[Mission 2023] STATIC QUIZ, 5 June 2023 – History

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

In a bid to rectify the defects of the Regulating Act of 1773, the British Parliament passed the Amending Act of 1781, also known as the Act of Settlement. The next important act was the Pitt’s India Act of 1784.

Features of the Act:

1. It distinguished between the commercial and political functions of the Company.
2. It allowed the Court of Directors to manage the commercial affairs but created a new body called Board of Control to manage the political affairs. Thus, it established a system of double government.
3. It empowered the Board of Control to supervise and direct all operations of the civil and military government or revenues of the British possessions in India.

Thus, the act was significant for two reasons: first, the Company’s territories in India were for the first time called the ‘British possessions in India’; and second, the British Government was given the supreme control over Company’s affairs and its administration in India.

Solution: b)

Statement 3 is incorrect.

Indigo planting started in Bengal as early as 1777.

When the British Power expanded, the Indigo planting was emphasized because of a high demand of the Blue Dye in Europe. Apart from the reasons mentioned above, others are:

• Indigo farmers received very low returns for their crops.
• The land under Indigo degraded the land for cultivation of any further crop.
• The contract conditions under which Indigo planters kept the cultivators were harsh.
• The loan made the people indebted and resulted in a rebellion.

Solution: d)

The Bakasht lands issue became a major ground of contention between the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha and the Congress Ministry.

The Congress Ministry had initiated legislation for the reduction of rent and the restoration of Bakasht lands.

Bakasht lands were those which the occupancy tenants had lost to zamindars, mostly during the Depression years (1930s), by virtue of nonpayment of rent, and which they often continued to cultivate as share-croppers.

But the formula that was finally incorporated in the legislation on the basis of an agreement with the zamindars did not satisfy the radical leaders of the kisan Sabha.

The legislation gave a certain proportion of the lands back to the tenants on condition that they pay half the auction price of the land. Besides, certain categories of land had been exempted from the operation of the law.

Solution: d)

Clement Attlee, The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced in February 1947 that:

The British Government would grant full self-government to British India by June 1948 at the latest,

The future of the Princely States would be decided after the date of final transfer is decided.

The Act was formulated together by UK Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the Governor-General of India Lord Mountbatten after the representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Sikh community gave their consent to the Act. This act came to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

Solution: b)

Option 3 is incorrect.

Swadesamitran under the editorship of G. Subramaniya Iyer; Kesari and Mahratta under B.G. Tilak; Bengalee under Surendranath Banerjea; Amrita Bazar Patrika under Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh; Sudharak under G.K. Gokhale; Indian Mirror under N.N. Sen; Voice of India under Dadabhai Naoroji.

In fact, there hardly existed a major political leader in India who did not possess a newspaper or was not writing for one in some capacity or the other.