Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (History, Art & Culture) – June 8, 2020

• Abolition of Sati:Sati, also spelled as Suttee, is a practice among Hindu communities where a recently widowed woman, either voluntarily or by force, immolates herself on her deceased husband’s pyre.
• The Bengal Sati Regulation which banned the Sati practice in all jurisdictions of British India was passed on December 4, 1829by the then Governor-General Lord William Bentinck.
• The Religious Disabilities Act: The Religious Disabilities Act of 1850 was a law passed in British India under East India Company rule that abolished all laws affecting the rights of persons converting to another religion or caste.
• The new Act allowed Indians who converted from one religion to other religion equal rights under no law, especially in the case of inheritance.
• The General Service Enlistment Act:The General Service Enlistment Act passed in the year 1856 contained the provision that mandated soldiers or recruits of the Bengal Army to serve within or outside India when ordered. It meant that they were too sent overseas and sea voyages to serve.

“The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857” book was written by famous historian R. C. Majumdar.

Polygar Rebellions (1799-1805).

• Polygars (Palaiyakkarars) were feudal lords who were appointed as military chiefs and administrative governors from the time of the Vijayanagara Empire in parts of Southern India. (They were given the charge of a Palayam or a group of villages).
• It was the Polygars who collected taxesfrom the cultivators.
• But the East India Company came into conflict with the Polygars over the question of who should collect taxes, and sought to control the Polygars.
• The first rebellion, also called the First Polygar War broke out in September 1799in Tirunelveli district in modern Tamil Nadu.
• The Polygars were led by Kattabomma Nayak (also called Veerapandi Kattabomman) who was in charge of Panchalankurichi Palayam.

In the battles with the British troops, Kattabomman initially escaped but was subsequently caught and publicly hanged as a warning to other Polygars.

First Factory Act, 1881.

• To improve the lot of factory labourers, the Government of Ripon passed the first Factory Act, 1881which sought to regulate and improve the conditions of labour.
• The Act was applicable in case of factories employing 100 or more hands.

The Act prohibited the employment of children under the age of seven, limited the number of working hours for children below the age of twelve and required that dangerous machinery should be fenced.

Lord Ripon.

• Lord Ripon in 1882 decided to transfer financial responsibility to the provinces. Accordingly he divided the resources of revenues into three categories-Imperia1, Provincial and Divided.
• The Imperial Heads of revenue were customs, salt and opium, posts and telegraph, mint These revenues were exclusively meant for the Central Government.
• The Provincial Head were receipts of general administration and included subjects like law and justice public works, education, police, jails etc. The income from these sources was exclusively assigned to the provinces.
• In addition to this a percentage of land revenue was also assigned to the provinces by the Imperial Government.

The Divided Heads included excise, stamps, registration, forests, licenses etc. The income from these heads was shared between the imperial and the Provincial Government.

A difference of opinion with Kitchener, regarding the status of the military member of the council in India (who controlled army supply and logistics, which Kitchener wanted under his own control), led to a controversy in which Curzon failed to obtain the support of the home government.

Lord Lawrence, the governor-general in India during the period 1864-1869, initiated the policy of Masterly Inactivity. He believed that the English should not interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and there was no necessity to keep an English representative at its court.

• The depressed class mission: R V Shindewas a prominent campaigner on behalf of the Dalit movement in India who established the Depressed Classes Mission of India to provide education to the Dalits. He laid the foundation of Depressed Class Mission on 18 October 1906 in order to work against untouchability on the national level.
• Social Service League: Narayan Malhar Joshi, a leading member of the Servants of India Society, founded the Social Service League in 1911.
• The objective of the movement was “to collect and study social facts and discuss social problems with a view to forming public opinion on questions of social service” and to secure for the masses a better quality of life and work.
• The League opened a number of day and night schools, libraries, dispensaries and started boys’ clubs and scouts corps.
• Deccan Education Society: Deccan education society is an organization which runs 43 education establishments in Maharastra, Pune founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It was created in the year 1884. The college was the first higher-education institution in Pune.

Nagpur Session (1920) of Indian National Congress (INC).

• The 1920 session was of course not the first one Nagpur hosted – the city did that way back in 1891, only six years after the Congress’ formation. It was all set to do that again in 1907 when a tense atmosphere here led to the venue being shifted to Surat in Gujarat.
• A resolution calling for complete non-cooperation and boycott, virtually amounting to a war cry against the British rule in India, was the hallmark of the Nagpur session. It was also significant in many other ways.
• The Nagpur session is also a memorable for the new congress Constitutionthat was adopted.

Shrimadh Bhagvad Gita Rahasya, popularly also known as Gita Rahasya or Karmayog Shashtra, is a 1915 Marathi language book authored by Indian social reformer and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak while he was in prison at Mandalay, Burma.