UPSC daily subject quiz | History and Culture (Week 163) : Can you get these questions right? Find answers with explanations

Who among the following is referred to in the above description?

(a) Nana Saheb

(b) Khan Bahadur Khan

(c) Kunwar Singh

(d) None of the above

Relevance:

An easy question testing basic factual knowledge of the Revolt of 1857. Aspirants should not get confused when a familiar personality or event is presented in a different form.

Explanation: 

Aspirants should revise the areas associated with major leaders of 1857 such as Nana Saheb (Kanpur), Khan Bahadur Khan (Bareilly), Kunwar Singh (Bihar/Jagdishpur), Rani Lakshmibai (Jhansi), Begum Hazrat Mahal (Lucknow) and others.

Therefore, option (c) is the correct answer.

QUESTION 2

The freedom fighter referred to in the following passage is:

“She was once dismissed as an ‘unscrupulous woman’ who led a failed revolt before disappearing so completely that, when news of her death was announced, a government official reportedly had to ask who she was. Her legacy was eventually acknowledged. Jawaharlal Nehru asked the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to search for her grave. They subsequently found and identified it at the Hindustani Masjid in Baghbazar, a busy commercial area of the city.”

(a) Begum Hazrat Mahal

(b) Rani Avantibai Lodhi

(c) Rani Lakshmibai

(d) Rani Gaidinliu

Relevance:

The topic is important for understanding regional leadership and the participation of women in India’s anti-colonial resistance. It can be linked to Modern Indian History, the Revolt of 1857, and the broader history of the freedom struggle.

Explanation: 

Hazrat Mahal became especially notorious in February and March 1858 as British forces returned to Lucknow and recaptured the city after two weeks of fierce fighting. With the Qaisarbagh palace in Hazratganj taken by British troops, she and her supporters retreated towards the northeast of Awadh, where British control remained limited. She kept fighting the British until the very end.

Begum Hazrat Mahal (Wikipedia)

This continued resistance was another reason the British vilified her. According to Llewellyn-Jones, a campaign was launched to discredit the Begum, including the false rumour that her son, Birjis Qadr, had not been fathered by Wajid Ali Shah but by Mammu Khan, one of her chief advisers.

But the struggle was becoming increasingly difficult. By September 1858, her forces had dwindled to an estimated 5,000. Eventually, she crossed into Nepal, where she lived in exile and largely disappeared from the historical record.

The begum was once dismissed as an “unscrupulous woman” who led a failed revolt before disappearing so completely that, when news of her death was announced, a government official reportedly had to ask who she was.

Her legacy was eventually acknowledged. Jawaharlal Nehru asked the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to search for the begum’s grave. They subsequently found and identified it at the Hindustani Masjid in Baghbazar, a busy commercial area of the city.

Therefore, option (a) is the correct answer.

QUESTION 3

‘Gyan Chaupar’, a traditional Indian board game, is closely associated with which one of the following games?

(a) The Game of Pachisi

(b) The Game of Snakes and Ladders

(c) The Game of Chaturanga

(d) The Game of Ashtapada

Relevance:

Traditional games such as Gyan Chaupar offer insights into India’s rich cultural heritage and the evolution of indigenous knowledge systems. It can be linked with Art & Culture, ancient/medieval social history, and intangible cultural heritage for the UPSC examination.

Explanation: 

” Most traditional board games consist solely of abstract diagrams, but Snakes and Ladders has words written in the squares.

Or at least that was the case in the early Indian version of the game, known as Gyan Chaupar, or The Game of Knowledge. Later, when Gyan Chaupar was adopted by the British, the words were mostly replaced by illustrations, or even disappeared completely… The earliest and most widespread version of Gyan Chaupar is the Vaishnava Bhakti version. It maps three different main categories onto the board. The first is cosmogony, which describes the world’s creation. The second is cosmography, which details the world’s ordering. The third is religious practice, which outlines the various paths to liberation and their less attractive opposites.” (In an interview with indianexpress.com, Schmidt-Madsen discusses the religious function of Gyan Chaupar, why the imagery of snakes and ladders appealed to British audiences, and how the game was transformed before making its way back to India.)

Gyan Bazi (Game of Knowledge) depicting the universe according to Jain tradition. Original drawn by Krish Harsh Chand in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, 1855 CE. (Express photo by Adrija Roychowdhury)

(Refer: Snakes and Ladders began as a spiritual game in India. How the British transformed it by Adrija Roychowdhury)

Therefore, option (b) is the correct answer.

QUESTION 4

‘The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–1859’  is associated with the writings of which one of the following?

(a) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

(b) V. D. Savarkar and Shyamji Krishna Varma

(c) R. C. Majumdar and S. N. Sen

(d) Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Chandra Dutt

Relevance: 

The work is important for understanding how contemporary thinkers interpreted the Revolt of 1857 and how the uprising was viewed beyond the British colonial narrative.

Explanation:

The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–1859 is a collection of writings by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the Revolt of 1857. It includes Marx’s writings on the revolt and Engels’ work on the Indian Army. It should not be confused with V. D. Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence of 1857. This distinction is particularly useful for a Prelims trap, because the titles are very similar.

QUESTION 5

Iyothee Thasar, Mitavadi Krishnan and Sahodaran Ayyappan – historical personalities are related to:

(a) Anti-caste activism and movements

(b) Constituent Assembly of India

(c) Indian participation in the World War

(d) Indian entrepreneurs abroad in the colonial period

Relevance: Questions on historical personalities help aspirants connect individual contributions with broader socio-political developments and reform movements in modern India. They also test the ability to identify lesser-known personalities and place them within the larger historical context, a recurring demand in UPSC Prelims.

Explanation: 

Buddhism rejected the institution of caste that formed the backbone of Vedic society.

Dr Ambedkar wrote: “Buddhism was a revolution. It was as great a Revolution as the French Revolution.” (Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India, an incomplete manuscript published in 2017).

Buddhism eventually declined in India (even as it flourished in East and South-East Asia), and caste society prevailed for another couple of millenia. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, radical intellectuals from oppressed castes once again started to harken to Buddhism in their bid to challenge the Brahmanical hegemony.

Among them was Iyothee Thasar in the Tamil region, who imagined a Dravidian identity with roots in a Buddhist past. In Malayalam-speaking areas, reformers such as Mitavadi Krishnan and Sahodaran Ayyappan proposed leaving Hinduism as a political tool to negotiate the rights of the lower castes.

Therefore, option (a) is the correct answer.

Previous Daily Subject-Wise-Quiz

Daily Subject-wise quiz — History, Culture, and Social Issues (Week 162)

Daily subject-wise quiz — Polity and Governance (Week 178)

Daily subject-wise quiz —  Science and Technology (Week 178)

Daily subject-wise quiz — Economy (Week 178)

Daily subject-wise quiz — Environment and Geography (Week 178)

Daily subject-wise quiz – International Relations (Week 177)

Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week.

Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X