History Test - 23

The correct answer is 1906

Key Points

Muslim League 

• One of the most prominent faces of the League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, became the face of the Two-Nation Theory which ultimately paved the way for the country’s partition.
• On 30 December 1906, the All-India Muslim League (AIML), popularly known as the Muslim League was founded in Dhaka, British India (now in Bangladesh).
• Hence the correct answer is option 1.
• The founders of the Muslim League were: Khwaja Salimullah, Vikar-ul-Mulk, Syed Amir Ali, Syed Nabiullah, Khan Bahadur Ghulam and Mustafa Chowdhury.
• The first Honorary President of the League was Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah (Aga Khan III).

The correct answer is Mahatma Gandhi.

Key Points

Communal harmony 

• On 14-15 August 1947 Pakistan is formed, and India gains independence.
• Mahatma Gandhi tours Noakhali in East Bengal to restore communal harmony.
• Hence the correct answer is option 2.
• Mahatma Gandhi camped in Noakhali for four months and toured the district on a mission to restore peace and communal harmony.
• However, the peace mission failed to restore confidence among the survivors, who could not be permanently rehabilitated in their villages.

The correct answer is Mohammad Iqbal.

Key Points

Writer of “Sare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan Hamara” 

• The origins of the Pakistan demand have also been traced back to the Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal, the writer of “Sare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan Hamara”.
• Hence the correct answer is option 4.
• In his presidential address to the Muslim League in 1930, the poet spoke of a need for a “NorthWest Indian Muslim state”.
• Iqbal, however, was not visualising the emergence of a new country in that speech but a reorganisation of Muslim-majority areas in north-western India into an autonomous
  unit within a single, loosely structured Indian federation.
• This song became very popular because of its beautiful meaning, and it depicted all the features of the country in a single line.
• This song is one of the most enduring patriotic poems in the Urdu language.
• The song is also referred to as ‘Taranah-e-Hindi’.
• This song was originally a poem at first written by Muhammad Iqbal.
• The poem was published in the weekly journal Ittihad on August 16, 1904.
• Then the poet Iqbal recited it the upcoming year at Government College in Lahore.
• Then the song became an anthem for the opposition to the British rule in India.

The correct answer is 3 sections

Key Points

A possible alternative to Partition -

• In March 1946 the British Cabinet sent a three-member mission to Delhi to examine the League’s demand and to suggest a suitable political framework for a free India.
• The Cabinet Mission toured the country for three months and recommended a loose three-tier confederation.
• India was to remain united.
• It was to have a weak central government controlling only foreign affairs, defence and communications with the existing provincial assemblies being grouped into three sections while electing the constituent assembly -
  • Section A for the Hindu majority provinces,
  • Sections B and C for the Muslim-majority provinces of the north-west and the north-east (including Assam) respectively.
• The sections or groups of provinces would comprise various regional units.
• They would have the power to set up intermediate-level executives and legislatures of their own.
• Hence the correct answer is option 2.

The correct answer is option 3

Key Points

A possible alternative to Partition 

• In March 1946 the British Cabinet sent a three-member mission to Delhi to examine the League’s demand and to suggest a suitable political framework for a free India.
• Initially, all the major parties accepted a three-tier plan.
• But the agreement was short-lived because it was based on mutually opposed interpretations of the plan.
• Congress wanted provinces to be given the right to join a group.
• It was not satisfied with the Mission’s clarification that grouping would be compulsory at first.
• But provinces would have the right to opt out after the constitution had been finalised and new elections held in accordance with it.
• Ultimately, therefore, neither the League nor the Congress agreed to the Cabinet Mission’s proposal.
• This was a most crucial juncture, because after this partition became more or less inevitable, with most of the Congress leaders agreeing to it, seeing it as tragic but unavoidable.
• Only Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the NWFP continued to firmly oppose the idea of partition.
• Hence the correct answer is option 3.

The correct answer is Honour

Key Points

Preserving “honour” 

• Scholars have also shown how ideas of preserving community honour came into play in this period of extreme physical and psychological danger.
• This notion of honour drew upon a conception of masculinity defined as ownership of zan (women) and zamin (land), a notion of considerable antiquity in North Indian peasant societies. Hence the correct answer is option 2.
• Virility, it was believed, lay in the ability to protect your possessions zan and zamin from being appropriated by outsiders.
• And quite frequently, conflict ensued over these two prime “possessions.

The correct answer is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

Key Points

Frontier Gandhi -

• Mahatma Gandhi in the North-West Frontier Province(NWFP), October 1938 with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who came to be known as Frontier Gandhi, Sushila Nayar and Amtus Salem.
• Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the foremost 20th-century leader of the Pashtuns, became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and was called the “Frontier Gandhi.”
• Hence the correct answer is option 2.
• Only Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the NWFP continued to firmly oppose the idea of partition.
• Ghaffar Khan met Gandhi and entered politics in 1919 during the agitation over the Rowlatt Acts, which allowed the internment of political dissidents without
• He joined the Khilafat movement, which sought to strengthen the spiritual ties of Indian Muslims to the Turkish sultan, and in 1921 he was elected president of a district Khilafat committee in his native North-West Frontier Province.

The correct answer is 1937.

Key Points

The provincial elections of 1937 and the Congress ministries -

• In 1937, elections to the provincial legislatures were held for the first time. Hence the correct answer is option 2.
• Only about 10 to 12 per cent of the population enjoyed the right to vote.
• The Congress did well in the elections, winning an absolute majority in five out of eleven provinces and forming governments in seven of them.
• It did badly in the constituencies reserved for Muslims, but the Muslim League also fared poorly, polling only 4.4 per cent of the total Muslim vote cast in this election.
• The League failed to win a single seat in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and could capture only two out of 84 reserved constituencies in the Punjab and three out of 33 in Sind.

The correct answer is Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Key Points

The two-nation theory 

• The two-nation theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan Movement and the partition of India in 1947.
• The ideology that religion is the main factor in defining the nationality of Indian Muslims was used by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
• Hence the correct answer is option 4.
• Some historians, both Indian and Pakistani, suggest that Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s theory that the Hindus and Muslims in colonial India constituted two separate nations can be projected back into medieval history.
• They emphasise that the events of 1947 were intimately connected to the long history of Hindu-Muslim conflict throughout medieval and modern times.

The correct answer is Quit India Movement.

Key Points

The suddenness of Partition 

• Initially, even Muslim leaders did not seriously raise the demand for Pakistan as a sovereign state.
• In the beginning, Jinnah himself may have seen the Pakistan idea as a bargaining counter, useful for blocking possible British concessions to the Congress and gaining additional favours for the Muslims.
• The pressure of the Second World War on the British delayed negotiations for independence for some time.
• Nonetheless, it was the massive Quit India Movement which started in 1942 and persisted despite intense repression, that brought the British Raj to its knees and compelled its officials to open a dialogue with Indian parties regarding a possible transfer of power.
• Hence the correct answer is option 3.