Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (History and Culture) – May 25, 2020

The Treaty of Sugauli that established the boundary line of Nepal and colonial India was signed on 2 December 1815 and ratified by 4 March 1816 between the East India Company and King of Nepal following the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-16. The signatory for Nepal was Raj Guru Gajraj Mishra aided by Chandra Sekhar Upadhaya the signatory for the Company was Lieutenant Colonel Paris Bradshaw.

The name of Lord William Bentinck is still cherished in India for suppression of the Thugs. The thugs, i.e., cheats were a sect of hereditary assassins and robbers who lived by preying upon innocent and defenseless travelers.

General Committee of Public Instruction.

Statement 1 is correct: In 1823, the Governor-General-in Council appointed a “General Committee of Public Instruction”, which had the responsibility to grant one lakh of rupees for education.

Statement 2 is correct: The committee consisted of 10(ten) European members, of which Lord Macaulay was the president. The committee decided to spend major portions from the grant for the improvement of oriental literature.

Indigo Riots.

Statement 1 is incorrect: Indigo was a commercial crop forced upon the peasantry by the Zamindars and British planters in the Zamindari areas of eastern India. At one point indigo cultivation was considered to be a symbol of India’s slavery. Finally, in 1860 the terribly oppressed indigo peasants launched “Non-Cultivation of indigo” movements. Beginning with the ryots of Govindpur village in Nadia district of Bengal, the indigo strikes rapidly spread to other areas. By the spring of 1860, it totally covered all the indigo districts of Bengal.

Statement 2 is correct: The indigo peasants got tremendous support from the intelligentsia and the press, as well as from the missionaries of Bengal. Outstanding in this respect was the role of Harish Chandra Mukherjee editor of Hindu Patriot. Dina Bandhu Mitra’s play ‘Neel Darpan’ was to gain great fame for vividly portraying the oppression by planters upon indigo farmers.

Mahalwari system.

Statement 1 is correct: The settlement was directly made with the village or Mahal by the Settlement Officers, who fixed the rent with the consultation of Lambardar and the rent to be paid by the cultivating tenants. The system was known as Mauzawari in United Provinces, Malguzari in the Central Provinces, and village or mahali settlement in pre-independent Punjab. Mahal simply defined as a fiscal unit was a local area coincides with a large or forms a part of village or includes several parts of villages.

Statement 2 is incorrect: Mahalwari system covered the most fertile tract of British India including Ganga-Jamuna Doab, major areas of Agra and Awadh Provinces, North Western Provinces, old Banares, the Ceded and Conquered districts and Later on it was extended to Central Provinces and the British Punjab. The Ryotwari system of land revenue was instituted in the late 18th century by Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras in 1820. This was practiced in the Madras and Bombay areas, as well as Assam and Coorg provinces. In this system, the peasants or cultivators were regarded as the owners of the land. They had ownership rights, could sell, mortgage or gift the land.

Savarkar attempted to look at the incidents of 1857 from the Indian point of view. A leading revolutionary himself, he was attracted and inspired by the burning zeal, the heroism, bravery, suffering and tragic fate of the leaders of 1857, and he decided to re-interpret the story and to relate it in full with the help of all the material available to him at the time. He spent days and months at the India Office Library studying the period. Savarkar wrote this book originally in Marathi and completed writing it in 1908. As it was impossible to get this book published in India, the manuscript was returned back to Savarkar. Attempts to get this book published in Germany also failed. Some Indian students staying in India House translated this book into English. Finally, this work was published in Holland in 1909, under the title “The Indian War of Independence –1857”.

Under the Act of 1858, the Secretary of State became the Constitutional advisor of the crown in all matters relating to India. The establishment of the Secretary of State-in-Council was commonly known as the India office.

Crops introduced by Britishers:

• Pseudo cereals: oat.
• Grain legumes: black bean, pea.
• Fiber crops: cotton.
• Vegetables: leek, satawar, beet root, cauliflower, celery, sweet pepper, chicory, squash, carrot, orange type, lettuce, tomato, sweet pea.

Lord Lytton during his tenure, a Royal Titles Act conferring on the queen Victoria the title of the Empress of India was passed and a magnificent Delhi Darbar was organized in 1877 in which Queen Victoria was adorned with title Qaiser-i-Hind. Aligarh College was founded in 1877 and the Vernacular Press act, Arms act were passed in 1878.

The second half of the 19th century saw the reform of the civil service and establishment of the fundamental pattern. The last century the main trend in the history and development of the civil service has been the movement towards integration into a single service, with common conditions of employment common traditions and standards the modern civil service may be said to be built up as a result of the suggestions made in the Northcote – Trevelyan report on the organization of the permanent civil service which was presented to parliament in 1854.