Insights Static Quiz -235, 2019–History

Solution: b)

Cornwallis – Europeanisation of administrative machinery and Introduction of Civil services.

Wellesley – Introduction of Subsidiary Alliance, 1798.

William Bentinck – Educational reforms and introduction of English as the official language.

Dalhousie – Telegraph (4000 miles of telegraph lines to connect Calcutta with Bombay, Madras and Peshawar) and postal (Post Office Act, 1854) reforms.

Solution: c)

The Charter Act of 1813 incorporated the principle of encouraging learned Indians and promoting knowledge of modern sciences in the country.

Macaulay held the view that “Indian learning was inferior to European learning”. The government soon made English as the medium of instruction in its schools and colleges and opened a few English schools and colleges instead of a large number of elementary schools, thus neglecting mass education.

In 1854, Charles Wood prepared a despatch on an educational system for India. Considered the “Magna Carta of English Education in India”, this document was the first comprehensive plan for the spread of education in India.

Solution: c)

The fourteen points were as follows.

1. Federal Constitution with residual powers to provinces.
2. Provincial autonomy.
3. No constitutional amendment by the centre without the concurrence of the states constituting the Indian federation.
4. All legislatures and elected bodies to have adequate representation of Muslims in every province without reducing a majority of Muslims in a province to a minority or equality.
5. Adequate representation to Muslims in the services and in self-governing bodies.
6. One-third Muslim representation in the central legislature.
7. In any cabinet at the centre or in the provinces, onethird to be Muslims.
8. Separate electorates.
9. No bill or resolution in any legislature to be passed if three-fourths of a minority community consider such a bill or resolution to be against their interests.
10. Any territorial redistribution not to affect the Muslim majority in Punjab, Bengal and NWFP.
11. Separation of Sindh from Bombay.
12. Constitutional reforms in the NWFP and Baluchistan.
13. Full religious freedom to all communities.
14. Protection of Muslim rights in religion, culture, education and language.

Solution: a)

In the 1830s, William Adam, a Scottish missionary, toured the districts of Bengal and Bihar. He had been asked by the Company to report on the progress of education in vernacular schools. Adam found that there were over 1 lakh pathshalas in Bengal and Bihar.

These were small institutions with no more than 20 students each. But the total number of children being taught in these pathshalas was considerable– over 20 lakh. These institutions were set up by wealthy people, or the local community. At times they were started by a teacher (guru). (Hence statement 1 is correct).

The system of education was flexible. Few things that you associate with schools today were present in the pathshalas at the time. There were no fixed fee, no printed books, no separate school building, no benches or chairs, no blackboards, no system of separate classes, no rollcall registers, no annual examinations, and no regular time-table.

After 1854 the Company decided to improve the system of vernacular education. It felt that this could be done by introducing order within the system, imposing routines, establishing rules, ensuring regular inspections.

It appointed a number of government pandits, each in charge of looking after four to five schools. The task of the pandit was to visit the pathshalas and try and improve the standard of teaching.

Each guru was asked to submit periodic reports and take classes according to a regular timetable. Teaching was now to be based on textbooks and learning was to be tested through a system of annual examination.

Wood’s Despatch regularized the Pathshalas.

Solution: a)

The following major decisions were taken at the Lahore session.

• The Round Table Conference was to be boycotted.
• Complete independence was declared as the aim of the Congress.
• Congress Working Committee was authorised to launch a programme of civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes and all members of legislatures were asked to resign their seats.
• January 26, 1930 was fixed as the first Independence (Swarajya) Day, to be celebrated everywhere.

The Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by a Moderate, Ambika Charan Majumdar, readmitted the Extremists led by Tilak to the Congress fold. (Statement 2).

Jinnah’s Two Nations Theory came up in March 1940, whereas the Lahore Session of the Indian National Congress was held in 1929.