Indian History Based on Questions asked in various Exams (Part 28)

271.      Who\r\nsaid “The Simon Commission Report should be thrown on a heap of rubbish” ?

        (1) Mahatma Gandhi

        (2) Shivaswami Ayyar

        (3) Mohammad Ali Jinnah

        (4) Jawaharlal Nehru

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

272.      The\r\nMarathas were defeated at Panipat because

        (1) The Marathas did not fight bravely

        (2) The Marathas were not equal to Afghans in strength

        (3) The Martha army was short of food supplies

        (4) The Marathas were considered alien by the local\r\npopulation

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

273.      Which\r\nday was declared as the ‘Direct Action Day’ by the Muslim League ?

        (1) 3rd September, 1946

        (2) 16th August, 1946

        (3) 16th May, 1946

        (4) 4th December, 1946

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

274.      When\r\nwas Mahatma Gandhi arrested during the ‘Quit India Movement’ of 1942 ?

        (1) 7th August 1942

        (2) 30th April 1942

        (3) 9th August 1942

        (4) 5th July 1942

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

275.      Gandhiji\r\nbelieved that

        (1) End justifies means

        (2) Means justify end

        (3) Neither end j ustifles means nor means justify end

        (4) End and Means both should be justified

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

276.      With\r\nwhich ‘Movement’, the following were/are associated? List-I

              a. Vinoba Bhave

              b. Medha Patkar

              c. Sunderlal Bahuguna

              d. Jaya Prakash Narayan

        List-II

              1. ‘Chipko’

              2. ‘Sampurna Kranti’

              3. ‘Narmada Bachao’

              4. ‘Bhoodan’

        (1) a-4, c-1, b-2, d-3

        (2) a - 4, b - 3, c - 1, d - 2

        (3) b - 3, c - 1, a - 2, d - 4

        (4) d - 2, a - 4, b - 1, c - 2

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

277.      The\r\nessential feature of the Indus Valley Civilisation was

        (1) worship of forces of nature

        (2) organised city life

        (3) pastoral farming

        (4) caste society

(SSC Combined Graduate Level Prelim Exam. 04.02.2007 (Second Sitting)

278.      Name\r\nthe capital of the Pallavas

        (1) Kanchi          (2)\r\nVatapi

        (3) Trichnapalli  (4)\r\nMahabalipuram

(SSC Section Officer\r\n(Commercial Audit) Exam. 30.09.2007 (Second Sitting)

279.      What\r\nwas the original name of “Nurjahan” ?

        (1) Jabunnisa     (2)\r\nFatima Begum

        (3) Mehrunnisa  (4)\r\nJahanara

(SSC Section Officer (Commercial Audit) Exam. 30.09.2007 (Second Sitting)

280.      Which\r\nof the following pairs is not correctly matched ?

        (1) Lord Dalhousie-Doctrine of Lapse

        (2) Lord   Minto-Indian\r\nCouncils Act, 1909

        (3) Lord Wellesley-Subsidiary Alliance

        (4) Lord Curzon-Vernacular Press Act, 1878

(SSC Section Officer (Commercial Audit) Exam. 30.09.2007 (Second Sitting)

271. (2) Those were the words of\r\nShivaswami Iyer who was a prominent lawyer, administrator and statesman who\r\nserved as the Advocate General of Madras from 1907 to 1911. He was the Indian\r\ndelegate to the third session of the League of Nations in 1922 in which, he\r\ncondemned the mandate policy of General Smuts of the Republic of South Africa.\r\nShivaswami Iyer served as a member of the Council of State from 1922 to 1923.\r\nHe also opposed the Simon Commission on its arrival in India.

272. (2) In the battle, Ahmad Shah\r\nAbdali had both numeric as well as qualitative superiority over Marathas. The\r\ncombined Muslim army was much larger than that of Marathas. Though the infantry\r\nof Marathas was organized along European lines and their army had some of the\r\nbest French-made guns of the time, their artillery was static and lacked\r\nmobility against the fast-moving Afghan forces. The heavy mounted artillery of\r\nAfghans proved much better in the battlefield than the light artillery of\r\nMarathas. However, the main reason for the failure of the Marathas was that\r\nthey went to war without good allies. They were expecting support from their\r\nallies- Rajputs, Jats and Sikhs, but none of them supported Marathas in the\r\nbattle. The Marathas had interfered in the internal affairs of the Rajput\r\nstates (present-day Rajasthan) and levied heavy taxes and huge fines on them.\r\nThey had also made large territorial and monetary claims upon Awadh. Their\r\nraids In the Jat territory had resulted in the loss of trust of Jat chiefs like\r\nSuraj Mai. They had, therefore, to fight their enemies alone. The Marathas’\r\ndifficulty in obtaining supplies worsened as the local population became\r\nhostile to them, since in the Marathas’ desperation to secure provisions they\r\nhad pillaged the surrounding areas. The Marathas were unwise to carry a large\r\nnumber of non-combatants including wives along with them. This proved a severe\r\nhandicap as it not only slowed down the movement of the army but also put extra\r\nburden on the supplies. A large part of the fighting strength had to be\r\ndiverted to protecting the camp. They were forced to battle as the Marathas\r\ncould take the starvation no more. It was this army weakened by starvation that\r\nfought the decisive battle of Panipat.

273. (2) Direct\r\nAction Day also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a day of widespread\r\nriot and manslaughter in the city of Calcutta which took place on August 16,\r\n1946. The 1946 Cabinet Mission to India for planning of the transfer of power\r\nfrom the British Raj to the Indian leadership proposed an initial plan of\r\ncomposition of the new Dominion of India and its government. However, soon an\r\nalternative plan to divide the British Raj into a Hindu-majority India and a\r\nMuslim-majority Pakistan was proposed by the Muslim League. The Congress\r\nrejected the alternative proposal outright. Muslim League planned general\r\nstrike (hartal) on 16 August terming it as Direct Action Day to protest this\r\nrejection, and to assert its demand for a separate Muslim homeland. The day\r\nalso marked the start of what is known as The Week of the Long Knives. An\r\nimportant incident following Direct Action Day was the Noakhali and Tippera\r\ndistrict massacres in October 1946.

274. (3) The Quit\r\nIndia Movement, or the August Movement (August Kranti) was a civil disobedience\r\nmovement launched in India in August 1942 in response to Mohandas Gandhi’s call\r\nfor immediate independence. The All-India Congress Committee proclaimed a mass\r\nprotest demanding what Gandhi called “an orderly British withdrawal” from\r\nIndia. The call for determined, but passive resistance appears in his call to\r\nDo or Die, issued on 8 August at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay. The British\r\nwere quick to act. Almost the entire Indian National Congress leadership, and\r\nnot just at the national level, was imprisoned early morning next day i.e\r\nAugust 9. Due to the arrest of major leaders, a young and till then relatively\r\nunknown Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the AICC session on August 9 and hoisted\r\nthe flag; later the Congress party was banned.

275. (2) Gandhi’s\r\nview of the morally legitimate means to be exclusively employed in furthering\r\npolitical ends was deeply affected by the doctrine of dispassionate action in\r\nthe Gita. Gandhi explicitly rejected the doctrine that the end justifies the\r\nmeans, and went so far as to assert that a moral means is almost an end in\r\nitself because virtue is its own reward. Gandhi firmly believed that the means\r\nalways justify the end. So he chose only good means to drive away the British\r\nfrom India. He firmly believed that “impure” means result in an “impure” end,\r\nthat we cannot attain to any truth through untruthful means that we cannot\r\nsecure justice through unjust means, or freedom through tyrannical acts, or\r\nsocialism through enmity and coercion, or enduring peace through war.

276. (2)\r\nSunderlal Bahuguna is a noted Garhwali environmentalist, Chipko movement leader\r\nand a follower of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of Non-violence and Satyagraha.\r\nThe Bhoodan Movement was a voluntary land reform movement in India started by\r\nAcharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951 started at Pochampally village. Narmada is social\r\nmovement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and\r\nhuman rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the\r\nNarmada River, Gujarat, India. Narmada Bachao Andolan, together with its\r\nleading spokespersons Medha Patkar and Baba Amte, were the 1991 recipient of\r\nthe Right Livelihood Award. Jayaprakash Narayan is remembered especially for\r\nleading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for\r\npeaceful Total Revolution.

277. (2) Among\r\nall the Bronze Age cultures, the Indus Valley civilization was the most\r\nurbanized. A sophisticated and technolo- gically advanced urban culture is\r\nevident in the Indus Valley Civilization making them the first urban centres in\r\nthe region. The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of\r\nurban planning and efficient municipal governments. By 2600 BCE, the Early\r\nHarappan communities had been turned into large urban centres. Such urban\r\ncentres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-Daro in modem day Pakistan, and\r\nDholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern day India.

278. (1) Pallavas\r\nruled regions of northern Tamil Nadu and southern Andhra Pradesh between the\r\nsecond to the ninth century CE. Kanchipuram served as the capital city of the\r\nPallava Kingdom from the 4th to the 9th century. It is also known by its former\r\nnames Kanchiampathi, Conjeevaram, and the nickname “The City of Thousand\r\nTemples’. Kanchipuram was mentioned in the Mahabh- asya, written by Patanjali\r\nin the 2nd century BC.

279. (3) Begum\r\nNur Jahan, also known as Mehr-un-Nisaa, was Empress of the Mughal Empire that\r\ncovered much of the Indian subcontinent. She was an aunt of Empress Mumtaz\r\nMahal, Emperor Shah Jahan’s wife for whom the Taj Mahal was made. Begum Nur\r\nJahan was the twentieth and favourite wife of Mughal Emperor Jahangir, who was\r\nher second husband. Through Nur Jahan’s influence, her family, including her\r\nbrother Asaf Khan, consolidated their position at court. Asaf Khan was\r\nappointed grand Wazir (minister) to Jahangir, and his daughter Arjumand Banu\r\nBegum (later known as Mumtaz Mahal) was wed to Prince Khurram (the future Shah\r\nJahan), the third son of Jahangir, born by the Rajput princess, Jagat Gosaini.

280. (4) The\r\nVernacular Press Act was passed in 1878 under the Governor Generalship and\r\nViceroyalty of Lord Lytton, for ‘better control” of Indian language newspapers.\r\nThe purpose of the Act was to control the printing and circulation of seditious\r\nmaterial, calculated to produce disaffection, which was already present,\r\nagainst the British Government in India in the minds of the masses.

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