Indian History Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The seventh session of the Indian National Congress was held at Nagpur, 1891.

The Congress met once a year from 1885. Counting from Bombay (1885), the sessions ran Calcutta 1886, Madras 1887, Allahabad 1888, Bombay 1889, Calcutta 1890, and then Nagpur in December 1891, the seventh, presided over by P. Ananda Charlu.

Every option carries the year 1891, so the question turns on the place. Bombay had hosted the first and fifth sessions, not the seventh. Gwalior never hosted a Congress session in this period, and 'Bengal' is a province, not a session venue; the Bengal sessions were held at Calcutta.

Answer: B

The key gives Marathi.

The question sits among Madhya Pradesh items, and the press history of the state lists Purn Chandrodaya as a weekly published from Indore from 1860 in Marathi, said to be the first newspaper in the state in that language. That is what the key follows. I found this only in preparation notes and a college handout on the journalism of Madhya Pradesh, not in a primary or scholarly source, so treat the details as secondary.

One caution: a Bengali paper of nearly the same name, Sambad Purnachandrodaya, was published from Calcutta from 1835. If the question meant that paper the answer would be Bengali, but the Madhya Pradesh setting points to the Indore weekly. Nothing I found links the name to Hindi or Rajasthani.

Answer: D

The Buddha breathed his last at Kushinagar.

The Buddha attained mahaparinirvana at Kushinagar, in present-day Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the four principal places of Buddhist pilgrimage, with the Mahaparinirvana Temple housing a reclining statue of the Buddha.

The other three are the other key sites: he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon at Sarnath, and often stayed and preached at Rajgir, where the first Buddhist council was held after his death.

Answer: A

Mahabalipuram was established by the Pallava dynasty.

Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), a port near Chennai, was developed by the Pallava kings of Kanchipuram in the seventh and eighth centuries. It takes its name from Narasimhavarman I, called Mamalla, and its rock-cut rathas, cave temples, the Shore Temple and the great relief of Arjuna's Penance (or the Descent of the Ganga) are Pallava works, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Pandyas ruled from Madurai, the Cholas built the great temples of Thanjavur, and the Chalukyas of Badami were the Pallavas' rivals in the Deccan.

Answer: D

The chronologically correct list is Battle of Swally, Bibighar massacre, Operation Polo.

The Battle of Swally, where the English defeated the Portuguese near Surat, was in 1612. The Bibighar massacre at Kanpur came during the revolt of 1857. Operation Polo, which integrated Hyderabad into India, was in September 1948.

The other lists are out of order. The Europeans arrived as Portuguese, Dutch, English, French. The Sufi saints lived in the order Muinuddin Chishti, Sheikh Farid, Nizamuddin Auliya. And Taxila is the oldest of the universities, older than Nalanda, with Vikramshila and Odantapuri later.

Answer: B

The battle is the Battle of Ghaghra, fought in May 1529.

After defeating Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat (1526) and Rana Sanga at Khanwa (1527), Babur faced the Afghan chiefs of the east, who had rallied behind Mahmud Lodi, Ibrahim's brother, along with the ruler of Bengal. Babur defeated them on the Ghaghra river near its junction with the Ganga in Bihar, his last major battle.

The battles of Tarain (1191 and 1192) were fought between Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad Ghori. Haldighati (1576) was between Maharana Pratap and Akbar's army. No Battle of Ajmer involves Babur and Mahmud Lodi.

Answer: D

The Rajasthan Seva Sangh was founded in 1919.

It was set up in 1919 at Wardha by Vijay Singh Pathik and his associates, and its office moved to Ajmer in 1920. It backed peasant movements such as Bijolia and Begun and used the press to bring the grievances of people in the princely states to national notice.

1915, 1920 and 1925 are not its founding year; 1920 is when its headquarters shifted to Ajmer, which makes it the likeliest distractor.

Answer: C

Mira Bai was born in Merta and married in Mewar, so the answer is c and a respectively.

Mira Bai was born into the Rathore family of Merta, at Kudki, around 1498, the granddaughter of Rao Duda, founder of the Merta branch of the Rathores. She was married to Bhoj Raj, the eldest son of Rana Sanga of Mewar, and lived at Chittor until, after her husband's death, she left to devote herself to Krishna.

Marwar is the wider Rathore region of which Merta was an offshoot, not her birthplace as the options frame it, and Morvi (Maurvi) has no connection with her.

Answer: B

Jaipur signed the subsidiary alliance in 1818.

After the Third Anglo-Maratha War the East India Company concluded treaties of subordinate alliance with almost all the Rajput states in 1817 and 1818. Jaipur's treaty was signed in April 1818, one of the last; Karauli and Kota were among the first states to sign in 1817.

1817 is the year the series of treaties began, and 1819 and 1820 are after Jaipur had already signed.

Answer: A

The Praja Mandal in Bundi was established in 1931.

Bundi was among the first Rajput states to have a Praja Mandal: it was founded in 1931, under the leadership of Kantilal, to campaign against the state's administrative abuses and for civil rights. Most of the other praja mandals of Rajasthan were set up later in the 1930s.

1939, 1940 and 1941 fall in the period when praja mandals were spreading to other states, after Bundi's had already been founded.