British Rule: Administration, Economy & Society: previous-year questions

Answer: (D) Lord Cornwallis

The Sunset Law was part of Lord Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement of 1793: a zamindar who failed to pay the fixed revenue by sunset on the due date had his estate auctioned. Lytton, Ripon and Bentinck were later Governors-General and had nothing to do with this rule.

Answer: (C) Madras

The Ryotwari System, settling revenue directly with each cultivator, was first introduced in the Madras Presidency (Baramahal) by Alexander Read and Thomas Munro in the 1790s–1820. Bengal had the Permanent Settlement, and the Delhi region came under the Mahalwari System.

Answer: (A) 1800

Lord Wellesley founded Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800 to train Company civil servants in Indian languages. The other years are later; the college had in fact been wound down by the 1850s.

Answer: (A) 1911

The transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was announced by King George V at the Delhi Durbar of December 1911, the same occasion on which the Partition of Bengal was annulled. 1906, 1910 and 1915 are not linked to this decision.

Answer: (A) Lord Canning

After the Government of India Act 1858 transferred power to the Crown, Lord Canning became the first Viceroy. Mountbatten was the last Viceroy, Clive was Governor of Bengal, and Auckland was Governor-General before 1858.

Answer: (C) Lord Warren Hestings

Warren Hastings appointed the Amini Commission in 1776 to inquire into the land revenue and assets of Bengal after the failure of the five-year farming settlement. Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement later, and Dalhousie and Minto belong to other periods.

Answer: (C) Charter Act of 1853

The Charter Act of 1853 separated, for the first time, the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General's Council by adding six legislative members. This Indian (Central) Legislative Council worked like a mini-Parliament, following the procedures of the British Parliament, which is why the Act is said to have sown the seed of parliamentary government. The same Act opened the civil service to competitive examination and was the last of the Charter Acts. The 1793 Act renewed the charter for 20 years; the 1813 Act ended the Company's trade monopoly except in tea and the China trade and set aside ₹1 lakh for education; the 1833 Act created the Governor-General of India and added a Law Member (Macaulay).

Answer: (C) 1793

Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1793, fixing land revenue permanently and making the zamindars owners of the land. The Charter Act of 1813 ended the Company's trade monopoly in India (except tea and the China trade) and set aside ₹1 lakh for education. 1803 falls in the Second Anglo-Maratha War. 1834 is the year Macaulay arrived as Law Member and the first Law Commission was set up under him.

Answer: (C) Bahadur Shah II

Bahadur Shah II 'Zafar' (reigned 1837-57), the last Mughal emperor, was proclaimed leader of the Revolt by the Meerut sepoys who reached Delhi on 11 May 1857. After the fall of Delhi he was captured at Humayun's Tomb by Major Hodson, tried, and exiled to Rangoon, where he died in 1862. Aurangzeb died in 1707; Mir Qasim was Nawab of Bengal (1760-63), defeated at Buxar in 1764; Sarfaraz Khan was the Nawab of Bengal killed by Alivardi Khan at Giria in 1740.

Answer: (B) Ranajit Guha

The Subaltern Studies collective was founded by Ranajit Guha, who edited the first six volumes of Subaltern Studies (from 1982) and wrote Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983); the school studies history 'from below' - peasants, tribals, workers - as against elite-centred colonial and nationalist histories. The term 'subaltern' is borrowed from Antonio Gramsci. Shahid Amin (Event, Metaphor, Memory, on Chauri Chaura), Partha Chatterjee (The Nation and Its Fragments) and Gautam Bhadra were members of the group, not its founder, as were Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gyanendra Pandey and David Hardiman.

Answer: (A) Anil Seal

Anil Seal (The Emergence of Indian Nationalism, 1968) belongs to the Cambridge School, along with John Gallagher, Gordon Johnson and C. A. Bayly, which explained nationalism through local factions and competition for patronage. The Aligarh School of Marxist-leaning historians of medieval India, based at Aligarh Muslim University, includes Mohammad Habib, Irfan Habib (The Agrarian System of Mughal India), S. Nurul Hasan, M. Athar Ali (The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb), Satish Chandra and Iqtidar Alam Khan.

Answer: (A) A.L. Basham

A.L. Basham's "The Wonder That Was India" is a classic survey of Indian civilisation up to the coming of the Muslims.

Answer: (B) James Princep

James Prinsep, an official of the East India Company, deciphered the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts in 1837, which for the first time allowed scholars to read Ashokan edicts and pillar inscriptions and correctly identify the emperor "Devanampiya Piyadasi" as Ashoka.

Answer: (C) Ram Sharan Sharma

Ram Sharan Sharma was the leading historian of ancient India; his works include 'Indian Feudalism', 'Sudras in Ancient India', 'Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India' and 'India's Ancient Past', and he was the founding chairman of the ICHR. Satish Chandra is known for medieval India (he died in October 2017, a current-affairs link for this paper), Bipan Chandra for modern India and the freedom struggle, and Amalesh Tripathi for modern India ('The Extremist Challenge').

Answer: (B) Jadunath Sarkar

Sir Jadunath Sarkar was one of India's foremost historians of Mughal India, particularly known for his extensive research on Aurangzeb's reign.

Answer: (A) Santhal

Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu led the Santhal Rebellion (the "Hul") of 1855 against oppressive landlords, moneylenders and the colonial administration.

Answer: (D) Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Hindu College (now Presidency University) was established in 1817 in Calcutta by Raja Ram Mohan Roy in collaboration with David Hare (a watchmaker-philanthropist) and David Scott, along with other reformers. It later became a centre of the Young Bengal movement.

Answer: (D) Lord Cornwallis

Lord Cornwallis introduced the Indian Civil Service (ICS) system during his tenure as Governor-General (1786–1793). He systematically reorganised the civil service, made appointments merit-based, separated judicial from revenue functions, and is called the 'Father of Civil Services in India.'

Answer: (C) 1784

Pitt's India Act was passed in 1784 by the British Parliament to rectify the defects of the Regulating Act of 1773. It established a dual system of control — a Board of Control in Britain overseeing the East India Company's political affairs. It is named after Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.

Answer: (B) Third Five Year Plan

The Third Five Year Plan covered 1961–66. During this period, India was forced to fight the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, causing severe disruption to the plan. These conflicts led to the subsequent 'Plan Holiday' (1966–69).