Modern Sources and British Expansion Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The Western Presidency was at Surat.

The English East India Company set up its first factory in western India at Surat in 1613, after a farman from the Mughal emperor Jahangir. Surat, the chief Mughal port, became the headquarters of the Company's western presidency, under a President who controlled its other factories in the region.

Bombay, received by the English Crown in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry and leased to the Company in 1668, became the seat of the presidency only in 1687, after the early period. Satara was a Maratha seat, and Panaji was in Portuguese Goa, so neither was ever an English presidency.

Answer: A

The correspondent was W. H. Russel (William Howard Russell).

William Howard Russell of The Times of London, often called the first modern war correspondent after his reports from the Crimean War, was sent to India to report on the uprising of 1857 and its suppression. His dispatches and his My Diary in India describe the hostility towards the British that he met in northern India.

The other options were British politicians, not journalists: Sir Robert Peel, who died in 1850, and Gladstone and Palmerston, who were Prime Ministers.

Answer: D

Ranjit Singh belonged to the Shukarchakiya misl.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh (born 1780) was the son of Maha Singh, chief of the Sukerchakia misl centred on Gujranwala. Building on that base, he united the Sikh misls and founded the Sikh kingdom of Punjab, taking Lahore in 1799.

The Ahluwalia misl was led by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, and the Kanhaiya misl was led by Sada Kaur, his mother-in-law, who helped him rise, but neither was his own misl. The Dallewalia was another of the twelve misls.

Answer: D

The first state annexed under the Doctrine of Lapse was Satara.

Under Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse, a dependent state whose ruler died without a natural heir passed to the British. Satara was the first to be annexed, in 1848.

Jaitpur and Sambalpur followed in 1849, and Jhansi (1853-54) and Nagpur (1854) came later. So all the other options were annexed after Satara.

Answer: D

The key's year is 1835 A.D.

The Press Act of 1835 repealed the restrictive licensing regulations of 1823 and allowed a newspaper to be published simply by declaring its printer and publisher. It is called the liberation of the Indian press. It was passed by Sir Charles Metcalfe, who acted as Governor-General after Lord William Bentinck left India in March 1835, and is therefore often called Metcalfe's Act; the question credits it to Bentinck, whose administration had already been tolerant of the press.

1832, 1833 and 1834 do not correspond to the change in the law; 1833 is the year of the Charter Act, which is the usual distractor.

Answer: D

The dastak system related to trade privileges and concessions.

Under the farman granted by Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1717, the English East India Company could trade in Bengal free of customs duties on payment of a fixed sum each year. The Company's officials issued passes called dastaks for such duty-free goods, and Company servants misused them for their private trade, causing heavy revenue losses to the Nawab and a dispute that fed into the conflicts with Siraj-ud-Daulah and Mir Qasim.

The dastak was a customs pass, not a military, judicial or appointment arrangement, so the other options are wrong.

Answer: C

Statements 1 and 3 are correct, so the answer is 1 and 3 only.

Pitt's India Act of 1784 set up the Board of Control in Britain and reduced the Governor-General's Council in India from four members to three (1). A supplementary Act of 1786, passed so that Lord Cornwallis would accept the post, empowered the Governor-General to override his council in special cases and to hold the office of Commander-in-Chief as well (3).

Statement 2 is wrong. Pitt's India Act left the Company's trade alone; its monopoly of trade with India was abolished by the Charter Act of 1813, and its tea and China monopoly by the Charter Act of 1833. Options containing 2 are therefore wrong.

Answer: A

The correct matching is A-II, B-III, C-I, D-IV.

• Jai Singh led the Kanhaiya misl (A-II).
• Hira Singh Sandhu founded the Nakai misl (B-III).
• Dasaundha Singh led the Nishanwalia misl, the standard-bearers of the Dal Khalsa (C-I).
• Naudh Singh, father of Charat Singh and great-grandfather of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, led the Sukerchakia misl (D-IV).

Option (b) pairs every name in list order, and options (c) and (d) misplace Naud Singh, whose link to the Sukerchakias (Ranjit Singh's own misl) is the easiest anchor.

Answer: D

Ranjit Singh gave grants to all three, so the answer is All of the above.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh covered the upper storeys of the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar with gilded copper, which is why it is called the Golden Temple. He also funded the building of the gurdwara at Hazur Sahib in Nanded, where Guru Gobind Singh died.

His patronage was not confined to Sikh shrines: he donated gold to plate the domes of the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi. Each of the first three options is therefore only part of the answer.

Answer: B

The true statement is that open competitive examination was introduced in 1853 and reaffirmed in 1858.

The Charter Act of 1853 ended the Company directors' patronage over civil service appointments and opened them to competitive examination. After the Crown took over in 1858, the system was confirmed, and Queen Victoria's Proclamation promised office without distinction of race or creed.

The 1833 Act declared that no Indian would be barred from office by religion, birth or colour, but in practice the high posts stayed closed, so 'completely eliminated' is wrong. The maximum age was lowered more than once, to 19 by 1876, so it did not stay at 23. Appointment without examination describes the opposite of the system that was set up.