Indian History Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The first state annexed was Satara.

Lord Dalhousie annexed Satara in 1848 under the Doctrine of Lapse, when its ruler died without a natural heir. Later annexations under the doctrine included Jhansi, Nagpur and Sambalpur.

Sambalpur (1849), Jhansi (1853) and Nagpur (1853-54) were all annexed after Satara, so they were not first.

Satara was annexed in 1848 after the death of Raja Appasaheb without a natural heir, the first use of the Doctrine of Lapse by Dalhousie. Sambalpur followed in 1849, Jhansi in 1853 and Nagpur in 1854, so only Satara is first of the four.

Answer: A

The mainstay of Neo-Hinduism was Vedanta philosophy.

The nineteenth-century reformers and Swami Vivekananda, in particular, presented Vedanta, the philosophy of the Upanishads, as the core of a revived Hinduism that stressed service and rational religion.

A Platonic ideal and Confucianism are not Indian sources of the movement, and the Rigvedic ritual religion was not its main base.

Reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy and Swami Vivekananda drew on the Upanishads and Vedanta to argue for a monotheistic, ethical Hinduism and against practices such as sati. This reinterpretation of Hinduism is often called Neo-Hinduism, with Vedanta as its philosophical base.

Answer: D

Bahlul Lodi, the first ruler of the Lodi dynasty, reigned from 1451 AD to 1489 AD, and was succeeded by his son Sikandar Lodi. The other options give start years of 1452, 1453 and 1454 and end years of 1499, 1500 and 1501, which are not the dates of his reign, so only the fourth option is right. He founded the Lodi dynasty in 1451 after the Sayyid dynasty came to an end, and his son Sikandar Lodi came to the throne in 1489.

Answer: D

The pair that is NOT correct is Battle of Chanderi with the year 1544. The Battle of Chanderi was fought in 1528, when Babur captured the fort from Medini Rai. The other three pairs are correct: Chausa was fought in 1539, Qannauj (Kannauj) in 1540 and Khanwa in 1527. The question asks for the incorrect pair, so the answer is the Chanderi pair. Chausa and Kannauj were both won by Sher Shah against Humayun, and Khanwa was won by Babur against Rana Sanga.

Answer: A

Alfred High School, where Mahatma Gandhi completed his schooling, is in Rajkot, Gujarat. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, which is why that option is tempting, but he studied at Rajkot after his family moved there. Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad are Gujarat cities connected with other parts of his life, not with the school named in the question. Gandhi's father Karamchand served as diwan of Rajkot, so the family moved there from Porbandar when Gandhi was a child.

Answer: D

Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth on Baisakhi in 1699 at Anandpur Sahib, in the present Punjab, and the gurudwara there commemorates the event. Harmandir Sahib is the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Baba Atal Sahib is a gurudwara in Amritsar, and Takht Sri Patna Sahib marks Guru Gobind Singh's birthplace in Patna, so these are not the place where the Khalsa was founded. Anandpur Sahib is in Rupnagar district of Punjab, and the Khalsa was created on the Baisakhi day of 1699.

Answer: A

Vijayalaya founded the Chola dynasty of the medieval line by capturing Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyar in about the middle of the ninth century. Rajendra and Kulottunga were later Chola kings, and Rajasimha was a Pandya ruler. The founder in the question is therefore Vijayalaya. The medieval Cholas rose from the Kaveri delta region of Tamil Nadu; their power grew under Rajaraja I and his son Rajendra I, who took the empire to its greatest extent, but both came after the founder.

Answer: B

Operation Vijay in 1961 integrated Goa.

In December 1961 the Indian armed forces carried out Operation Vijay to end Portuguese rule in Goa, Daman and Diu. The Portuguese governor surrendered on 19 December 1961, which is still observed as Goa Liberation Day.

Hyderabad was integrated in 1948 by Operation Polo, and Junagadh in 1947-48 after a plebiscite. Jodhpur acceded by agreement in 1947. (The name Operation Vijay was used again in 1999 for the Kargil war.)

Answer: A

The freedom fighter associated with the Ghadar Party is Lala Hardayal.

The Ghadar Party was founded in 1913 on the west coast of the United States, mainly by Punjabi immigrants, with Lala Har Dayal as one of its founders and leading ideologues and Sohan Singh Bhakna as its president. Its paper Ghadar called for armed revolt against British rule.

Rash Behari Bose worked with the Ghadarites in the attempted rising of 1915, but he is best known for the Indian Independence League and the INA. Bhikaji Cama is known for unfurling an early Indian flag at Stuttgart in 1907, and V. D. Savarkar for the Abhinav Bharat Society and the India House circle in London.

Answer: A

Maharana Pratap's horse was Chetak.

Chetak carried Maharana Pratap of Mewar at the Battle of Haldighati in 1576 against Akbar's forces led by Man Singh. According to tradition, the wounded horse carried him to safety before dying, and a memorial to Chetak stands near Haldighati.

Maruti, Garud and Vikram are not the names associated with his horse in the traditional accounts.