Raja Todar Mal, Finance Minister of Emperor Akbar

 

Raja Todar Mal, the finance Minister of Emperor Akbar / Image Credit

Todar Mal was a brilliant finance officer who was first in the service of Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri and afterwards in that of Mughal emperor Akbar. Known for introducing standard weights and measures, he was the main architect behind a brilliant land revenue system Zabti system which is also called as Todar Mal bandobast. Dahshala, a system of taxation, was also established by him. 

According to tradition he was one of Akbar’s ‘Navratnas (“Nine Jewels”). The Navratnas were nine individuals of extraordinary ability gracing the court of Akbar.

Todar Mal joined Akbar’s revenue department in 1560 by replacing Khawaja Malik Itimad Khan.

Another field in which Todar Mal excelled was architecture. In 1585 Todar Mal rebuilt the Kashi Vishwanath Temple which was later demolished by Aurangzeb, who had the Gyanvapi Mosque built on its ruins.

Qila Rohtas, near the city of Jhelum in Pakistan, was built by Raja Todar Mal for Sher Shah with a view to suppressing the tribes of the region and also to checking Humayun’s entry into India.  Humayun, father of Akbar, was defeated by Sher Shah Suri in the battle of Kannauj in 1540 and spent the next years of his life in exile in Persia. 

Ladli Begum

Mihr-un-nissa Begum, better known as Ladli Begum, was the daughter of Mughal empress Nur Jahan and her first husband, Ali Quli Khan Istajlu, more famously known as Sher Afgan Khan, who was killed fighting Kutubuddin, the governor of Bengal, in 1607. Nur Jahan had become the 20th wife of Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1611.  

In 1621 Ladli Begum married Shaharyar, son of Jahangir. Naturally enough, Nur Jahan pushed Shaharyar's claim to the Mughal throne after the death of Jahangir on 27th October, 1627. This was resented by Asaf Khan who wanted his son-in-law Shah Jehan (another son of Jahangir) to be the next emperor.  All the competitors to the throne including Shaharyar were executed by Asaf Khan, father of Mumtaz Mahal (Shah Jahan’s wife in whose memory world renowned monument Taj Mahal in Agra was built). Nur Jehan and her daughter Ladli Begum were imprisoned for life. Shah Jahan ascended the throne on 19 January 1628. 

Nur Jahan died in 1645 and was buried in a tomb at Shahdara, Lahore, which she herself got built during her lifetime. Her  mausoleum is close to her husband Jahangir’s mausoleum. Ladli Begum was also buried beside her mother. 

 

Badoli Temples

Ghateshwar Mahadev, Badoli / Image Credit

Built in the tenth century AD by the Gurjara Pratihara rulers, Badoli Temples are nine temples located near Rawerbhata in Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan. Of these eight temples is situated within a walled enclosure. The ninth temple is about 1 kilometre from the complex of eight temples. 

Four temples are dedicated to Shiva, two to Durga and one each to Shiva-Trimurti, Vishnu and Ganesha. Dedicated to Shiva, Ghateshwara Mahadeva Temple is the most prominent of the Badoli Temples. 

History MCQs – Set 12 - Modern India

Q.1. The idea of a separate homeland for Muslims found mention for the first time in the writings of:

A. Mohammed Iqbal

B. Liaqat Ali

C. M.A. Jinnah

D. Rahmat Ali

Q.2. The beginning of the British political sway over India can be traced to the battle of

A. Tai Khamti-British War of 1839

B. Plassey

C. Buxar

D. Wandiwash

Q.3. Who described Bal Gangadhar Tilak as the “Father of Indian unrest”?

A. Disraeli

B. Valentine Chirol

C. Minto

D. Chelmsford

Q.4. Who assassinated Sir Michael O`Dwyer, the British Lt. Governor of Punjab?

A. Udham Singh

B. Lala Lajpat Rai

C. Bhagat Singh

D. Vir Savarkar

Q.5.  The first Europeans to come to India were

A. French 

B. Dutch

C. Portuguese

D. British

Q.6. Who among the following did Lord Mountbatten replace as the viceroy of India in 1947?

A. Lord Curzon

B. Lord Chelmsford

C. Lord Wavell

D. Lord Linlithgow 

Q.7. The Communal Award was declared by Ramsay Macdonald in:

A. 1928

B. 1929

C. 1931

D. 1932

Q.8. Who declared, "The only hope for India is from the masses. The upper classes are physically and morally dead"?

A. Gopal Krishna Gokhale

B. Mahatma Gandhi

C. Swami Vivekananda

D. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Q.9. Where was the first Round Table Conference held?

A. New Delhi

B. London

C. Edinburg

D. Bombay

Q.10. In which year was the system of the competitive examination for civil service accepted?

A. 1833

B. 1853

C. 1858

D. 1882

Answers

1-A

Notes: Muhammad Iqbal was a great nationalist during early years of career writing the famous nationalist song: Sare Jahan se Accha, Hindositan hamara, but later on he voiced the idea of a separate Muslim state in the north-west India in his presidential address to the annual session of the Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930.

It was this idea which later fructified and culminated in the creation of a separate Muslim state of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Naturally enough, he is acclaimed as the father of the idea of Pakistan. 

Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Allama Iqbal, died in Lahore in 1938.

2-B

Notes: The battle of Plassey was fought between the army of Siraj-ud-Doula, the last independent Nawab of Bengal and the troops of the British East India Company under Robert Clive. 

The importance of the battle of Plassey was more than that of the some of the greatest battles of the world. It facilitated the British conquest of Bengal and subsequently the whole of India.

3-B

Notes: Bal Gangadhar Tilak was called "father of Indian unrest" by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol, a British journalist. 

4-A

Notes: Udham Singh was a great revolutionary who avenged the infamous Jalianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar by murdering Michael O’Dwyer, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab in 1919 when Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, the military commander of Amritsar had ordered the firing on the innocent people who have gathered here to protest the arrest of Congress leaders Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal under Rowlatt Act.

Udham Singh killed O’Dwyer in London on 13th March 1940. He was arrested on the spot and sentenced to death on 21st July in the same year.

5-C

Notes: Portugal was the first European power to establish factories and trading settlements in India in the early 16th century. Portuguese were followed by Dutch, British, Danes and French.

6-C

Notes: In 1947, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill's successor as British prime minister, replaced Lord Wavell with Lord Mountbatten as the viceroy of India in 1947. 

7-D

Notes: On 16 August 1932 the British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald announced the Communal Award partitioning it into separate electorates for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Untouchables. The Communal Award was announced after the failure of the Second of the Round Table Conferences (India). The Communal Award later was incorporated into the Government of India Act, 1935.

8-C

Notes: Narendranath Dutta is better known as Swami Vivekananda, 

Swami Vivekananda was a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886)

In 1983 Swami Vivekananda went to the US and attended the famous “Parliament of Religions” at Chicago. 

9-B

Notes: First Round Table Conference was held in 1930.

Second Round Table Conference took place in London from 7 September 1931 to 1 December 1931.  

The third Round Table Conference took place between 17 November 1932 and 24 December 1932. 

10-A

Notes: The Charter Act of 1853 introduced an open competition system of recruitment in Civil Service. Macaulay Committee was appointed for Civil Service in India in the year 1854.

Shyamji Krishna Varma

Indian revolutionary leader Shyamji Krishna Varma was born on 4th October, 1857 in Mandvi town of Kachchh district of Gujarat. He is known for founding the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London.

Shyamji Krishna Varma was impressed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj .  He was an admirer of Herbert Spencer, a Victorian sociologist who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". 

He worked as an assistant to Monier Williams, a professor of Sanskrit in the Oxford University.

In 1883 Shyamji Krishna Varma graduated from Balliol College in Oxford and was called to the Bar in 1884. In 1881, he attended the Berlin Congress of Orientalists.

In 1905, Krishnavarma founded the Indian Home Rule Society and India House.  India House became a meeting-place for Indian revolutionaries in London.

Krishna Varma shifted his base to Paris in 1907 to avoid arrest by the British Government due to the political activities of India House. He was also disbarred from practising law by the Inner Temple. He published the journal The Indian Sociologist where he wrote against the colonial government. He died in Geneva in 1930. 

History MCQs – Set 11 - Modern India

Q.1. The revolutionaries who were arrested in the Central Assembly Bombing Case were?

A. Bhagat Singh & Chandrashekar Azad

B. Bhagat Singh & Batukeshwar Dutt

C. Bhagat Singh & Sachindranath Sanyal

D. Jatindra Nath Das & Bhagat Singh

Q.2. Rani Gaidinliu was the fearless freedom fighter from:

A. Manipur 

B. Tripura

C. Mizoram

D. Nagaland 

Q.3. The treaty of Srirangapatnam was signed between Tipu Sultan and

A. Robert Clive

B. Cornwallis

C. Dalhousie

D. Warren Hastings

Q.4. Who among the following was the first English President of the Indian National Congress?

A. George Yule

B. Alfred Webb

C. Henry John Stedman Cotton

D. William Wedderburn

Q.5. Both the processes of transfer of power and the partition of India were hurried through in ____ days?

A. 72

B. 94

C. 86

D. 92

Q.6. Albuquerque captured Goa from the ruler of

A. Golconda

B. Vijaynagar

C. Ahmednagar

D. Bijapur 

Q.7. The two Home Rule Leagues in India were led by:

A. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant.

B. Annie Besant and G.K. Gokhale

C. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Pheroze Shah

D. Annie Besant and K.T. Telang.

Q.8. The East India Company received the zamindari of the 24 parganas from:

A. Siraj-ud-Daulah 

B. Mir Jafar

C. Mir Qasim

D. Chanda Sahib 

Q.9. The founders of Theosophical Society, Colonel Olcott and Madame H.P. Blavatsky set up their first office in India in:

A. Thiruvananthapurami

B. Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu

C. Cochin, Kerala

D. Adyar, Madras

Q.10. When the Simon Commission visited India, the Viceroy of India was ___.

A. Lord Irwin 

B. Lord Willingdon

C. Lord Linlithgow

D. Lord Reading

Answers

1-B

Notes: Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had hurled bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi on April 8, 1929. 

Batukeshwar Dutt and Bhagat Singh were members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

Among those present in the Central Legislative Assembly when the bombing took place were Motilal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya,  Sir John Allsebrook Simon (of the Simon Commission).

2-A

Notes: Rani Gaidinliu was a Naga woman revolutionary leader and successor to the political movement launched by the Naga leader Haipou Jadonang (1905-31) to derive away the British from Manipur. She was born in 1915. 

After the execution of Jadonang in 1931 by the British, Rani Gaidinliu led a popular rebellion against the British rule at the young age of sixteen.

Rani Gaidinliu was described by Jawaharlal Nehru as the Rani of the Nagas.

3-B

Notes: The Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790-92) came to an end by the Treaty of Seringapatam (also called Srirangapatinam or Srirangapatna), signed 18 March 1792. Its signatories included Lord Cornwallis on behalf of the British East India Company, representatives of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha Empire, and Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore.

Under the terms of the treaty Tipu Sultan had to surrender of nearly half of Mysorean territory to the victorious allies. 

4-A

Notes: George Yule served as the fourth President of the Indian National Congress in 1888 at Allahabad.

5-A

Notes: On February 20, 1947 British Prime Minister Clement Attlee declared the British would quit India before 30th June 1948. The processes of transfer of power and the partition of India were hurried by 72 days. India was partitioned on the basis of the "Indian Independence Act". The Indian Independence bill was introduced on 4th July, 1947. It received Royal assent on 18th July, 1947 and came into force on 15th August, 1947.

Clement Attlee of Labour Party was the British Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951.

6-D

Notes: Yusuf Adil Khan of Adil Shahi Dynasty of Bijapur  was succeeded by his 13-year old son Ismail Adil Khan. As soon as he took the reigns of the kingdom, he has to cede Goa in 1510 to the Portuguese under their governor Afonso de Albuquerque.

7-A

Notes: Home Rule League was led by Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak and British social reformer and Indian independence leader Annie Besant. 

8-B

Notes: The name 24 Parganas is derived from the number of parganas or divisions contained in the Zamindari of Calcutta which was ceded to the East India Company by Mir Jafar in 1757.

9-D

Notes: Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 in New York in the USA by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott. They came to India in January 1879 and set up the headquarters of the society at Adyar, presently a suburb of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. 

10-A

Notes: Simon Commission , also known as the Indian Statutory Commission, came to India in 1928.

Vijnaneshwara : Medieval Indian Jurist

Smṛrti is a class of literature comprising law books. Many medieval Indian jurists wrote lengthy commentaries on the Smriti literature. Of these the most important was Vijnaneshwara who wrote at the court of great Western Chalukya emperor Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076 – 1126 CE). Western Chalukyas are also known as the Chalukyas of Kalyani.  

Vijnaneshwara's treatise, Mitakshara played a very important part in forming the civil law of modern India. Mitakshara is a commentary on the law book of Yājñavalkya,