Question Discussion & Solution

The correct answer is Jai Prakash Narayan.

Key Points

• Jai Prakash Narayan:
  • Jayaprakash Narayan, generally referred to as JP or Lok Nayak, was an Indian independence activist, revolutionist, theorist, socialist and political leader.
  • He is better known as the "Hero of Quit India Movement" and he is memorized for leading the mid-1970s opposition against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, for whose overthrow he had called for a "total revolution".
  • His biography, Jayaprakash, was authored by his nationalist friend and the writer of Hindi literature, Rambriksh Benipuri.
  • In 1999, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in the esteem of his social work.
  • Other awards awarded to him were the Magsaysay award for Public Service in 1965.

Additional Information

• Rajendra Prasad:
  • He was the 1st President of Independent India.
  • He joined the organisation in 1911 and a few years later, he met Mahatma Gandhi.
  • He participated in the non-cooperation movement in 1920.
  • He took an active part in the rehabilitation work after the 1914 floods and the 1934 earthquake in Bihar.
  • Dr Prasad became the Congress president in 1934 at its Bombay session.
  • He was chosen president once again in 1939.
  • He spent almost 3 years in jail after the Quit India Movement.
• Braj Kishore:
  • Brajkishore Prasad was a lawyer inspired by Mohandas Gandhi during the Indian Independence Movement.
  • He was instrumental in Gandhi taking up the Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha, in which Gandhi handpicked Rajendra Prasad and Anugrah Narayan Sinha along with him to successfully lead the movement.
  • Gandhi was so impressed by Prasad's dedication that he set aside a full chapter on him in his autobiographical book, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, called "The Gentle Bihari".
• Sri Krishna Sinha:
  • He was the 1st Chief Minister of Bihar.
  • He was known as “Babu Kesari” for his lionlike roars when he rose to address the masses.
  • His close friend and prominent Gandhian, Dr Anugrah Narayan Singh wrote an essay for him titled “Mere Shri Babu”.
  • He wrote –  “ Since 1921, the history of Bihar has been the history of life”.

The correct answer is Non-Cooperation Movement.

Key Points

• Swaraj Party was formed following the failure of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• Non-Cooperation Movement:
  • The movement of Non-cooperation was launched on 4 September 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi with the aim of self-governance and obtaining full independence (Purna Swaraj) as the Indian National Congress (INC) withdrew its support for British reforms following the Rowlatt Act of 21 March 1919, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919.
  • The Rowlatt Act of March 1919, which suspended the rights of political prisoners in sedition trials, was seen as a "political awakening" by Indians and as a "threat" by the British.
  • Although it was never invoked and declared void just a few years later, the act motivated Gandhi to conceive the idea of satyagraha (truth), which he saw as synonymous with independence.
• Swaraj Party:
  • Swaraj Party, an Indian political party established in late 1922–early 1923 by members of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party), notably Motilal Nehru, one of the most prominent lawyers in northern India (and the father of political leader Jawaharlal Nehru), and Chitta Ranjan Das, a nationalist politician from Bengal.
  • The party’s name is taken from the term swaraj, meaning “self-rule,” which was broadly applied to the movement to gain independence from British rule.
  • The party’s primary goal was to contest the elections to the new Central Legislative Assembly in 1923 and, once in office, to disrupt official policy and derail the Raj (British government in India) by antigovernment agitation within the council chambers.
  • Though the noncooperation approach of Mohandas K. Gandhi had remained the primary strategy of the Congress, in reality, those Congress leaders who were less-orthodox Hindu or who were more secular-minded in outlook chose the alternative tactic of partially cooperating with political reforms being instituted by the British after World War I.

Additional Information

• Civil Disobedience Movement:
  • Mohandas Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement of 1930-1931—launched by the Salt March—is a critical case for understanding civil resistance.
  • Although by itself it failed to bring Indian independence, it seriously undermined British authority and united India’s population in a movement for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC).
  • It further signalled a new stage in the struggle for Indian swaraj (self-rule) and facilitated the downfall of the British Empire in India.
  • Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha drew upon a traditional South Asian cultural practice – the “Padyatra” (a long spiritual march) that became a model of strategic action for many social movements in the decades to come.
• Rowlatt Bill Satyagraha:
  • Rowlatt Acts, (February 1919), legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. 
  • The acts allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted the internment of suspects without trial.
  • Their object was to replace the repressive provisions of the wartime Defence of India Act (1915) with a permanent law.
  • They were based on the report of Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt’s committee of 1918.
  • The Rowlatt Acts were much resented by an aroused Indian public.
  • All nonofficial Indian members of the council (i.e., those who were not officials in the colonial government) voted against the acts.
  • Mahatma Gandhi organized a protest movement that led directly to the Massacre of Amritsar (April 1919) and subsequently to his noncooperation movement (1920–22).
• Champaran Satyagraha:
  • The Champaran Satyagraha was the combination of elements of extra-constitutional struggle as well as the employment of moral force against an adversary, an exemplar of the rule of law; and the use of compromise as a gambit.
  • It is marked as India’s First Civil Disobedience Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi to protest against the injustice meted out to tenant farmers in the Champaran district of Bihar.
  • Champaran district was part of a permanent settlement area that consisted of the large zamindari estates under rich and influential landlords.
  • Most of the villages were leased out by the zamindars to thikadars of whom the most influential were European Indigo Planters.
  • Though the planters were temporary tenure holders, they not only extracted rent from the peasants but also exercised civil and criminal jurisdiction.

Agriculture in the Indus valley was solely dependent on good quality soil and advancements in farming techniques.

Key Points

Mehrgarh is considered to be one of the most important Neolithic sites in archaeology.

• Mehrgarh is of the Neolithic Site, lies on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan.
• It is located near Balon Pass in Pakistan, which is a fertile plain.
• The site is located on the principal route between what is now Afghanistan and the Indus Valley.
• It is discovered in 1974 by an archaeological team.
• Evidence of farming and herding is found in Mehrgarh.
• Mehrgarh was a small farming and pastoralist village between 7000-5500 BC, with mud-brick houses and granaries. 
• Mehrgarh is probably the earliest known center of agriculture and herding in South Asia. 
• They cultivated six-row barley, einkorn and emmer wheat, jujubes, and dates.​

Hence, the correct answer is (4) Both A and B are true.

The correct answer is Jaunpur.

• The Jaunpur sultanate was ruled by the Sharqi dynasty.
• Malik-ul-Sharq was the founder of the Sharqi Dynasty.
• Malik-ul-Sharq made Jaunpur his capital and established his reign from Etawah to Bengal and Vindhyachal to Nepal.
• The founder of the Sharqi Dynasty, Malik-ul-Sharq, died in 1398 A.D.

King Ashoka was the only king in the history of the world who gave up conquest after winning the Kalinga war.

• The Kalinga war was fought between Maury Empire and the state of Kalinga which located on the east coast.
• King Ashoka gave up conquest after winning the Kalinga war because he realized the violence, he had done to become a world champion and from that very moment, he decided to walk on a path of non-violence.
• King Ashoka was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, who ruled from c. 268 to 232 BCE.
• The founder of Maurya Dynasty was the Chandragupta Maurya.