Indian History — Part 1 MCQs with Explanations

Initially, the capital was Rajagriha. Later, it was shifted to Pataliputra, near the present-day Patna in India. The founder of this dynasty was Bimbisara himself. According to the Buddhist text, the Mahavamsa, Bimbisara was anointed king by his father at the age of fifteen.

The Kakori Conspiracy (or Kakori train robbery or Kakori Case) was a train robbery that took place between Kakori and, near Lucknow, on 9 August 1925 during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Indian Government. The robbery was organised by Hindustan Republican Association (HRA).

Hindu Land Holders. The Malabar rebellion (also known as the Moplah rebellion and Māppila Lahaḷa in Malayalam) was an armed uprising in 1921 against British authority in the Malabar region of Southern India by Mappilas and the culmination of a series of Mappila revolts that recurred throughout the 19th century and early 20th century.

The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 , popularly known as the Rowlatt Act or Black Act, was a legislative act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 10 March 1919, indefinitely extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War.

The Kheda Satyagraha of 1918, in the Kheda district of Gujarat, India during the period of the British Raj, was a Satyagraha movement organized by Mohandas Gandhi. It was a major revolt in the Indian independence movement. It was the third Satyagraha movement after Champaran Satyagraha and Ahmedabad mill strike. Gandhi organised this movement to support peasants of the Kheda district. People of Kheda were unable to pay the high taxes levied by the British due to crop failure and a plague epidemic.

The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government.

Two Brothers- Damodar and Balkrishna Chapekar began the process of revolutionary activities in India. They formed the ‘Hindu Dharma Sangrakshini Sabha’ in 1893 and started celebrating the birthday of Shivaji and Ganesh Utsavs.

Vande Matram was a series of articles published in the year 1907 by Sri Auronbindo Ghosh.

Swami Vivekananda represented India and Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions (1893). This was the first World's Parliament of Religions and it was held from 11 to 27 September 1893.

Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Sambhu Charan Mukherjee were associated with Indian league established in 1875 in Calcutta.

Rabindranath Tagore called Subhash Chandra Bose as Desh Nayak.

The Reform Association faction on July 26, 1876 established a Bharat Sabha with Bengali leaders like Surendranath Banerjee, Sivanath Sastri, Ananda Mohan Bose etc. and held its first annual conference in Calcutta. Initially under Sen it was pro-Crown.

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru called Government India Act 1935 a Charter of Slavery.

On 8 August 1942 at the All-India Congress Committee session in Bombay, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched the 'Quit India' movement. The next day, Gandhi, Nehru and many other leaders of the Indian National Congress were arrested by the British Government.

Wavell Plan- essentially dealing with Indian demand of self-rule and reconstitution of Viceroy's Council was put forth by Lord Wavell in 1945.

The first Satyagrahi selected was Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who was sent to Jail when he spoke against the war. Second Satyagrahi was Jawahar Lal Nehru. Third was Brahma Datt, one of the inmates of the Gandhi’s Ashram.

When Japan handed over Andaman Nicobar islands to Subhash Chandra Bose in Nov. 1943, he named these islands as Shaheed Island and Swaraj Island respectively.

Subhash Chandra Bose became the Supreme Commander of Indian National Army in 1943. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was born on 23rd January in 1897. He was an Indian nationalist who form the Indian National Army to fight against British Government.

On June 3, 1947, immediately after his return to India, Lord mountbatten announced his plan for solving the ‘present impasse’. Before the plan was publicized, Lord Mountbattan had obtained the consent of the Congress and Sikh leaders and also of Mr. M.A. Jinnah.

Lord Linlithgow took his office on 18 April 1936 and leave on October 1, 1943. Cripps Mission visited India and Quit India resolution was passed in his tenure.

Dhaka Anushilan Samiti was a branch of the Anushilan Samiti founded in the city of Dhaka in November 1905. Initially a group of eighty under the leadership of Pulin Behari Das, it "spread like wildfire" throughout the province of East Bengal. More than 500 branches were opened, linked by a "close and detailed organization" to Palin's headquarters at Dhaka. It absorbed smaller groups in the province and soon overshadowed its parent organization in Calcutta. Source : wikipedia.org

In 1925, Naidu presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress at Cawnpore (now Kanpur). In 1929, she presided over East African Indian Congress in South Africa. She was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal by the British government for her work during the plague epidemic in India.

In the year 1918 father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi along with Anasuya Sarabhai and Shankerlal Banker founded the Ahmadabad textile labour association.

On 11 March 1942, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the British Cabinet, would be sent to India from 22 March to 11 April to work out a formula for India’s participation in the war and partial transfer of power acceptable to all three, the Hindu and Muslim parties in India as well as the British forces. His negotiating mandate was the “Draft Declaration”, a document on which the War Cabinet had agreed after along discussion laying out a middle ground acceptable to the British, including self-government after the war.

August Offer of 1940. Roy, a pioneer of the Communist movement in India and an advocate of radical democracy. It became an official demand of the Indian National Congress in 1935, C. Rajagopalachari voiced the demand for a Constituent Assembly on 15 November 1939 based on adult franchise, and was accepted by the British in August 1940.

Indian Councils Act 1861. An Act to make better Provision for the Constitution of the Council of the Governor General of India, and for the Local Government of the several Presidencies and Provinces of India, and for the temporary Government of India in the event of a Vacancy in the Office of Governor General.

Annie Besant started the Home Rule League in September, 1916, and Tilak started it in April 1916. Tilak’s movement was confined to Maharashtra and Karnataka. And Annie Besant movement spread to other parts of India.

The Poona Pact refers to an agreement between B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi on the reservation of electoral seats for the depressed classes in the legislature of British India government. It was made on 24 September 1932 at Yerwada Central Jail in Poona, India and was signed by Mahatma Gandhi, B.R Ambedkar and some other leaders as a means to end the fast that Gandhi was undertaking in jail as a protest against the decision by British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald to give separate electorates to depressed classes for the election of members of provincial legislative assemblies in British India. They finally agreed upon 148 electoral seats.

The Government of India act 1919 was passed on the basis of recommendations of Lord Chelmsford and Samuel Montagu to introduce self-governing institutions gradually to India. This act covered 10 years from 1919 to 1929.

On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India.

The Karachi session was presided by Sardar Patel. The congress adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy which represented the Party's Social, Economic and Political programme. It was later known as Karachi Resolution.

The congress nationalist party was formed to act as a powerful pressure group within the congress by Madan Mohan Malviya and M.S. Aney.

Rani Gaidinliu (26 January 1915 – 17 February 1993) was a Rongmei Naga spiritual and political leader who led a revolt against British rule in India. The movement later turned into a political movement seeking to drive out the British from Manipur and the surrounding Naga areas.

The interim government of India was formed on September 2, 1946 from the newly elected Constituent Assembly.

Rash Behari Bose was an Indian revolutionary noted for his planning of the Delhi-Lahore conspiracy of 1912 to assassinate the then Viceroy Lord Hardinge, and his involvement in the Ghadr Conspiracy of 1915.

Lucknow Pact, (December 1916), agreement made by the Indian National Congress headed by Maratha leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak and the All-India Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah; it was adopted by the Congress at its Lucknow session on December 29 and by the league on Dec. 31, 1916.

It was on this day in 1940 that the Muslim League, in its annual session held at Lahore, put forward the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India. Several Muslim League leaders spoke on the resolution before it was approved on March 24.

The Indian War of Independence is an Indian nationalist history of the 1857 revolt by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar that was first published in 1909.

Under the Government of India act 1935 it was decided to establish a federation consisting of Governor’s provinces and princely states.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah commented it as “thoroughly rotten, fundamentally bad and totally unacceptable“. Jinnah’s point of view was based upon the feeling that it would substantially increase Hindu majority at the center.