QUIZ – 2020: INSIGHTS STATIC QUIZ, 31 March 2020 – History

Solution: d)

In 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despatch to the Governor-General in India. Issued by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the Company, it has come to be known as Wood’s Despatch. Outlining the educational policy that was to be followed in India, it emphasised once again the practical benefits of a system of European learning, as opposed to Oriental knowledge.

One of the practical uses the Despatch pointed to was economic. European learning, it said, would enable Indians to recognise the advantages that flow from the expansion of trade and commerce, and make them see the importance of developing the resources of the country.

Wood’s Despatch also argued that European learning would improve the moral character of Indians. It would make them truthful and honest, and thus supply the Company with civil servants who could be trusted and depended upon.

The literature of the East was not only full of grave errors, it could also not instil in people a sense of duty and a commitment to work, nor could it develop the skills required for administration.

Solution: c)

The most-important Satnami group was founded in 1820 in the Chattisgarh region of middle India by Ghasidas, a farm servant and member of the Chamar caste (a Dalit caste whose hereditary occupation was leather tanning, a task regarded by Hindus as polluting). His Satnam Panth (“Path of the True Name”) succeeded in providing a religious and social identity for large numbers of Chattisgarhi Chamars (who formed one-sixth of the total population of the region), in defiance of their derogatory treatment by upper-caste Hindus and their exclusion from Hindu temple worship.

Solution: a)

Features of the Act of 1892

• It increased the number of additional (non-official) members in the Central and provincial legislative councils, but maintained the official majority in them.
• It increased the functions of legislative councils and gave them the power of discussing the budget and addressing questions to the executive.

Solution: c)

The Home Rule Movement was the Indian response to the First World War.

Anglo-Indians, most of the Muslims and non-brahmins from the South did not join as they felt Home Rule would mean rule of the Hindu majority, and that too mainly by the high caste.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 proved to be an added advantage for the Home Rule campaign.

Solution: a)

Sir John Shore followed a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the native states and adopted a policy of strict neutrality.