Medieval Administration and Economy Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The six Deccan subas did not include Arcot and Warangal.

After Aurangzeb's conquests of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), the Mughal Deccan consisted of six provinces: Khandesh, Berar, Aurangabad (earlier Ahmadnagar), Bidar, Bijapur and Hyderabad (Golconda).

So Aurangabad and Khandesh, Berar and Bidar, and Hyderabad and Bijapur were all Mughal subas. Arcot was the seat of the later Nawabs of the Carnatic, and Warangal was an old Kakatiya capital; neither was a suba.

Answer: B

The key gives Jai Singh Sawai.

Sawai Jai Singh II of Amber (Jaipur) served the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah as a provincial governor and is recorded as governor (subahdar) of Agra from 1722, later also holding Malwa; the sources place the end of both postings around 1737. His time at Agra is remembered for his campaigns against the Jat chiefs of the region.

Raja Man Singh of Amber is known as Akbar's commander and governor in Kabul, Bihar and Bengal, and Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar is known for his Mughal postings in Malwa and Gujarat; neither is the Rajput governor of Agra that the key has in mind. The key does not credit Raja Bithal Das Gaur with the governorship of Agra either.

A useful way to hold this in memory: Jai Singh is the Rajput mansabdar of the early eighteenth century, so he belongs to Muhammad Shah's reign, while Man Singh and Jaswant Singh belong to the reigns of Akbar and Shah Jahan.

Answer: C

Nilkanthi and Sanganeri varahas were gold coins bearing some symbol.

The varaha (the 'pagoda' of European records) was the standard gold coin of south India and the Deccan from Vijayanagara times. Its name comes from the boar (varaha) emblem of the Chalukyas and Vijayanagara, and varahas carried images or symbols such as deities or the boar, which is how varieties were named and recognised.

They were not silver coins, so the first two options are wrong, and the key rejects the description of them as plain coins without any symbol.

Answer: C

The blueprint was provided by Sher Shah Suri.

In his short reign (1540-1545) Sher Shah reorganised revenue on the basis of measurement of land and fixed shares of produce, standardised the silver rupaya, built roads and sarais, and tightened control of the army and local officials. Akbar's ministers, notably Todar Mal, who had served under Sher Shah, built on these measures.

Aibak ruled three centuries earlier, and Babur and Humayun spent their reigns fighting and left no comparable administrative system.

Answer: A

The three machis are on Rajgarh fort.

Rajgad, Shivaji's capital for about twenty-five years, has three spurs or terraces (machi) around its central citadel (balekilla): Padmavati machi, Suvela machi and Sanjivani machi.

Sinhagad, Purandar and Torna are other forts of the Pune region, but these three named machis belong to Rajgad.

Answer: B

In Maratha fort terminology, a meta was a Watch-post.

A meta was a guard post on the approach paths to a hill fort, manned to watch and control movement towards the gate. Such posts were part of the layered defence of the Maratha giridurga.

The granary, the armoury and the topmost part of the fort (the balekilla) have their own names, so the other options are wrong.

Answer: B

The canal was built by Firoz Shah Tughlaq.

Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-1388) is remembered for public works: he dug a long canal from the Yamuna to Hisar, the town he founded, to irrigate the dry tracts of Haryana, and he levied an irrigation tax (haqq-i-sharb) on the land it watered. The canal was restored under the Mughals and later the British as the Western Yamuna Canal.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak founded the Slave dynasty and began the Qutb Minar. Khizr Khan founded the Sayyid dynasty, and Sikandar Lodi is remembered for founding Agra. None of them is credited with this canal.

Answer: C

The incorrect pair is Kotwal - Revenue collector.

Under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, the kotwal was the chief police officer of a town, responsible for law and order, watch and ward, and supervising markets. Revenue was collected by officials such as the amil, amalguzar and karori.

The other pairs are accepted. The Mir Bakhshi was the head of the military department, in charge of mansabdars and recruitment. The Muhtasib was the censor of public morals, enforcing Islamic rules of conduct. The Qazi-ul-Quzat was the chief judicial officer.

Answer: A

Statement (i) is correct and (ii) is wrong, so option A, (i) only, is the final key. In the Sultanate the wazir was the prime minister and the head of the finance department, the Diwan-i-Wazarat.

Statement (ii) says he supervised only the income and expenditure of the department, but the wazir's role covered the whole administration as well, so the word only makes it false. Option C, both, was the booklet tick that the final key changed.

The Diwan-i-Wazarat was the finance department of the Delhi Sultanate and the wazir, who headed it, also guided the other departments and the army's accounts. For this reason the claim that he supervised only the income and expenditure leaves out his wider responsibility, and the second statement fails.

Answer: D

Malik Kafur was the general of Ala-ud-din Khilji.

Malik Kafur led Ala-ud-din Khalji's campaigns into the Deccan and the far south between 1307 and 1311, defeating the Yadavas of Devagiri, the Kakatiyas of Warangal, the Hoysalas and the Pandyas, and bringing back great wealth to Delhi.

Firoz Shah Tughluq ruled later in the fourteenth century, and Chandragupta Maurya and Bimbisara belong to ancient India, more than a thousand years earlier.