Indian History Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The temple was built by Maharaja Dhanya Manikya.

The Tripura Sundari (Tripureshwari) temple at Udaipur, the old capital of the Manikya kings, was built by Maharaja Dhanya Manikya in 1501. It stands on a small hillock shaped like the back of a tortoise and is counted among the 51 Shakti Peethas, which is why the place is known as Matabari.

Dharma Manikya, Gobinda Manikya and Dev Manikya were other rulers of the same Manikya dynasty, but the building of the Tripureshwari temple is credited to Dhanya Manikya.

Answer: B

Tripura merged with the Indian Union on 15th October, 1949.

The Tripura Merger Agreement was signed on 9 September 1949 by Maharani Kanchan Prabha Devi, regent for the minor king, and took effect on 15 October 1949. Tripura then became a Part C state, a union territory in 1956, and a full state on 21 January 1972.

21 October 1949 has the right year but the wrong day. 1950 and 1951 are later than the merger.

Answer: B

Tripura became a full-fledged state in 1972.

The princely state merged with India in 1949 and became a Part C state, then a Union Territory in 1956. Under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, it became a full state on 21 January 1972, the same day as Manipur and Meghalaya.

So 1949 is the year of merger, not statehood, and 1971 is the year the reorganisation act was passed. 1959 marks no change in its status.

Answer: A

The builder was Maharaja Krishnakishore Manikya.

In 1849 Maharaja Krishna Kishore Manikya moved the royal capital from Old Agartala (Old Haveli) to the present site on the banks of the Haora river, and modern Agartala was laid out at his initiative. Frequent Kuki raids and easier contact with British Bengal were the reasons given for the move.

The other three were later rulers: Bir Chandra Manikya reigned from 1862, Radha Kishore Manikya built the Ujjayanta Palace in the new capital around 1901, and Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya was the last ruling king, who died in 1947. They developed the city but did not found it.

Answer: A

The king who abolished slavery in Tripura was Maharaja Bir Chandra Manikya.

Slavery was long common in Tripura. Slavery had been abolished in British India by Act V of 1843, and the British Government asked the state to end it too. Bir Chandra Manikya (reigned 1862 to 1896) did so in the 1870s, by a proclamation forbidding the sale, purchase, pledging or forcible detention of any person as a slave. Accounts date it between 1877 and 1879. He also ended the practice of sati, and is called the architect of modern Tripura for his reforms in the courts, the revenue system and education.

Dharma Manikya and Govinda Manikya reigned centuries earlier, before the British asked the state to end the practice, and neither is credited with abolishing slavery. 'None of them' is wrong because Bir Chandra Manikya is the answer.

Answer: B

The Minto-Morley Reforms were introduced in 1909.

The Indian Councils Act, 1909, known as the Morley-Minto Reforms after the Secretary of State John Morley and the Viceroy Lord Minto, enlarged the legislative councils and brought in elected members for the first time on a wider scale. It is best remembered for introducing separate electorates for Muslims.

1904 is the year of the Indian Universities Act, and 1911 is the year the partition of Bengal was annulled and the capital's move to Delhi announced. 1915 saw the Government of India Act consolidating earlier laws, not the Minto-Morley reforms.

Answer: B

The title was conferred by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya.

Rabindranath Tagore had a long friendship with four generations of Tripura's rulers, and in 1941, shortly before the poet's death, Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya honoured him with the title Bharat Bhaskar (Sun of India).

The other kings belong to earlier parts of that friendship: Bir Chandra Manikya first wrote to the young Tagore after reading his poems, and Radha Kishore Manikya was his close friend and patron. Dhanya Manikya ruled around 1500, centuries before Tagore.

Answer: D

The temple was built by Maharaja Dhanya Manikya.

The Tripureswari (Tripura Sundari) temple at Udaipur in Gomati district, one of the Shakti Peethas, was built by Maharaja Dhanya Manikya in 1501. Its shape, like a tortoise's back, gives the hill the name Kurma Pitha.

Uday Manikya gave his name to the town of Udaipur, which was the old capital, but he did not build the temple. Krishna Kishore and Birendra Kishore Manikya ruled in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Answer: A

The key's answer is 15th October, 1949.

The Tripura Merger Agreement was signed on behalf of the minor Maharaja by the regent, Maharani Kanchan Prabha Devi, on 9 September 1949, and it took effect on 15 October 1949, when Tripura became part of the Indian Union. Of the dates offered, 15 October 1949 is the one that belongs to the merger.

15 August 1947 is Independence Day, 1 July 1963 is when Tripura, then a Union Territory, received an elected Legislative Assembly, and 21 January 1970 is not a Tripura milestone; statehood came on 21 January 1972.

Answer: C

The king was Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya.

Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya, a friend of Rabindranath Tagore, gave money to support Jagadish Chandra Bose's scientific research at Tagore's request, at a time when Bose needed funds for his work on wireless and plant physiology.

Bir Chandra Manikya was Radha Kishore's father, and Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya ruled decades later, from 1923. Dhanya Manikya was a sixteenth-century ruler.