’s struggle for Independence.
  • It stands as a symbol of struggle and sacrifice and continues to instill patriotism amongst the youth.
  • The massacre of April 1919 wasn’t an isolated incident, rather an incident that happened with a multitude of factors working in the background.
  • After passing the Rowlatt Act, the Punjab Government set out to suppress all opposition.
  • On April 13, 1919, the public had gathered to celebrate Baisakhi. However, the British point of view, as seen from the documents present in the National Archives of India, indicates that it was a political gathering.
  • In Spite of General Dyer’s orders prohibiting unlawful assembly, people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh, where two resolutions were to be discussed, one condemning the firing on April 10 and the other requesting the authorities to release their leaders.
  • When the news reached him Brigadier-General Dyer, headed to the Bagh with his troops.
    He entered the Bagh, deployed his troops and ordered them to open fire without giving any warning. People rushed to the exits but Dyer directed his soldiers to fire at the exit.
  • The firing continued for 10-15 minutes. 1650 rounds were fired. The firing ceased only after the ammunition had run out. The total estimated figure of the dead as given by General Dyer and Mr Irving was 291. However, other reports including that of a committee headed by Madan Mohan Malviya put the figure of dead at over 500.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Cultural differences between East and West Bengal were not among one of the reasons for partition of Bengal.

The following were the reasons for partition of Bengal:

a) To curtail the influence of Bengali politicians.

b) To split and create disunity among the Bengali people.

c) Reasons of administrative convenience.

Additional information:

• • Partition of Bengal, (1905), division of Bengal carried out by the British viceroy in India, Lord Curzon, despite strong Indian nationalist opposition.
  • It began a transformation of the Indian National Congress from a middle-class pressure group into a nationwide mass movement.
  • Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa had formed a single province of British India since 1765.
  • By 1900 the province had grown too large to handle under a single administration. East Bengal, because of isolation and poor communications, had been neglected in favour of West Bengal and Bihar.
  • Curzon chose one of several schemes for partition: to unite Assam, which had been a part of the province until 1874, with 15 districts of east Bengal and thus form a new province with a population of 31 million. The capital was Dacca (now Dhaka, Bangladesh), and the people were mainly Muslim.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: Azad Hind Fauj or the India National Army (INA) was first established by Mohan Singh in 1942.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: It was revived by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on October 21, 1943, during the Second World War to secure India’s complete independence from British Raj.
  • Statement 3 is correct: Under INA, Subhash Bose formed the Provisional Government for Free India at Singapore with H.C. Chatterjee (Finance portfolio), M.A. Aiyar (Broadcasting), Lakshmi Swaminathan (Women Department), etc.

Additional information:

• • The Indian National Army (INA) was originally founded by Capt Mohan Singh in Singapore in September 1942 with Japan’s Indian POWs. This was along the concept of- and with support of- what was then known as the Indian Independence League, headed by expatriate nationalist leader Rash Behari Bose.
  • In July, at a meeting in Singapore, Rash Behari Bose handed over control of the organisation to Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was able to reorganise the fledging army and organise massive support among the expatriate Indian population in south-east Asia, who lent their support by both enlisting in the Indian National Army, as well as financially in response Bose’s calls for sacrfice for the national cause.
  • The INA’s first commitment was in the Japanese thrust towards Eastern Indian frontiers of Manipur. On the Indian mainland, an Indian Tricolour, modeled after that of the Indian National Congress, was raised for the first time in the town in Moirang, in Manipur.
  • Bose had hoped that large numbers of soldiers would desert from the Indian Army when they would discover that INA soldiers were attacking British India from the outside.
  • However, this did not materialise on a sufficient scale. Instead, as the war situation worsened for the Japanese, troops began to desert the INA. At the same time Japanese funding for the army diminished, and Bose was forced to raise taxes on the Indian populations of Malaysia and Singapore.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • The Battle of Pollilur of 1780 was a part of the Second Anglo-Mysore war. Tipu Sultan won against William Baille of the East India company. This defeat was considered a crushing defeat. The novel element in this war was the usage of Mysorean rockets that baffled the British.
  • Another battle in Pollilur in 1781 ended in favor of the East India company.

Additional information:

• • The Second Anglo-Mysore War lasted from 1780 to 1784 and was fought between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company. Mysore was a crucial French ally in India at the time, and the fight in the American Revolutionary War between Britain and the French and Dutch ignited Anglo-Mysorean conflicts in India.
  • When Haidar Ali was attacked by the Marathas in 1771 and the English failed to help him, he accused them of breach of faith and non-observance of the Treaty of Madras.
  • In addition, he discovered that the French were far more helpful than the English in supplying his troops with firearms, saltpetre, and lead.
  • As a result, some French military materiel was delivered to Mysore via Mahe, a French territory on the Malabar Coast. Meanwhile, the American Revolutionary War had erupted, with the French siding with the rebels against the English.
  • In these conditions, Haidar Ali’s affinity with the French alarmed the English even more.
  • As a result, they attempted to seize Mahe, whom Haidar considered to be under his protection.
  • The English effort to take Mahe was seen by Haidar as a direct threat to his power.
  • In addition to the French, Haidar formed a confederacy against the British that comprised the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Answer: A

Explanation:

Statement 1 is correct: Charter Act of 1600 gave EIC the sole right to trade with the East. This meant that no other trading group in England could compete with the East India Company.

Statement 2 is incorrect: First English factory was set up in Bengal on the banks of the river Hugli in 1651.

Statement 3 is incorrect: Factory was a warehouse where goods for export were stored, and it had offices where Company officials sat. It was not a factory in the real sense, where production or manufacturing took place.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Swadeshi movement was known as Vandematram movement in deltaic Andhra Pradesh.
  • The Swadeshi movement launched in the early 20th Century was a direct fallout of the decision of the British India government to partition Bengal.
  • Use of Swadeshi goods and boycott of foreign made goods were the two main objectives of this movement.
  • A Boycott Resolution was passed in Calcutta City Hall on August 7, 1905, where it was decided to boycott the use of Manchester cloth and salt from Liverpool.
  • In the district of Barisal, the masses adopted this message of boycott of foreign-made goods, and the value of the British cloth sold there fell sharply.
  • The Swadeshi and boycott movements were India’s first 20th century movements that encouraged mass participation in modern nationalist politics by a large section of society.
  • For the first time, women came out of their homes and joined processions and picketing of foreign-made goods shops.
  • The Swadeshi and boycott movements also changed the character of the Indian National Congress (INC) from being driven largely by moderates to the main agenda now being set by the ‘Extremists ‘who gave the Congress’s 1906 Calcutta session’s call for ‘Swaraj ‘or self – government.
  • The ideas of non- cooperation and passive resistance, successfully applied many years later by Mahatma Gandhi, found their origin in the early 20th century Swadeshi and boycott movements.

Answer: D

Explanation:

Statement 1 is incorrect: Aurangzeb issued farman granting the right to duty free trade to the East India Company in Bengal in 1691.

Statement 2 is incorrect: Golden Farman was issued by the Sultan of Golconda Abdulla Qutb Shah to the EIC in 1632, which enabled free trade across the territory of the kingdom of Golconda. This farman allowed them to reopen their factory at Masulipatam and this improved the position of the company.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: Tipu established a close relationship with the French in India, and modernised his army with their help.
  • Statement 2 is correct: He joined the Jacobin Club and planted a “Tree of Liberty” in Srirangapatam.
  • Statement 3 is correct: He attempted to abolish the practice of giving jagirs in order to increase state revenue.

Additional information:

• • Tipu Sultan, sultan of Mysore, who won fame in the wars of the late 18th century in southern India.
  • Tipu was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employ of his father, Hyder Ali, who was the Muslim ruler of Mysore.
  • In 1767 Tippu commanded a corps of cavalry against the Marathas in the Carnatic (Karnataka) region of western India, and he fought against the Marathas on several occasions between 1775 and 1779.
  • During the second Mysore War he defeated Col. John Brathwaite on the banks of the Kollidam (Coleroon) River (February 1782).
  • He succeeded his father in December 1782 and in 1784 concluded peace with the British and assumed the title of sultan of Mysore. In 1789, however, he provoked a British invasion by attacking their ally, the raja of Travancore.
  • He held the British at bay for more than two years, but by the Treaty of Seringapatam (March 1792) he had to cede half his dominions. He remained restless and unwisely allowed his negotiations with Revolutionary France to become known to the British.
  • On that pretext the Governor-General, Lord Mornington (later the marquess of Wellesley), launched the fourth Mysore War. Seringapatam (now Shrirangapattana), Tippu’s capital, was stormed by British-led forces on May 4, 1799, and Tippu died leading his troops in the breach.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: First Anglo-Sikh War came to an end on March 9, 1846, with the signing of the Treaty of Lahore.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Under the Treaty of Lahore, Sikhs agreed to hand over Kashmir and Hazara and Jalandhar Doab to the British. It was due to this treaty that Kohinoor diamond was handed to the British. The Amritsar treaty prevented Ranjit Singh from any further territorial expansion south of the Sutlej, it permitted him complete freedom of action to the north of it. This enabled him to extend his rule over rival Sikh Misls and ultimately expand to areas such as Peshawar, Multan and Kashmir by defeating the Afghan Durrani Empire.

Additional information:

• • Sikh Wars, (1845–46; 1848–49), two campaigns fought between the Sikhs and the British. They resulted in the conquest and annexation by the British of the Punjab in northwestern India.
  • The first war was precipitated by mutual suspicions and the turbulence of the Sikh army. The Sikh state in the Punjab had been built into a formidable power by the maharaja Ranjit Singh, who ruled from 1801 to 1839.
  • Actual power, however, resided with the army, which was itself in the hands of panchs, or military committees. Relations with the British had already been strained by the refusal of the Sikhs to allow the passage of British troops through their territory during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42). Having determined to invade British India under the pretext of forestalling a British attack, the Sikhs crossed the Sutlej River in December 1845. They were defeated in the four bloody and hard-fought battles of Mudki, Firozpur, Aliwal, and Sobraon.
  • The British annexed Sikh lands east of the Sutlej and between it and the Beas River; Kashmir and Jammu were detached, and the Sikh army was limited to 20,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalries. A British resident was stationed in Lahore with British troops.
  • The Second Sikh War began with the revolt of Mulraj, governor of Multan, in April 1848 and became a national revolt when the Sikh army joined the rebels on September 14. Indecisive battles characterized by great ferocity and bad generalship were fought at Ramnagar (November 22) and at Chilianwala (Jan. 13, 1849) before the final British victory at Gujarat (February 21). The Sikh army surrendered on March 12, and the Punjab was then annexed.

Answer: A

Explanation:

• • Doctrine of lapse was imposed in: Satara (1848), Sambalpur (1850), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1854)

Additional information:

• • Doctrine of lapse devised by Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India (1848–56), to deal with questions of succession to Hindu Indian states.
  • It was a corollary to the doctrine of paramountcy, by which Great Britain, as the ruling power of the Indian subcontinent, claimed the superintendence of the subordinate Indian states and so also the regulation of their succession.
  • According to Hindu law, an individual or a ruler without natural heirs could adopt a person who would then have all the personal and political rights of a son.
  • Dalhousie asserted the paramount power’s right of approving such adoptions and of acting at discretion in their absence in the case of dependent states.
  • In practice this meant the rejection of last-minute adoptions and British annexation of states without a direct natural or adopted heir, because Dalhousie believed that Western rule was preferable to Eastern and to be enforced where possible.
  • Though the scope of the doctrine was limited to dependent Hindu states, these annexations aroused much alarm and resentment among the Indian princes and the old aristocracy who served them.
  • They have generally been regarded as having contributed to the discontent that was a factor in the outbreak (1857) of the Indian Mutiny and the widespread revolt that followed.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: It was put forward by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1867.
  • Statement 2 is correct: It argued that the Indian wealth was going in the form of salaries and pensions of British officials, interest on loans taken by the Indian Government and the home charges or expenses of the Indian Government in Britain.

Additional information:

• • Dadabhai Naoroji was an early pioneer in the study of colonialism and poverty. He was convinced that the main reason behind poverty was the colonial rule that was draining the wealth and prosperity of India. The drain of wealth was the portion of India’s wealth and economy that foreigners captured.
  • Dadabhai Naoroji propounded the Drain of Wealth theory in 1867. Many researchers have further analysed and developed it, including R.P. Dutt and MG Ranade. In 1867, Dadabhai Naoroji proposed what is known as the ‘economic imperialism’ theory, in which he stated that British economic policies were completely draining India. He mentioned this theory in his book, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, and it is also known as the ‘Drain Theory’.
  • He criticised that out of the revenues raised in India, approximately one-fourth of the money which is raised in India goes to England, which is the main cause of India’s poverty.
  • The drain affected the country’s prospects of employment and income and its overall economic growth. When taxes paid by the people are spent in the country, the money circulates among the people, which helps grow trades, industries, and agriculture and eventually reaches the people’s masses. Still, when the money is sent out of the country, it does not directly stimulate the trade industries or reach the people in any form, and it does not stimulate the local economy.
  • The drain of capital to England really stripped India of its productive capital and created a shortage of capital which hindered significant industrial development. This directly impoverished India along with stultifying the process of capital formation.
  • Dutt argues that the drain caused the impoverishment of the peasantry because it primarily flowed out of land revenue.
  • The wealth of India was the source of financing for the Industrial Revolution in England and is also the reason why an industrial revolution did not take place in India.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is incorrect: Proportion of Indian soldiers in the army reduced and the number of European soldiers increased.
  • Statement 2 is incorrect: Land and property of Muslims was confiscated on a large scale and they were treated with suspicion and hostility.
  • Statement 3 is incorrect: The British decided to respect the customary religious and social practices of the people in India.
  • Statement 4 is correct: Policies were made to protect landlords and zamindars and give them security of rights over the land.

Additional information:

• • Indian Mutiny, also called Sepoy Mutiny or First War of Independence, widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India in 1857–59.
  • Begun in Meerut by Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company, it spread to Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, and Lucknow. In India it is often called the First War of Independence and other similar names.
  • From the time of the mutineers’ seizure of Delhi, the British operations to suppress the mutiny were divided into three parts. First came the desperate struggles at Delhi, Kanpur, and Lucknow during the summer; then the operations around Lucknow in the winter of 1857–58, directed by Sir Colin Campbell; and finally, the “mopping up” campaigns of Sir Hugh Rose in early 1858. Peace was officially declared on July 8, 1859.
  • A grim feature of the mutiny was the ferocity that accompanied it. The mutineers commonly shot their British officers on rising and were responsible for massacres at Delhi, Kanpur, and elsewhere.
  • The immediate result of the mutiny was a general house cleaning of the Indian administration. The East India Company was abolished in favour of the direct rule of India by the British government. In concrete terms, this did not mean much, but it introduced a more personal note into the government and removed the unimaginative commercialism that had lingered in the Court of Directors. The financial crisis caused by the mutiny led to a reorganization of the Indian administration’s finances on a modern basis. The Indian army was also extensively reorganized.
  • Another significant result of the mutiny was the beginning of the policy of consultation with Indians. The Legislative Council of 1853 had contained only Europeans and had arrogantly behaved as if it were a full-fledged parliament.
  • The educational and public works programs (roads, railways, telegraphs, and irrigation) continued with little interruption; in fact, some were stimulated by the thought of their value for the transport of troops in a crisis. But insensitive British-imposed social measures that affected Hindu society came to an abrupt end.
  • From this time all serious hope of a revival of the past or an exclusion of the West diminished. The traditional structure of Indian society began to break down and was eventually superseded by a Westernized class system, from which emerged a strong middle class with a heightened sense of Indian nationalism.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• • Statement 1 is correct: In 1822, the Company introduced steam vessels for use on India’s rivers, particularly on the Ganges, the Indus and the Hooghly. Within the period of 1824-26, in the course of the First Burma War, steam vessels played a decisive role in moving troops and supplies up the Irrawaddy.
  • Statement 2 is correct: The British had modern muskets and cannon were well equipped with a speed of firing and range which were better than Indian arms.
  • Statement 3 is incorrect: When the Portuguese reached India in 1498, they brought with them firearms, among them the matchlock musket and man-of-war (ships) armed with cannons. However, Portuguese travelers observed that these firearms there were already in use.