The emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign country in 1971 is an important event in the world history. At the time of Indian independence in 1947 Bangladesh was a part of newly created nation of Pakistan. Since then, (it is still the case) Pakistan had been carrying their hate India campaign since its creation. It was nor ready (is still not ready) to understand that the future of India and Pakistan depends on peace and cooperation between these two countries.
Before its independence in 1971 Bangladesh was described as Eastern Pakistan. Due to the high handedness of the West Pakistan (present Pakistan) over the people of Eastern Pakistan, the situation came to such a pass that the people of the eastern Pakistan were in no mood to submit to the reckless dictates of the Western Pakistani authorities.
The first elections in Pakistan were held in 1970. The Awami League of eastern Pakistan, under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, got an absolute majority winning 160 out of 162 seats For East Pakistan in the National Assembly. However, the army Commander-in Chief, General Yahya Khan, who was ruling the country, refused to set up a representative government. As a result a civil disobedience movement led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was launched in eastern Pakistan. General Yahya Khan unleashed a reign of terror resulting in the killing of thousands of people. Many fled to India to escape the genocide. People of Eastern Pakistan took to guerilla warfare and liberation of Bangladesh became the battle cry .
On 28th March, 1971, the liberation army chief major Ziaudding Khan, announced the formation of Bangladesh Government. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was named the president. As the massacre of the people was carried by the western Pakistani armies, India could not afford to remain a silent spectator.
The make the matter worse, Pakistan declared war on India on 4th December. Pakistan was summarily defeated and India officially recognized Bangladesh as an independent country on 6th December. The combined forces of India and Bangladesh inflicted crushing defeat on the Pakistan armies. On 16th December Pakistani troops surrendered to Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the chief Commander of the Joint military command of India and Bangladesh.
Described by Mahatma Gandhi as the Jhansi Rani of South India, Anjalai Amma was a freedom fighter who fought for the independence of India from the British. She was born in Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu in 1890.
She became a part of the Non-Cooperation Movement started by Gandhi in 1921. She was 31 and spent many years in prison for her participation in the freedom struggle .
Anjalai Amma took part in the Neil Statue Satyagraha, Salt Satyagraha, and Quit India Movement.
In 1931 Anjalai Ammal was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment for participating in Salt Satyagraha and was imprisoned in Vellore prison even when she was pregnant. She was released on bail for delivery for only two weeks.
Leelavathy was her daughter who was named by Gandhi himself.
Anjalai Ammal was elected from Cuddalore constituency as a member of Chennai Provincial Legislative Assembly in 1937, 1946 and 1952.
Anjalai Amma died in 1961.
India has been striving for long to get a UNESCO tag for this cultural site located in the Birbhum district of West Bengal.
It was at Santiniketan where poet Rabindranath Tagore built Visva-Bharati over a century ago.
About Visva-Bharati University
Visva-Bharati is an university located in Shantiniketan in West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva-Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India.
Until independence it was a college. Soon after independence, the institution was given the status of a central university in 1951 by an act of the Parliament.
When founded in 1921, it was named after Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore until Visva-Bharati Society was registered as an organization in May 1922.
Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel literature prize, was proponent of open-air education and introduced that system at the university, which is still continuing.
Born in Vadodara in 1853, Behramji Malabari had participated in the first session of the Indian National Congress held in Mumbai in 1885.
In 1908 he founded a social service organization Seva Sadan Society for the education and empowerment of women. The branches of Seva Sadan Society, which he founded with another social reformer Dayaram Gidumal, were also set up in Ahmedabad and Surat.
In 1875, he published a collection of Gujarati poems, Nitivinod (Pleasure of Morality) in which he ruminates on the ill effects of child marriage and the widowhood forced on women due to the practice of child marriage. Fluent both in Gujarati and English, in 1877 he wrote English poetry ‘Indian Muse in English Garb’ which enlisted recognition from famous English poet Alfred Tennyson.
The widespread agitation by Behramji Malabari during the period 1884–1891 forced the British colonial government to pass the Age of Consent Act in 1891.
In 1893, Behramji Malabari published travel memoir The Indian Eye on English Life or Rambles of a Pilgrim Reformer which describes his three voyages to England and gives an account of the British way of life.
Behramji had translated the speeches of the German orientalist Max Müller.
Behramji Malabari died in 1912 in Simla.
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Q. 1. Who planted the 'Tree of Liberty' at Srirangapatnam?
(a) Tipu Sultan
(b) Hyder Ali
(c) Chikka Krishnaraja
(d) Devraj
Q. 2. Which battle put an end to the French challenge to British supremacy in India?
(a) The Battle of Plassey
(b) The Battle of Buxar
(c) The Battle of Wandiwash
(d) The Battle of Seringapatam
Q. 3. Who among the following had introduced the revenue collection method Ryotwari System in India?
(a) Thomas Munro
(b) Lord Cornwallis
(c) Holt Mackenzie
(d) None of these
Q. 4. Where did Moplah Uprising break out in 1921?
(a) Andhra Pradesh
(b) Kerala
(c) Karnataka
(d) Tamil Nadu
Q. 5. Who among the following was/were associated with the organization “Servants of India Society”?
(a) Gopal Krishna Gokhle
(b) Amritlal Vithaldas Thakkar
(c) Both a and b
(d) None of these
Q. 6. Who has authored the book 'The Light of Asia' ?
(a) Charles Wilkins
(b) Sir Edwin Arnold
(c) Edwin Lester Arnold
(d) None of these
Q. 7. Who among the following leaders attended the inaugural meeting of Indian National Congress?
(a) Dadabhai Naoroji
(b) Kashinath Trimbak Telang
(c) Pherozeshah Mehta
(d) All of the above
Q. 8. Who had taken potshots at Indian National Congress as representing only microscopic minority of the people?
(a) Lord Dufferin
(b) Lord Elgin
(c) Lord Curzon
(d) Lord Hardinge
Q. 9. “(The Indian National) Congress is tottering to its fall, and one of my greatest ambitions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful demise.” To whom is this statement attributed?
(a) Lord Dufferin
(b) Lord Elgin
(c) Lord Curzon
(d) Lord Hardinge
Q. 10. Who had called Indian National Congress a 'begging institute'?
(a) Aurobindo Ghosh
(b) Bipin Chandra Pal
(c) Chittaranjan Das
(d) Madan Mohan Malviya
Answers
Q. 1 – (a)
Tipu Sultan had planted the 'Tree of Liberty' at Srirangapatnam.
Q. 2 – (c)
The Battle of Wandiwash was a battle in India between the French and the British in 1760.
Q. 3 – (a)
The Ryotwari system was introduced in 1820 by Thomas Munro when he was governor of Madras. It was introduced in Madras (Chennai), Bombay, parts of Assam and Coorg provinces of British India.
Q. 4 – (b)
Mappila or Moplah Rebellion took place in the southern taluks of Malabar in Kerala in 1921. It as an armed uprising against British authority and Hindu landlords, called janmis , in Malabar, Kerala in 1921. The leader of the Moplah Rebellion was Variamkunnath Ahmad Haji. Moplah rioters were severely dealt with by the British authorities.
Variamkunnath Ahmad Haji was shot dead on January 20, 1922.
Q. 5- (a)
Gopal Krishna Gokhle had founded Servants of India Society in 1905. Amritlal Vithaldas Thakkar
was a devout member of the Servants of India Society
Q. 6- (b)
Sir Edwin Arnold is the author of the book 'The Light of Asia' .
Q. 7- (d)
During the viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin the Indian National Congress (INC) was founded by A. O. Hume and S. N. Banerjee in 1885.
Q. 8- (a)
Lord Dufferin was the Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 1884 to 1888.
Q. 9- (c)
In 1900 in a letter to the British Secretary of State, Lord Curzon wrote, “(The Indian National) Congress is tottering to its fall, and one of my greatest ambitions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful demise.” Curzon was the youngest Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905.
Q. 10- (a)
Aurobindo Ghosh was defended in the Alipur Bomb Conspiracy case by Cittaranjan Das who had founded the Swaraj Party.
Starting as a religious (communal) movement, Faraizi Movement in course of time became a struggle against the landlords (who were mostly Hindus) who oppressed the common people and farmers and British colonists. Founded by Haji Shariatullah, the movement began with a call to the Muslims to perform their obligatory duties (Fard) enjoined by Allah with a view to purging the religion of the un-Islamic rites which he considered were contrary to the teachings of the Qu’ran.
Haji Shariatullah was born in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh) in 1781.
After Haji Shariatullah’s death in 1840, the mantle of leadership was passed on to his son Muhsinuddin Ahmed, more popularly known as Dudu Miyan. Under Dudu Miyan, the movement became agrarian in character. After his death in 1862, the movement began to lose steam and ultimately died down.
Pagal Panthi was a socio-religious sect whose members were mainly drawn from the Garo and Hajong tribes living in the Mymensingh and Sherpur districts of Bangladesh. The sect started as a resistance against local zamindars and with the passage of time established itself as bulwark against the British colonial rule.
Pagal Panthi was founded by Karim Shah, a darvesh or mendicant. After his death in 1813 the reins of the movement passed on to his son Tipu Shah or Tipu Pagal who in 1825 led a band of armed followers in plundering the houses of the zamindars of Sherpur. He organized peasant rebellions.
After Tipu Shah's death in 1852, though the movement lingered on, it began to lose momentum and was finally put down by the British.
Founded in 1867 by Atmaram Pandurang, a physician and social reformer, Prarthana Samaj (Prayer Society) is a socio religious reform movement that took inspiration from the Brahmo Samaj movement spearheaded by Keshab Chandra Sen in West Bengal. Other important leaders of Prarthana Samaj were famous Indologist and Sanskritist R G Bhandarkar and Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842-1901) who also comes lauded as the prophet of cultural renaissance in western India. N. G. Chandavarkar was another leader of Prarthana Samaj.
Theistic worship and social reform were the two main planks on which the Prarthana Samaj movement was built. The movement fostered a firm belief in the existence of one god. The society opposed the prevailing caste system, untouchability, dowry system, polygamy and advocated widow remarriage, female education, intermarriage among different castes, and abolition of child marriage.
Prarthana Samaj used to publish a magazine called Subodh Patrika.
1.Who among the following was elected permanent president of Muslim League in 1908?
(a) Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(b) Nawab Moshin-ul-Mulk
(c) Nawab Salimullah
(d) Aga Khan
2.Who among the following had accompanied Gandhi to the Second Round Table Conference in 1931?
(a) Jawaharlal Nehru
(b) Sarojini Naidu
(c) Madan Mohan Malviya
(d) Sarojini Naidu and Madan Mohan Malviya
3.Who among the following was responsible for killing Curzon Wyllie in London?
(a) V. D. Savarkar
(b) Bhagat Singh
(c) Shyamaji Krishnavarma
(d) Madan Lal Dhingra
4.Who among the following as not associated with Swaraj Party?
(a) Motilal Nehru
(b) Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
(c) Chittaranjan Das
(d) N C Kelkar
5.Who among the following had founded the Asiatic Society?
(a) David Hare
(b) William Jones
(c) William Carey
(d) Ram Mohan Roy
6.Who was the founder of Naujawan Bharat Sabha?
(a) Bhagat Singh
(b) Jayaprakash Narayan
(c) Gopal Krishna Gokhale
(d) Rukmani Lakshmipth.
7.Which among of the following was popularly known as Black Act?
(a) Rowlatt Act
(b) Ilbert Bill
(c) Indian Councils Act 1909
(d) None
8.On August 8, 1942, Mahatma Gandhi delivered his famous "do or die" speech at Gawalia Tank Maidan. Gawalia Tank Maidan is situated in which city?
(a) Bombay
(b) Amritsar
(c) Surat
(d) Delhi
9.During the course of which movement is Mahatma Gandhi said to have exclaimed: "On bended knees I asked for bread and I have received stone instead."
(a) Khilafat movement
(b) Non cooperation movement
(c) Dandi March
(d) Quit India Movement
10.Who among the following had convinced Gandhi to take meat in order to be muscular and strong?
(a) Sheikh Mahtab
(b) Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(c) Karsandas
(d) Laxmidas
1-d:
2-d:
3-d:
4-b: The Swaraj Party or the Congress-Khilafat Swarajya Party was formed on 1 January 1923 by C R Das and Motilal Nehru.
5-b:
6-a:Naujawan Bharat Sabha was founded by Bhagat Singh in 1926
7-a:
8-a:
9-c:
10-a:
Bipin Chandra Pal joined Indian National Congress in 1886.
He started newspapers with a view to educating public opinion. He was the founder editor of Paridarshak, a weekly, and later worked as assistant editor of the Bengal Public Opinion and the Tribune.
Nationalist to the core, Bipin Chandra Pal was an exponent of concept of Indian Swaraj and Swadeshi. He vehemently opposed the partition of Bengal announced in 1905. He was a noted writer and a powerful speaker. His most famous work was Memories and My Life and Times (in two volumes).
He also launched English newspaper Bande Mataram of which the revolutionary and later a mystic Aurobindo Ghose became an editor. In 1907, he was convicted for six months following publication of seditious views in the paper.
Bipin Chandra Pal worked for Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Industrial Education of India which was set up during the Swadeshi Movement for the dissemination of scientific and industrial education.
Critical of Mahatma Gandhi, he retired from active politics in 1920. He continued to publish in retirement till his death on May 20, 1932.
Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909) was a famous historian, economic thinker and political leader. In 1899, he presided over the annual conference of the Indian National Congress held in Lucknow.
According to revolutionary and mystic Aurobindo Ghose, Romesh Chunder Dutt “prepared the public mind for the boycott movement” and “not only wrote history but created it.”
His famous work is the Economic History of India (1902). Apart from translating the Ramayana and Mahabharata in English, he also translated the Rig Veda in Bengali.
