Who among the following was the first to sign the ‘Instruments of Accession’?
(a) The Maharaja of Baroda
(b) The Dewan of Travancore
(c) The Nizam of Hyderabad
(d) The Raja of Jodhpur
Solution: (b)
The Instrument of Accession was a legal document created in 1947 to enable each of the rulers of the princely states under British suzerainty to join one of the new dominions of India or Pakistan created by the Partition of British India. When United Kingdom accepted demands for a partition and announced its intention to quit India, the king of Travancore, Chithira Thirunal, issued a declaration of independence on June 18, 1947. The declaration was unacceptable to the Government of India; many rounds of negotiation were conducted among the Diwan, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, and the Indian representatives. In July 23, 1947 they decided in favour of the accession to the Indian Union, pending approval by the king. An assassination attempt on the Diwan by the Communists on the July 25, 1947 caused to hasten the accession of Travancore state to the Indian Union.
Who among the following started the first newspaper in India?
(a) Dadabhai Naoroji
(b) W.C. Bonnerjee
(c) Rabindranath Tagore
(d) James A. Hickey
Solution: (d)
The first major newspaper in India—The Bengal Gazette—was started in 1780 under the British Raj by James Augustus Hickey.
Name the important French possession in India.
(a) Goa
(b) Pondicherry
(c) Daman
(d) Cochin
Solution: (b)
Pondicherry is a Union Territory of India formed out of four enclaves of former French India and named for the largest, Pondicherry. The French East India Company set up a trading centre at Pondicherry in 1674. This outpost eventually became the chief French settlement in India. The French acquired Mahe in the 1720s, Yanam in 1731, and Karaikal in 1738.
Hardayal, an intellectual giant, was associated with
(a) Home Rule Movement
(b) Ghadar Movement
(c) Swadeshi Movement
(d) Non-Cooperation Movement
Solution: (b)
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service. His simple living and intellectual acumen inspired many expatriate Indians living in Canada and the USA to fight against British Imperial ism during the First World War.
On imprisonment in 1908 by the Brities, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was sent to
(a) Andaman and Nicobar
(b) Rangoon
(c) Singapore
(d) Mandalay
Solution: (d)
On 30 April 1908, two Bengali youths, Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, threw a bomb on a carriage at Muzaffarpur, in order to kill the Chief Presidency Magistrate Douglas Kingsford of Calcutta fame, but erroneously killed some women travelling in it. Tilak, in his paper Kesari, defended the revolutionaries and called for immediate Swaraj or self-rule. The Government swiftly arrested him for sedition and was sent to Mandalay, Burma from 1908 to 1914. While in the prison he wrote the most-famous Gita Rahasya.
Who gave the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad”?
(a) Chandrashekhar Azad
(b) Subhash Chandra Bose
(c) Bhagat Singh
(d) Iqbal
Solution: (c)
Inquilab Zindabad is an Urdu phrase which trans lates to “Long Live the Revolution!”It was a revolutionary chant during the British rule over India. It was popularized in the activities of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association by socialist revolutionaries such as Ashfaqulla Khan, Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, who used it to urge future generations to endorse and support the political party’s rebellious actions. Bhagat Singh’s call, Inquilab Zindabad! became the war-cry of the fight for freedom.
Who of the following attended all the Three Round Table Conferences?
(a) B.R. Ambedkar
(b) M.M.Malavia
(c) Vallabhbhai Patel
(d) Gandhiji
Solution: (a)
Dr. Ambedkar attended all the three Round Table Conferences in London and each time, forcefully projected his views in the interest of the ‘untouchable’. He exhorted the downtrodden sections to raise their living standards and to acquire as much political power as possible. He was of the view that there was no future for untouchables in the Hindu religion and they should change their religion if need be. In 1935, he publicly proclaimed,” I was born a Hindu because I had no control over this but I shall not die a Hindu”.
Who among the following British persons admitted the Revolt of 1857 as a national revolt?
(a) Lord Dalhousie
(b) Lord Canning
(c) Lord Ellenborough
(d) Disraeli
Solution: (d)
Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the conservative party of England has called it a “National revolt.” “The motives of leadership of revolt, geographical extent of the sway of revolt, its loose organizational infrastructure and the fragile basis of national consciousness at that moment do not provide substance to the so-called characterization of sepoy mutiny as “National struggle.”
Which one of the following was the first English ship that came to India?
(a) Elizabeth
(b) Bengal
(c) Red Dragon
(d) Mayflower
Solution: (c)
Formed on 31 December, 1600, the East India Company’s first voyage departed on 13 February 1601. The flagship of the five-vessel fleet was the Scourge of Malice, purchased from the Earl of Cumberland for 3700 pounds. On a more peaceful mission, the East India Company renamed the vessel the Red Dragon. The other vessels in the fleet were the Hector (300 tons), Ascension (260 tons), Susan (240 tons) and the Gift, a small victualler.
