Modern Indian History MCQs

Notes:
Plague broke out in Ahmedabad at the end of 1917, leading to closure of schools and courts. Many left the city. But, Vallabhbhai, ignoring his personal safety, refused to move out of his residence at Bhadra in Ahmedabad. He moved around in streets, getting the sewers cleaned. He mounted massive relief efforts for plague and famine.

Notes:
Ottoman emperor was also a Caliph/Khalifa, and being so, he was nominally the supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims across the world. With the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I, an outcry to save the Khalifa and Caliphate emerged across the Muslim world, including in India. A number of Muslim leaders including Maulana Muhammad Ali, his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad came together to form the All India Khilafat Committee. They published the Khilafat Manifesto in 1920 calling upon the British to protect the caliphate, and exhorting the Indian Muslims to unite and hold the British accountable on that count.

Notes:

Mahatma Gandhi founded the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabhar in 1918. To promote a unity between northern and southern states in India, Gandhiji felt the importance of increasing Hindi Literacy in India as it the widely spoken language in India. Hence he founded this organization to make people learn in Hindi in non Hindi speaking communities in South India. Annie Besant inaugurated the Sabha. The head office of the Sabha is located in T. Nagar, Chennai.

Notes:
Lord Lytton, Governor-General of India (1876– 1880), wrote poems under the pen name Owen Meredith. He published several other volumes under the same name. Some of his famous poetic publications include: Clytemnestra, The Earl’s Return, The Artist, And Other Poems, The Wanderer, Lucile, Fables in Song, After Paradise, or Legends of Exile, etc.

Notes:
The Treaty of Seringapatam signed 18 March 1792, ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Under this treaty, East India Company was awarded large portion of Mysore’s Malabar Coast territories between the Kingdom of Travancore and the Kali River along with Baramahal and Dindigul districts. The Peshwa got territory up to the Tungabhadra River. The Nizam was given land from the Krishna to the Penner River, and the forts of Cuddapah (Kadapa) and Gandikota on the south bank of the Penner.

Notes:
Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut in Malabar, Kerala, on May 20, 1498. He was wel-comed by the Zamorin who helped him to establish a series of friendly relations with Indian states. His first visit to the city of Calicut and his reception at the Zamorin’s court are well described in the “Roteiro.”

Notes:
During the time of Lord Dalhousie many small and big Kingdoms were added to the British territory. Satara was taken under British rule under the Doctrine of Lapsein 1848. Punjab was annexed in 1849. In December 1852 Dalhousie declared by a proclamation the annexation of Pegu or the Lower Burma area. The entire eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal came under the British administration. Bengal, partitioned by Lord Curzon in 1905, was reunited in 1911 by Lord Hardinge. It had come under British rule after the Battle of Plassey in 1957 and Battle of Buxar (1964).

Notes:
The Rama Krishna Mission is a philanthropic, volunteer organization founded by Ramakrishna’s chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on May 1, 1897. The Mission conducts extensive work in health care, disaster relief, rural management, tribal welfare, elementary and higher education and culture.

Notes:
Muhammad Ali Jinnah is revered in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam (“Great Leader”) and Baba-i-Qaum, “Father of the Nation”. He was a lawyer, politician and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan’s creation on 14 August 1947, and then as Pakistan’s first Governor-General until his death in 1948.

Notes:
B. R. Ambedkar campaigned against social discrimination against Untouchables (Dalits) and other oppressed classes. He injected a degree of self-respect to the backward communities and brought them into the national movement. He expounded the importance of a social reform that would abolish caste discrimination and the concept of untouchability in India and joined hands with Gandhi in the Harijan movement, which protested against the social injustices faced by people belonging to backward castes in India.