Press, Literature & Cultural Institutions: previous-year questions

Answer: (A) Warren Hastings

The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta on 15 January 1784 by Sir William Jones, a judge of the Supreme Court, when Warren Hastings was Governor-General of Bengal (1774-85, the first to hold that title under the Regulating Act, 1773); Hastings declined the presidency and became its patron. Its scholars include Charles Wilkins (first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, 1785), Jones himself (Abhijnanasakuntalam, 1789) and James Prinsep, who deciphered Brahmi in 1837. Other institutions and their periods: Calcutta Madrasa, 1781 (Hastings); Sanskrit College, Benares, 1791 (Jonathan Duncan, under Cornwallis); Fort William College, 1800 (Wellesley). Clive (D) was Governor of Bengal, never Governor-General.

Answer: (A) Aurobindo Ghosh

Aurobindo Ghosh started the English weekly 'Karmayogin' in June 1909, soon after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case (in which C.R. Das defended him), together with the Bengali weekly 'Dharma'. Earlier he had edited 'Bande Mataram', the English daily founded by Bipin Chandra Pal. In 1910 he left politics, moving first to Chandernagore and then to Pondicherry. The distractors and their papers: Sisir Kumar Ghosh, Amrita Bazar Patrika (which turned from Bengali to English overnight in 1878 to escape the Vernacular Press Act); Tilak, Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English); Gandhi, Indian Opinion, Young India, Navajivan and Harijan.

Answer: (A) S.A. Dange

Shripad Amrit Dange wrote the pamphlet 'Gandhi vs. Lenin' in 1921, comparing the two leaders' ideas and methods and arguing the case for socialism; it marks the beginning of Marxist writing in India. Helped by the Bombay businessman R.B. Lotvala (option B), he started 'The Socialist' (1922), the first Marxist journal in India. Dange was convicted in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case (1924) along with Muzaffar Ahmad, Shaukat Usmani and Nalini Gupta, and again in the Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929), in which R.S. Nimbkar (option C) was also an accused. Related: M.N. Roy wrote 'India in Transition', and Muzaffar Ahmad pioneered the communist movement in Bengal with the paper 'Langal'.

Answer: (C) Surendranath Bandopadhyay.

The Bengalee is identified with Surendranath Banerjea, who took it over in 1879 and made it a leading nationalist daily. W. C. Bonnerjee, Bankim Chandra (who edited Bangadarshan) and Nabagopal Mitra (of the Hindu Mela) were not associated with it. the Bengalee was started in 1862 by Girish Chandra Ghosh and taken over by Surendranath Banerjea in 1879.

Answer: (D) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay – Ghore Baire

Ghare Baire is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, not by Bankim Chandra, so pair (D) is incorrect. Harish Chandra Mukherjee edited the Hindoo Patriot, Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Nil Darpan, and Tagore wrote Gora, so the other three pairs are correct.

Answer: (B) Dadabhai Naoroji – Proverty and UnBritish rule in India

Dadabhai Naoroji wrote Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), setting out his drain theory. The other three pairs are jumbled: Ghare Baire is Tagore's, Anandamath is Bankim's, and The Discovery of India is Nehru's.

Answer: (D) Gandhiji

Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in Gujarati in 1909 aboard ship from London to South Africa, setting out his critique of modern civilisation. Bose wrote The Indian Struggle, Nehru The Discovery of India, and Tilak Gita Rahasya.

Answer: (B) The Maratha

Tilak ran two papers from Poona: the Kesari in Marathi and The Mahratta in English. Bande Mataram was edited by Aurobindo, The Enquirer by Krishna Mohan Banerjee, and the Hindoo Patriot by Harish Chandra Mukherjee.

Answer: (C) Bengal Gazette / Hicky's Gazette / Hicky's Bengal Gazette

The first newspaper in India was the Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser, an English weekly started by James Augustus Hicky at Calcutta on 29 January 1780; it was shut down in 1782 for attacking Warren Hastings. Digdarshan (1818) was the first Bengali monthly and Samachar Darpan (1818) the first Bengali weekly newspaper, both brought out by the Serampore missionaries. Parthenon (1830) was a paper of the Hindu College students (Derozians). Other firsts: Sambad Kaumudi (Rammohan Roy, 1821), Bombay Samachar (1822, the oldest surviving paper) and Udant Martand (1826, the first Hindi paper).

Answer: (C) Debendranath Tagore

Debendranath Tagore started the Tattvabodhini Patrika in 1843 as the organ of his Tattvabodhini Sabha (1839), with Akshay Kumar Datta as its editor. Raja Rammohun Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in 1828 and published the Sambad Kaumudi. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was associated with the Tattvabodhini Sabha, but he is best known for the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856. Keshab Chandra Sen broke away to found the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866.

Answer: (C) Kesari

Tilak edited the Marathi weekly Kesari and the English weekly Mahratta, which he used to spread nationalist ideas. The Hindoo Patriot was a Calcutta paper edited by Harish Chandra Mukherjee, who championed the indigo cultivators. Hind Swaraj is a book by Gandhi, written in 1909. Anandamath is Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of 1882, which contains 'Vande Mataram'.

Answer: (B) Harish Chandra Mookherjee

Harish Chandra Mukherjee edited the Hindoo Patriot, an English weekly of Calcutta started in 1853, and used it to expose the oppression of indigo cultivators. After his death it was edited by Kristo Das Pal. Debendranath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Patrika. Vinoba Bhave started the Bhoodan movement in 1951 and was chosen as the first individual satyagrahi in 1940.

Answer: (C) Muhammad Iqbal

Muhammad Iqbal wrote 'Saare Jahan Se Achha' (Tarana-e-Hind) in Urdu in 1904. Later, in his presidential address to the Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930, he proposed a Muslim state in north-west India. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875. Nawab Abdul Latif founded the Mohammedan Literary Society in Calcutta in 1863.

Answer: (A) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandamath (1882), set against the Sannyasi rebellion, and it contains the song 'Vande Mataram'. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Pather Dabi, which the British banned, and Devdas. Sarat Chandra Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose's elder brother, proposed a united, independent Bengal in 1947. Dwijendralal Roy wrote 'Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara' and historical plays such as Shahjahan.

Answer: (B) Abanindranath Tagore

Abanindranath Tagore painted 'Bharat Mata' in 1905 during the Swadeshi movement: a saffron-clad woman with four hands holding a book, sheaves of paddy, a piece of white cloth and a rosary (first conceived as 'Banga Mata'). He was the founder of the Bengal School of Art and a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay gave the idea of the motherland as goddess in the song 'Vande Mataram' in the novel Anandamath (1882), but he did not paint the image.

Answer: (C) Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi wrote 'Hind Swaraj' (Indian Home Rule) in Gujarati in 1909 on board the ship Kildonan Castle while returning from London to South Africa; in it he criticises modern Western civilisation and explains swaraj and passive resistance. Books of the other options: Nehru wrote 'The Discovery of India' and 'Glimpses of World History', and Maulana Azad wrote 'India Wins Freedom'. Gandhiji's autobiography is 'My Experiments with Truth'.

Answer: (B) Gandhiji

Gandhiji took over and edited 'Navajivan', a Gujarati weekly (later also in Hindi), from 1919, published from Ahmedabad, along with the English weekly 'Young India'. His other journals were 'Indian Opinion' (South Africa, 1903) and 'Harijan' (1933). Lala Har Dayal was connected with the paper 'Ghadar', Aurobindo Ghosh with 'Bande Mataram' and 'Karmayogin', and Rashbehari Bose worked from Japan for the Indian Independence League.

Answer: (C) William Jones

The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta on 15 January 1784 by Sir William Jones, a judge of the Supreme Court, with Governor-General Warren Hastings as patron, to promote Oriental studies; Jones translated Kalidasa's Abhijnanasakuntalam and pointed out the kinship of Sanskrit with Greek and Latin. Alexander Cunningham was the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1861), John Stuart Mill was a British utilitarian philosopher (On Liberty) who worked for the East India Company in London, and David Hare helped found Hindu College (1817) and Hare School.

Answer: (B) Bramhabandhab Upadhyay

Sandhya, a Bengali evening daily started in 1904, was edited by Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (born Bhabani Charan Bandyopadhyay), whose fiery, colloquial writing made it a leading voice of extremist nationalism during the Swadeshi movement; he was tried for sedition and died during the trial in 1907. Satish Chandra Mukherjee founded the Dawn Society and its journal Dawn; Sisir Kumar Ghosh founded Amrita Bazar Patrika (1868); Bhupendranath Datta, younger brother of Swami Vivekananda, edited Jugantar. Bande Mataram was associated with Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh.

Answer: (B) Sisir Kumar Ghosh

Sisir Kumar Ghosh, along with his brothers, founded and edited the Amrita Bazar Patrika (started 1868).