Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (History, Art & Culture) – July 6, 2020

when the Company’s rule was m ore securely established, the view gained ground that the State would benefit more from periodical settlements.

• Further, in certain parts of the Company’s territories, viz., the U.P. (now Uttar Pradesh) and the Punjab, there were well organised village communities and, barring a portion of the U.P., there were no local chieftains or large farmers of land in this area.
• These areas thus presented a different problem, and settlement was concluded with village communities and the villagers were held jointly and severally responsible for the payment of revenue. This came to be known as the Mahalwari system of land revenue, as the land revenue was assessed on the ‘mahal’.
• In some parts of Madras, the land revenue was directly settled with individual ryots in view of, the difficulty of making settlements with the whole villages. This initiated the ryotwari system which was later introduced in Bombay and other neighboring provinces.
• Both these systems—mahalwari and ryotwari involved detailed surveys of fields and classification of lands according to soil. The assessments were fixed not in perpetuity but for a definite period.

This is what James Mill, the famous economist and political philosopher from Scotland, wrote about the residents appointed by the Company.

“We place a resident, who really is king of the country, whatever injunctions of non-interference he may act under. As long as the prince acts in perfect subservience, and does what is agreeable to the residents, that is, to the British Government, things go on quietly; they are managed without the resident appearing much in the administration of affairs … but when anything of a different nature happens, the moment the prince takes a course which the British Government think wrong, then comes clashing and disturbance”.

Under Lord Hastings (Governor General from 1813 to 1823) a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated.

• Now the Company claimed that its authority was paramount or supreme, hence its power was greater than that of Indian states.
• In order to protect its interests it was justified in annexing or threatening to annex any Indian kingdom.
• This view continued to guide later British policies as well.

Charles Metcalfe (Governor General – 1835 – 36) known as the “liberator of the Indian press”.

• He repealed the Licensing regulation, 1823.
• During his tenure Printing Press grew rapidly.
• The new Metcalfe act 1835 required the publisher to follow a registration procedure and give a precise account of premises of publication.

Dharma Sabha: The orthodox Hindu led by Raja Radhakant Deb organised the ‘Dharma Sabha’ with the object of countering the propaganda of BrahmoSamaj.

Tatvabodhini Sabha: Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore founded the Tatvabodhini Sabha in 1839 to propagate Rammohun Roy’s ideas. The Tatvabodhini Sabha and its organ the Tatvabodhini Patrika promoted a systematic study of India’s past in Bengali language and helped spread rational outlook.

Brahmo Samaj of India: Keshubsen and his followers broke away from Brahmo samaj in 1866 and established what was called the ‘Brahmo Samaj of India’.

Jyotirao Phule, a gardener by caste who was fascinated by the founding principles of the United States, espoused a radical view of social change.

• Shivaji, to him, stood up not only to the tyranny of Aurangzeb that emanated from Agra, but also to the tyranny within Hindu society of its hereditary elite.
• Phule in his book/publication Life of Shivaji wanted the ordinary peasant to emulate Shivaji and stand up against every variety of oppression, domestic as well as foreign.

The Ghadr Party was a revolutionary group organised around a weekly newspaper The Ghadr with its headquarters at San Francisco and branches along the US coast and in the Far East.

• These revolutionaries included mainly ex-soldiers and peasants who had migrated from the Punjab to the USA and Canada in search of better employment opportunities.
• They were based in the US and Canadian cities along the western (Pacific) coast.
• Pre-Ghadr revolutionary activity had been carried on by Ramdas Puri, G.D. Kumar, Taraknath Das, Sohan Singh Bhakna and Lala Hardayal who reached their in1911.
• To carry out revolutionary activities, the earlier activists had set up a ‘Swadesh Sevak Home’ at Vancouver and ‘United India House’ at Seattle. Finally in 1913, the Ghadr was established.

In March 1931, a special session of the Congress was held at Karachi to endorse the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

• Six days before the session (which was held on March 29) Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were executed.
• Throughout Gandhi’s route to Karachi, he was greeted with black flag demonstrations by the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha, in protest against his failure to secure commutation of the death sentence for Bhagat and his comrades.
• While disapproving of and dissociating itself from political violence, the Congress admired the ‘bravery’ and ‘sacrifice’ of the three martyrs.
• The Delhi Pact or Gandhi-Irwin Pact was endorsed.
• The goal of purna swaraj was reiterated.
• Two resolutions were adopted-one on Fundamental Rights and the other on National Economic Programme– which made the session particularly memorable.

Hitler’s astounding success and the fall of Belgium, Holland and France put England in a conciliatory mood.

• As the war in Europe had undertaken a new turn, the dominant Congress leadership was again in a dilemma.
• Both Gandhi and Nehru strongly opposed the idea of taking advantage of Britain’s position. The Congress was ready to compromise, asking the
• British government to let it form an interim government during the war period but the government was not interested.

The government came up with its own offer to get the cooperation of India in the war effort. Linlithgow announced the August Offer (August 1940) which proposed:

• Dominion status as the objective for India;
• Expansion of viceroy’s executive council which would have a majority of Indians (who would be drawn from major political parties);
• Setting up of a constituent assembly after the war where mainly Indians would decide the constitution according to their social, economic and political conceptions, subject to fulfillment of the obligation of the government regarding defense, minority rights, treaties with States, all India services; and
• No future constitution to be adopted without the consent of minorities.

By early 1915, Annie Besant had launched a campaign to demand self-government for India after the war on the lines of white colonies.

• She campaigned through her newspapers, New India and Commonweal, and through public meetings and conferences.
• At the annual session of the Congress in 1915, the efforts of Tilak and Besant met with some success. It was decided that the Extremists be admitted to the Congress.
• Although Besant failed to get the Congress to approve her scheme of Home Rule Leagues, the Congress did commit itself to a programme of educative propaganda and to a revival of local-level Congress committees.
• Not willing to wait for too long, Besant laid the condition that if the Congress did not implement its commitments, she would be free to set up her own league—which she finally had to, as there was no response from the Congress.
• Tilak and Besant set up their separate leagues to avoid any friction.
• There was an informal understanding between both the leagues wherein Tilak’s league worked in Maharashtra (except Bombay), Karnataka, Berar and the Central Provinces. Besant’s league worked in the rest of the country.
• Tilak’s league had its headquarters in Delhi. It had 6 branches. Besant’s league had 200 branches and was a looser organisation compared to Tilak’s.