Day-487 | Daily MCQs | UPSC Prelims | HISTORY

Answer: B
Explanation:
● The Charter Act of 1793 renewed the charter of the Company for twenty years, giving it possession of all territories in India during that period. In Indian administration, the Governor General’s power over the council was extended and the Governors of Bombay and Madras were brought more decisively under his control. A regular code of all regulations that could be enacted for the internal government of the British territories in Bengal was framed. The regulation applied to all rights, person and property of the Indian people and it bound the courts to regulate their decisions by the rules and directives contained therein. All laws were to be printed with translations in Indian languages, so that people could know of their rights, privileges and immunities. The Act thus introduced in India the concept of a civil law, enacted by a secular human agency and applied universally. Hence, option B is correct.
● It was the Regulating Act of 1773, that raised the status of the governor of Bengal to that of governor general, to be assisted by a council of four members. Under the Pitt’s India Act of 1784, the government of India was placed under the governor general and a council of three, thus giving greater power to the former. The presidencies of Madras and Bombay were subordinated to the governor general, whose power over them was now enlarged and more clearly defined. The governor general in council in his turn was subordinated to the Court of Directors and the Board of Control. Thus, a clear hierarchy of command and more direct parliamentary control over Indian administration was established. Hence, option A is incorrect.
● Under the Charter Act of 1833 a fourth member, known as the Law Member, was added to the Executive Council of the Governor-General. He was entitled to sit and vote in the Council of the Governor-General only when it met for legislative purposes. Thus for the first time a separation was introduced between the Executive and legislative functions of the Central Government. Another change introduced by this Act was that the Presidency Governments were deprived of their independent legislative power. Hence, option C is incorrect.
● It was the Indian Councils Act of 1892, which besides providing the provisions for discussing legislative proposals, the members were allowed to discuss the Annual Financial Statement presented by the Government. However, the Financial Statement was presented as an unalterable document. Members could only present their observations which could have influence on the budget in subsequent years, not on the budget of the year under consideration. In the case of provinces the discussion was limited to those branches of revenue and expenditure which were under the control of Provincial Governments. The members were also allowed to put questions on internal matters. Supplementary questions were not allowed. Hence, option D is incorrect.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● On 31 January 1930 Gandhi announced an eleven point ultimatum for Lord Irwin; if these demands were met by 11 March, he declared, there would be no Civil Disobedience and the Congress would participate in any conference.
● Irwin was in no mood to compromise, and hence on 12 March began Gandhi’s historic Dandi March to the Gujarat seashore where on 6 April he publicly violated the salt law.
● The wholesale illegal manufacture and sale of salt, accompanied by boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, nonpayment of revenue in the ryotwari areas, non-payment of chaukidari taxes in the zamindari areas and violation of forest laws in the Central Provinces, encouraged in nearly all parts of India a mass movement that did not merely involve non-cooperation with a foreign government, but actual violation of its laws to achieve complete independence.
● But at the same time, it was not an unqualified success. There was a discernible absence of Hindu-Muslim unity, no major labour participation and the intelligentsia was not as involved as in the past. On the other hand, a new feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was massive business support. The other most important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was largescale women’s participation.
Hence, option C is the correct answer.

Answer: A
Explanation:
In the early twentieth century, there came into existence a number of women’s organisations, which operated more actively in the public arena and focused more directly on women’s political and legal rights.
● At the all-India level, the first to appear in Madras in 1917 was the Women’s Indian Association, started by enlightened European and Indian ladies, the most important of them being Margaret Cousins, an Irish feminist, and Annie Besant.
● In 1925 the National Council of Women in India was formed as a branch of the International Council of Women, and Lady Mehribai Tata remained its main spirit during the early years.
● Then in 1927 the most important of these organisations, the All India Women’s Conference came into existence, initially as a non-political body to promote women’s education, with Margaret Cousins as the main inspirational figure.
● At the provincial level too, various organisations started functioning around this time for a multitude of women’s issues. Sarala Devi Chaudhurani’s Bharat Stree Mahamandal, which had its first meeting in Allahabad in 1910, opened branches all over India to promote women’s education.

Answer: A
Explanation:
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the revenue reforms of the Company’s government had fundamentally affected and altered the Indian rural society.
● Not that peasant revolts were unknown in Mughal India; indeed, they became endemic in the first half of the eighteenth century as the rising revenue demands breached the Mughal compromise and affected the subsistence provisions of the peasants, and the Mughal provincial bureaucracy became ever more oppressive and rigorous in collecting it.
● The tendency became even more pervasive as the colonial regime established itself, enhanced its power and introduced a series of revenue experiments, the sole purpose of which was to maximize its revenue income. The land reforms and the high revenue demands of the Company’s government had so severely affected the entire rural population that all sections of the peasantry in different parts of the country participated in a series of violent protests. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
● In many of the peasant movements during colonial rule, religion played an important role in providing a discursive field within which the peasants understood colonial rule and conceptualised resistance. In other words, their religion defined their ideology of protest. The earliest of these was the Sanyasi and Fakir rebellion, which rocked northern Bengal and adjacent areas of Bihar between 1763 and 1800. Hence, statement 2 is incorrect.

Answer: C
Explanation:
● Colonial rule disengaged the caste system from its pre-colonial political contexts, but gave it a new lease of life by redefining and revitalising it within its new structures of knowledge, institutions and policies. First of all, during its non-interventionist phase, it created opportunities, which were “in theory caste-free”. Land became a marketable commodity; equality before law became an established principle of judicial administration; educational institutions and public employment were thrown open to talent, irrespective of caste and creed. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
● Yet the very principle of non-intervention helped maintain the pre-existing social order and reinforced the position of the privileged groups. Only the higher castes with previous literate traditions and surplus resources, could go for English education and new professions, and could take advantage of the new judicial system.
● Initially, it was some princely states like Mysore or Kolhapur which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries introduced the system of caste based reservation of certain proportions of public employment for people of non-Brahman birth, in order to compensate them for their past losses.
● Gradually, the colonial administration too discovered the gap between the high caste Hindus and others, particularly the untouchables, now described as the “depressed classes”. It took on the latter as its special ward and initiated a policy of “protective discrimination” in their favour. It meant provision of special schools for their education and reservation of a share of public employment for such candidates and finally, provision for special representation of these classes in the legislative councils. This provision was initially through nomination in the Act of 1919, and then through the announcement of a separate electorate in the Communal Award of 1932. What all these measures resulted in was a relatively greater dispersal of wealth and power across caste lines. Hence, statement 2 is correct.