Colonial India to the Constitution
50 questions · NCERT Class 12 · BPSC prelims pattern
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Questions 34, 43, 44 and 48 carry a note where a figure varies by source, a name is misspelled, or a date needs checking.
Mughal Agrarian Society6 questions
1. Consider the following statements about farmers during the Mughal period:
1. Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period commonly used the word muzarian for the farmer.
2. Seventeenth-century sources discuss two types of farmers, khud-kashta and pahi-kashta.
3. Pahi-kashta were cultivators who came from other villages to do farming on contract.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (D) 1, 2 and 3
All three hold. Khud-kashta were residents of the village who worked their own land, while pahi-kashta came in from elsewhere on contract, usually because terms were better or because distress had pushed them out of their own village.
2. Consider the following statements about the gram panchayat during the Mughal period:
1. Generally, people from different castes were included in the panchayat.
2. There was a village fund for public works.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both are accurate. The panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body drawing on several castes, and it ran a common fund built from contributions, used for public works and for entertaining revenue officials.
3. Who were the “paikas” in Assam?
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Answer: (A) Those who gave military service in exchange for land
Under the Ahom state, paiks rendered military service in lieu of land. They were moved periodically between villages so that no one group monopolised the better holdings.
4. Consider the following statements about revenue tax during the Mughal period:
1. The amount determined for tax was called jama.
2. Amal-guzar used to collect revenue tax.
3. The farmer could pay tax only in cash.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (A) 1 and 2 only
The third statement is too absolute. Jama was the amount assessed and hasil the amount actually collected, and the amil-guzar was the revenue collector. Cash was preferred and pressed for, but payment in kind remained possible.
5. Consider the following statements about agriculture during the Mughal period:
1. Farmers were encouraged to cultivate crops that would reduce hunger.
2. Crops like cotton and sugar were also promoted for tax purposes.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (B) Only 2
The state’s interest was revenue rather than subsistence. Cash crops such as cotton, sugarcane and oilseeds were classed as jins-i-kamil, the perfect crops, precisely because they yielded more tax.
6. Consider the following statements on the position of women in agricultural society:
1. Women were largely involved in agricultural work.
2. Menstruating women were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both hold. Women worked in the fields alongside men, doing sowing, weeding, threshing and winnowing, while at the same time menstrual taboos kept them from the plough in western India and from the potter’s wheel in Bengal.
Zamindars & the Permanent Settlement3 questions
7. In the first few decades after the Permanent Settlement, the zamindars continued to default on their revenue demands. Select the false statement regarding the reasons for this.
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Answer: (C) The assessment of revenue varied according to the yield of the crop, due to which they faced difficulty in paying revenue under the sunset law.
Statement (C) inverts the defining feature of the settlement. The revenue was fixed permanently and was invariable regardless of the harvest, and that rigidity is exactly why a bad year produced default. The sunset law then forfeited the estate if payment missed the deadline.
8. Consider the following efforts made by the Company to control landlords:
1. The military troops of the landlords were disbanded.
2. Customs duty was increased.
3. The power to arrange local justice and local police was taken away.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) 1 and 3 only
The second statement reverses what happened: customs duties were abolished, not increased. Alongside that, the zamindar’s troops were disbanded and his cutcherry was placed under the supervision of a Collector, stripping him of local police and judicial authority.
9. Who were called “jotedars”?
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Answer: (A) The class of rich farmers
Jotedars were a class of rich peasants who consolidated their hold over the Bengal countryside as zamindars weakened. They controlled local trade and moneylending, and their land was cultivated largely through sharecroppers called adhiyars or bargadars.
Santhals, Pahadias & the Rajmahal Hills3 questions
10. Why did British officials invite the Santhals to settle in the Jungle Mahals? Select the false statement.
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Answer: (D) Santhals could do farming while preserving the forest wealth for the British.
Preserving forest was never the point. The Santhals were brought in precisely to clear the forest and break the soil for settled cultivation, which is what made the tract revenue-yielding in a way Pahadia jhum cultivation never was.
11. In which year was a large area at the foothills of the Rajmahal demarcated as Damin-i-Koh?
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Answer: (B) 1832
The tract was demarcated in 1832 and formally declared the land of the Santhals, who were required to settle within it, clear the forest and practise plough agriculture.
12. Why could the Pahadia people not continue their method of farming, known as jhum cultivation, successfully?
1. Settlement of Santhals on the Rajmahal hills affected them.
2. The most fertile lands became scarce for them.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both hold, and the second follows from the first. As Santhal settlement expanded, the Pahadias were pushed deeper into the barren interior of the hills, losing access to the better land their shifting cultivation depended on.
Peasants, Moneylenders & Colonial Surveys5 questions
13. Consider the following statements about the Limitation Law:
1. It was passed by the British in 1859 to protect ryots from exploitation by moneylenders.
2. It stated that the bond signed between the moneylender and the ryots would be valid only for three years.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both are accurate, though the law failed in practice. Moneylenders simply had the ryot sign a fresh bond every three years, rolling the unpaid principal and accumulated interest into a new debt.
14. In which year was the Deccan Riots Report presented in the British Parliament?
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Answer: (C) 1878
The Deccan Riots Commission was set up in 1875 in response to the disturbances in Poona and Ahmednagar, and its report was placed before Parliament in 1878.
15. Consider the following statements about the Fifth Report:
1. It was prepared on the administration and activities of the East India Company in India.
2. It was introduced in the British Parliament in 1813.
3. It was a detailed report against the East India Company.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (D) 1, 2 and 3
All three are treated as holding. The Fifth Report ran to over a thousand pages and was submitted to Parliament in 1813, arising out of the campaign by those opposed to the Company’s monopoly, and its detail on maladministration served that critical purpose.
16. Consider the following statements about the Pahadia and Santhal communities:
1. Pahadia and Santhal were permanent residents of the Rajmahal.
2. The hoe was a symbol of Paharia life and the plough was a symbol of the power of the Santhals.
3. Many times both fought unitedly against the British.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (A) Only 2
Only the second survives. The Santhals were migrants who arrived in the region from the 1780s onward rather than long-standing residents, and the two communities were set against each other by that very settlement, not united against the British.
17. Which of the following statements is false regarding Buchanan’s journey?
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Answer: (C) He was in favour of preserving and exploiting the huge forests full of natural resources.
Buchanan was no preservationist. He travelled as a Company employee, assessed landscapes for their commercial potential, and was critical of forest-dwellers’ ways of life, holding that forests ought to be cleared and turned into agricultural land.
The Revolt of 18579 questions
18. Consider the following statements about the rumours current before the Revolt of 1857:
1. The British considered the matter of greased cartridges to be a rumour.
2. It was widespread among the Indian public that efforts were being made to corrupt their religion.
3. The rumours were strengthened by social reform laws such as the abolition of sati and Hindu widow remarriage.
Select the correct code.
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Answer: (D) 1, 2 and 3
All three hold together. Rumours acquire force when they fit what people already fear, and reform legislation had given substance to the belief that the British intended to interfere with religion and caste.
19. Who led the Kol tribals in Singhbhum, Chhota Nagpur, during the Revolt of 1857?
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Answer: (A) Gonu
Gonoo, a Kol tribal cultivator, led the rising in Singhbhum in Chotanagpur.
20. Consider the following statements about the remark “a cherry that will drop into our mouth one day”:
1. This statement was made by Lord Canning.
2. It was said in the context of the Indian Empire.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (D) Neither 1 nor 2
Both fail. The remark was Lord Dalhousie’s, made in 1851, and it referred specifically to Awadh, which he expected would fall to the British in due course. Awadh was annexed five years later.
21. Select the false statement regarding the Subsidiary Alliance.
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Answer: (D) The allied party would be able to make a treaty with any other ruler but would not take part in any war without British permission.
Statement (D) grants a freedom the alliance expressly removed. An allied ruler could neither enter into agreements with any other ruler nor engage in warfare without British permission, which is what made the system so effective at isolating Indian states from one another.
22. In what context was the statement “The life had gone from the body. The body of the city was lifeless…” made?
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Answer: (C) Merger of Awadh
The words describe Lucknow after the annexation of Awadh and the departure of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah in 1856. The removal of the court dissolved the whole economy of artisans, musicians, cooks and retainers that depended on it.
23. When was the Summary Settlement land revenue system implemented?
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Answer: (C) 1856
The Summary Settlement of 1856 followed the annexation of Awadh and dispossessed the taluqdars of a large share of their villages, which goes a long way to explaining their part in the revolt the following year.
24. Consider the following statements about Shah Mal and Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah:
1. Shah Mal was a resident of a big village in Baraut Pargana of Madhya Pradesh.
2. Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah took part in the famous Battle of Chinhat.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (B) Only 2
The state is wrong in the first statement. Baraut pargana lies in western Uttar Pradesh, in present-day Baghpat district, where Shah Mal mobilised the Jat cultivators of the surrounding villages. Ahmadullah Shah did fight at Chinhat, where the British were defeated.
25. Consider the following statements about the taluqdars of Awadh:
1. After the acquisition of Awadh in 1855, the armies of the taluqdars were disbanded.
2. Taluqdars took active part in the rebellion of 1857.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (B) Only 2
The year is wrong. Awadh was annexed in 1856, not 1855, and it was then that the taluqdars were disarmed and their forts dismantled. Their prominent role in the revolt of 1857 follows directly from that dispossession.
26. Consider the following statements about the rebels after the Revolt of 1857:
1. After demolishing British rule, the rebels wanted to restore the eighteenth-century pre-British rule system in some places.
2. They made arrangements for the collection of land revenue and payment of soldiers’ salaries.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both hold. Where rebel authority was established it looked backwards to the pre-colonial order, and it functioned as a government in practice, issuing orders on revenue collection and paying troops.
Gandhi & the National Movement15 questions
27. Arrange the following events in chronological order:
1. Indigo Movement of Champaran 2. Ahmedabad Mill Movement
3. Kheda Kisan Movement 4. Restrictions on the press during the First World War
1. Indigo Movement of Champaran 2. Ahmedabad Mill Movement
3. Kheda Kisan Movement 4. Restrictions on the press during the First World War
Select the correct code.
Show answer
Answer: (A) 4 < 1 < 2 < 3
Press restrictions came with the war from 1914 onward. Champaran followed in 1917, and the Ahmedabad mill strike and the Kheda satyagraha both fell in 1918, in that order.
28. Which foreign writer wrote a biography of Mahatma Gandhi?
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Answer: (B) Louis Fischer
Louis Fischer, an American journalist, wrote The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, which later became the basis for Richard Attenborough’s film.
29. Who was the judge who sentenced Gandhiji in 1922?
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Answer: (A) Justice C. N. Broomfield
Justice C. N. Broomfield presided over the sedition trial at Ahmedabad and, while passing a six-year sentence, remarked that no judge could ignore that Gandhi was in a different category from any person he had tried.
30. By 1922, Gandhiji had completely transformed Indian nationalism. Consider the following statements:
1. Before Gandhiji’s arrival, the nature of Indian nationalism was middle class.
2. Mahatma Gandhi used to dress like a common man, due to which nationalism became widespread.
3. Gandhiji played an important role in breaking the wall between mental labour and physical labour prevalent in the traditional caste system.
Select the false statement.
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Answer: (D) None of the above
No statement here is false, which is why the answer is (D). Nationalism before Gandhi was largely an elite and professional affair, his dress and his insistence on manual work were deliberate acts of identification with the poor, and his emphasis on spinning and cleaning attacked the caste separation between mental and physical labour.
31. Consider the following statements about the Congress session of 1929:
1. The session was held in Lucknow under the chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru.
2. ‘Purna Swaraj’ was announced in this session.
Select the false statement.
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Answer: (A) Only 1
The city is wrong. The session met at Lahore in December 1929, with Nehru in the chair, and it was there that Purna Swaraj was proclaimed and 26 January 1930 fixed as Independence Day.
32. Consider the following statements about the Dandi March:
1. This march was given wide coverage by the European and American press.
2. This was the first nationalist activity in which women also participated enthusiastically.
Select the false statement.
Show answer
Answer: (D) Neither 1 nor 2
Neither statement is false, so the answer is (D). The march was reported around the world, and women turned out in large numbers, with Gandhi urging them to picket liquor shops and take up spinning.
33. In which year was the Second Round Table Conference held in London?
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Answer: (B) 1931
Gandhi attended the second conference in late 1931 as the sole Congress representative, following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact earlier that year. The talks ended without agreement.
34. Consider the following statements about the provincial elections of 1937:
1. These elections were held on the basis of the declaration of limited representative governance in the Government of India Act, 1935.
2. In elections held on the basis of adult franchise, Congress succeeded in 8 out of 11 provinces.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (A) Only 1
The phrase “adult franchise” is what breaks the second statement. The 1935 Act extended the vote to only about ten to fifteen per cent of the adult population, nowhere near universal suffrage.
Check this one. The number of provinces is also worth watching. NCERT gives Congress success in 8 of 11 provinces, while other accounts count 7 ministries formed initially, adding Assam and the North-West Frontier Province later. Since the franchise wording already makes the statement false, the answer does not change — but the figure itself varies by source.
35. Consider the following statements about the Cripps Mission:
1. In 1942, Churchill sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India to involve India in the war.
2. Congress demanded that the Viceroy should first appoint an Indian as a defence member in his Executive Council.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (B) Only 2
The purpose is stated wrongly in the first. Churchill was persuaded to send Cripps in order to forge a compromise with Gandhi and the Congress, not to draw India into the war as such. The Congress demand over the defence portfolio was one of the points on which the mission broke down.
36. On which day did Jinnah fix “Direct Action Day” for the establishment of Pakistan?
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Answer: (B) 16 August 1946
The Muslim League called Direct Action Day for 16 August 1946. The riots that followed in Calcutta spread to other parts of the subcontinent and hardened the case for partition.
37. Consider the following statements about Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai:
1. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai emerged on the national scene after the Home Rule Movement.
2. They openly opposed the liberals.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (B) Only 2
The sequence is reversed in the first statement. Lal-Bal-Pal came to prominence during the Swadeshi agitation that followed the partition of Bengal in 1905, a decade before the Home Rule leagues of 1916.
38. Consider the following statements about liberal leaders:
1. Liberals advocated the idea of making gradual and continuous efforts.
2. Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a liberal leader.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both hold. The Moderates worked through petition, constitutional reform and slow persuasion, and Jinnah belonged to that camp in his early career, when he was spoken of as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.
39. Consider the following statements about the Cabinet Mission:
1. The Cabinet Mission proposed a federal system in which limited autonomy could be given to different provinces within India.
2. Both Congress and the Muslim League rejected it.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both are treated as holding. The mission of 1946 proposed a loose three-tier arrangement with a weak centre handling foreign affairs, defence and communications, provinces grouped into sections. All the major parties initially accepted it, but the agreement was short-lived and both sides ended up rejecting the plan.
40. Where did Gandhiji’s first important public appearance take place?
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Answer: (B) Inauguration of Banaras Hindu University
At the opening of Banaras Hindu University in February 1916, Gandhi charged the assembled princes and notables with indifference to the labouring poor, and the speech caused enough offence that several guests walked out.
41. Consider the following statements about the Non-Cooperation Movement:
1. The working class went on strike in the cities.
2. Due to the Chauri Chaura conflagration in March 1922, Gandhiji withdrew the movement.
3. Gandhiji was arrested in 1921 on charges of sedition.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) Only 1
Only the first survives, and both the others fail on dates. Chauri Chaura took place in February 1922, not March, and Gandhi’s arrest for sedition came in March 1922, not 1921.
Making the Constitution9 questions
42. Consider the following statements about Jawaharlal Nehru and the Constituent Assembly:
1. On 13 December 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru presented the “Objectives Resolution” before the Constituent Assembly.
2. It was Nehru who proposed the tricolour flag.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both are accurate. The Objectives Resolution laid down the ideals of independence, sovereignty and the protection of minorities, and Nehru moved the resolution on the national flag.
43. Who was the Constitutional Advisor to the Interim Government of India?
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Answer: (A) B. N. Rao
B. N. Rau served as Constitutional Advisor, preparing the groundwork and the initial draft on which the Drafting Committee then worked.
Check this one. The name is normally spelled B. N. Rau, not Rao. He is a distinct figure from the many Raos in constitutional history, and worth fixing before you publish.
44. Who was the chief planner of the Interim Government of India?
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Answer: (B) S. N. Mukherjee
S. N. Mukherjee had the ability to put complex proposals into clear legal language, and it was his drafting that gave the constitutional text much of its precision.
Check this one. The phrase “chief planner” is a loose rendering. His actual designation was Chief Draughtsman of the Constituent Assembly. Worth rewording the stem so the question is unambiguous.
45. Consider the following statements about the lists of subjects in the Constitution:
1. Three lists of subjects were made in the draft Constitution: Central List, State List and Concurrent List.
2. The subject of minerals was kept under the State List.
3. Under Article 356, on the recommendation of the Governor, the Central Government has the right to take over all the powers of the State Government.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) 1 and 3 only
The second statement misplaces the subject. Minerals and key industries were put in the Union List, not the State List, which was itself one of the points on which provincial representatives objected during the debates.
46. Consider the following statements about the tax system in the Constitution:
1. Income from income tax and excise duty was divided between the State and Central Governments.
2. Property tax and sales tax were kept under the State Governments.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (C) Both 1 and 2
Both hold. Income tax and excise duty were made shareable, while customs and corporation tax stayed exclusively with the Centre and property and sales taxes went to the states.
47. Consider the following statements about the powers of the Centre:
1. Ambedkar wanted equal division of powers between the Centre and the provinces.
2. Most nationalists were in favour of a powerful and unified Centre.
Select the true statement.
Show answer
Answer: (B) Only 2
Ambedkar’s stated position was the opposite of the first statement. He declared that he wanted a strong and united Centre, stronger than the one provided for under the Government of India Act of 1935, a view shared by most nationalists against the background of Partition.
48. On which day was the last meeting of the Interim Government held?
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Answer: (A) 16 July 1947
The Interim Government had been formed in September 1946 with Nehru as Vice-President of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, and it wound up in the weeks before the transfer of power on 15 August 1947.
Check this one. This exact date is hard to confirm from the standard NCERT text, which does not give it. If the item came from a coaching compilation rather than a primary source, verify it before publishing — a precise date is the kind of thing readers will write down.
49. Under the Act of which year was the executive made partially responsible to the legislature for the first time?
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Answer: (C) 1919
The Government of India Act of 1919 introduced dyarchy in the provinces, transferring certain subjects to ministers answerable to the legislature while reserved subjects stayed with the Governor. That partial responsibility was the first of its kind.
50. Consider the following statements about the Language Committee of the Constituent Assembly:
1. The committee suggested that Hindi written in the Devanagari script would be the national language of India.
2. English would continue to be used in governance work for the first 15 years.
3. Each province would have the right to choose any one regional language for its official work.
Select the true statement.
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Answer: (B) Only 2 and 3
The trap is the word “national”. The committee’s compromise made Hindi in the Devanagari script the official language, not the national language, and the distinction was deliberate: calling it national would have implied a status over other languages that the Assembly was unwilling to grant.
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1 D · 2 C · 3 A · 4 A · 5 B · 6 C · 7 C · 8 C · 9 A · 10 D · 11 B · 12 C · 13 C · 14 C · 15 D · 16 A · 17 C · 18 D · 19 A · 20 D · 21 D · 22 C · 23 C · 24 B · 25 B · 26 C · 27 A · 28 B · 29 A · 30 D · 31 A · 32 D · 33 B · 34 A · 35 B · 36 B · 37 B · 38 C · 39 C · 40 B · 41 C · 42 C · 43 A · 44 B · 45 C · 46 C · 47 B · 48 A · 49 C · 50 B
Scoring: +1 correct, −1/3 wrong, 0 for option E, −1/3 for a row left blank.