Indian History

Riyaz-us-Salatin is a historical work by Ghulam Husain Salim. Written in Persian, it traces the history of Bengal from Turkish general Bakhtyar Khalji’s invasion of the province in 1204-05 AD to 1788, the date in which the work was completed.

1. First session of the Indian National Congress (INC) was conducted in Bombay from 28 to 31 December 1885. The second session of INC was presided by   a) Badruddin Tyabji b) Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee c) Dadabhai Naoroji d) William Wedderburn 2. Who among the following had popularized the festivals associated with Ganesh and Shivaji during the national movement? a) Vinayak Damodar Savarkar b) Lala Lajpat Rai  c) Jyotirao Govindrao Phule d) Bal Gangadhar Tilak 3. Who had launched the Bardoli satyagraha in February 1928? a) Sardar Vallabhai Patel  b) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi c) Vinoba Bhave d) None of the above 4. Who among the following was a leader of the Indian militant peasant movement Eka (unity) Movement? a) Madari Pasi b) Alluri Sitarama Raju c) Laxman Nayak d) Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy 5. Who was the most prominent leader of Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar? a) Ganesh Ghosh b) Satish Chandra Samanta c) Dinesh Chandra Gupta  d) Bagha Jatin 6. Who was the Nawab of Bengal when the Battle

Muiz-ud-din Bahram, Iltutmish’s third son, was raised to the throne of Delhi Sultanate in 1240 by the aristocratic Turkish nobles who put the then reigning ruler Raziya Sultana into prison in the Bhatinda fort, north-western India. Razia tried to retrieve the situation by marrying her captor Altuniya, the governor of Bhatinda. However, both were defeated by the Delhi forces.    Muizuddin Bahram was a savage and bloodthirsty ruler. He was, according to medieval historian  Minhaj-us-Siraj, ‘a fearless, intrepid and sanguinary man’.  During his reign in 1241 the Mongols reached the gates of Lahore and sacked the city.  As part of the agreement under which Muizuddin Bahram was raised to the throne by the nobles, he designated Aitigin as Naib-i-Mamlikat, regent of the kingdom and assigned the highest executive power of the state to him. Naib-i-Mamlikat was intended to be the de facto ruler., the Sultan merely a figurehead.   However, if the nobles expected Muizuddin Bahram to be a puppet in

                                                      Image Credit : Wikimedia Commons Located in the Malakpur Kohli village near Vasant Kunj in Delhi, Sultan Ghari (Sultan of the Cave) is the tomb of Prince Nasiruddin Mahmud, eldest son of Slave Sultan Iltutmish and brother of Razia Sultan. During the reign of Iltutmish, Nasiruddin Mahmud was in charge of Awadh and Bengal where Hasmuddin Iwaz Khilji was trying to establish an independent Sultanate.  Though Nasiruddin Mahmud suppressed the rebellion of Hasmuddin Iwaz Khilji and killed him, he himself died in 1229. Iltutmish founded the Nasiriyya college of Delhi in memory of his son. The celebrated contemporary historian Minhaj-us-Siraj was appointed to the principalship of the college.  Iltutmish also built a mausoleum for  Nasiruddin Mahmud . Built in 1231-32, the cenotaph is in an underground chamber. Hence the name Sultan Ghari (Sultan of the Cave). The roof of  the mausoleum   is an octagonal platform. The materials were taken

About 29km west of Lumbini  (the birthplace of Lord Buddha) and 30km from the border with India, Tilaurakot in the Terai region of Nepal is the site of the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu where the Buddha spent the first 29 years of his life before setting out on the path of enlightenment. The Buddha, known as Siddharth Gautam before he got enlightenment, was the son of Shakya king Suddhodana.  One school of archaeologists has identified Kapilavastu with modern day Piprahwa, a village in the Siddharthnagar district of India’s Uttar Pradesh.  Distance between Piprahwa and Tilaurakot is just 30 km. The Buddha had paid a visit to Kapilavastu in the first year after his attainment of enlightenment and converted his father, wife Yashodhra and son Rahula. He continued to visit the place in his later years. Once he came to his native city to convert a war between the Shakyas and the Koliyas over the question of their sharing water of the Rohini.  The excavations at Tilaurakot have unearthed rem