UPHESC Assistant Professor History 2025 PYQs

Concept: The victory at Pollilur (1780) was painted as a large mural on the walls of Tipu Sultan’s summer palace, the Dariya Daulat Bagh at Srirangapatna (1784).

1. The mural shows Baillie wounded in a palanquin and the British square collapsing.
2. Pollilur was the battlefield, not the place of the painting.

Short trick: Dariya Daulat Bagh, Srirangapatna – Tipu’s ‘war mural’.

Concept: Arrange by dates.

1. III – Second Carnatic War: 1749–54.
2. II – Third Anglo-Mysore War: 1790–92.
3. I – Second Anglo-Maratha War: 1803–05.
4. IV – First Anglo-Sikh War: 1845–46.

Short trick: Carnatic → Mysore → Maratha → Sikh: the British moved from south-east to north-west.

Concept: Under the tinkathia system European planters forced tenants to grow indigo on 3 kathas out of every 20 kathas (one bigha) of land, i.e. 3/20.

1. Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha (1917) and the Champaran Agrarian Act (1918) abolished it.
2. Rajkumar Shukla invited Gandhi to Champaran.

Short trick: Tin (3) kathia out of 20 kathas = 3/20.

Concept: Match the terms.

1. Kundi / hundi – a bill of exchange used by sarrafs (a – II).
2. Amil – the revenue collector of a pargana (b – III).
3. Azad dastas – the free, irregular armed bands (‘Azad Dasta’) operating in guerilla fashion (c – I).
4. Diwan – in charge of the treasury and finance (d – IV).

Short trick: Hundi = bill, Amil = revenue, Diwan = treasury; the remaining pair is the guerilla band.

Concept: Check each journal–person pair separately.

1. Bamabodhini Patrika (1863) was started by Umesh Chandra Dutta – pair 2 is correct.
2. Abalabandhab (1869) was brought out by Dwarkanath Ganguly, not Girish Chandra Sen (the translator of the Quran into Bengali) – pair 3 is wrong.
3. Bharat Mahila (Calcutta, from 1905) was edited by Sarayubala Datta; no link with Basanti Mitra can be supported – so pair 1 is also not correct.
4. The correct answer would therefore be ‘2 only’, which is not among the options; ‘1 and 2 only’ needs pair 1 to be right. As printed, no option fits, so the question is treated as a bonus.

Short trick: Bamabodhini – Umesh Chandra Dutta; Abalabandhab – Dwarkanath Ganguly; Bharat Mahila – Sarayubala Datta.

Concept: John Morley, Secretary of State, wrote to Viceroy Minto that by conceding separate Muslim electorates ‘we are sowing the dragon’s teeth and the harvest will be bitter’.

1. The Indian Councils Act 1909 introduced separate electorates for Muslims.
2. Minto is called the ‘father of communal electorate’; Morley voiced the warning.

Short trick: Morley warned, Minto pushed – dragon’s teeth = communal seeds.

Concept: Ghare Baire (1916; English The Home and the World, 1919) by Rabindranath Tagore is set against the Swadeshi agitation after the Partition of Bengal.

1. Its characters Nikhil, Sandip and Bimala debate nationalism and its excesses.
2. Satyajit Ray filmed it in 1984.

Short trick: Ghare Baire = Home (ghar) and World (baire) – Tagore.

Concept: Marthandavarma (1891), the first historical novel in Malayalam, was written by C. V. Raman Pillai.

1. It narrates the rise of Marthanda Varma of Travancore.
2. O. Chandu Menon wrote Indulekha (1889), the first Malayalam social novel; T. M. Nair co-founded the Justice Party.

Short trick: C. V. – historical (Marthandavarma); Chandu Menon – social (Indulekha).

Concept: Ashin Das Gupta wrote Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700–1750 (1979).

1. He traced the collapse of Surat’s shipping (e.g. Mulla Abdul Ghafur’s family) with Mughal decline.
2. His other work: Malabar in Asian Trade. Nilakanta Sastri wrote on the Cholas.

Short trick: Ashin Das Gupta = Indian Ocean merchants (Surat, Malabar).

Concept: Place the events by date.

1. II – Sharada Sadan, Bombay: 1889.
2. III – Women’s franchise in Madras (1921) and Bombay (1921).
3. I – All India Women’s Conference: 1927 (Pune).
4. IV – Birth control league/society in Bombay: 1930s (R. D. Karve’s movement led to organised birth-control bodies only after AIWC endorsed it in 1932).

Short trick: 1889 → 1921 → 1927 → 1930s.

Concept: In standard question banks on revolutionary nationalism this statement is attributed to Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, editor of Pratap (Kanpur), who openly defended the revolutionaries in his writings.

1. Pratap sheltered and published young revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh (who wrote there as ‘Balwant’).
2. Vidyarthi died in 1931 trying to stop communal riots in Kanpur.
3. Bhagat Singh’s own well-known lines are of a different kind (‘Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind’).

Short trick: Pratap’s editor – the journalist-voice of revolutionaries.

Concept: The Battle of Aberdeen (17 May 1859) was fought at Aberdeen, Port Blair, between the Great Andamanese tribes and the British penal settlement.

1. The Andamanese attacked with bows and arrows after the escaped convict Dudhnath Tewari tipped off the British.
2. Port Blair’s settlement was set up in 1858 after the 1857 revolt.

Short trick: Aberdeen Bazaar, Port Blair – Andaman, 1859.

Concept: ‘Operation Rubicon’ was the code-name of the British Government of India’s contingency plan for the situation if Gandhi died during his fast in detention at the Aga Khan Palace, Poona (February–March 1943).

1. Gandhi fasted for 21 days against the Government’s blaming him for the 1942 violence.
2. Linlithgow’s government even prepared for his cremation and the expected disturbances.

Short trick: Rubicon = point of no return → Gandhi’s death in jail.

Concept: The Bengali weekly Som Prakash (1858–59) was started on the initiative of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and edited by Dwarkanath Vidyabhushan.

1. It was a target of the Vernacular Press Act 1878.
2. Harish Chandra Mukherjee edited the Hindoo Patriot; Ram Mohan Roy died in 1833.

Short trick: Som Prakash – Vidyasagar (founder) & Dwarkanath Vidyabhushan (editor).

Concept: After escaping from Hazaribagh jail (Nov 1942), Jayaprakash Narayan organised the Azad Dasta and an underground provisional set-up in the Nepal terai to guide the Quit India struggle.

1. Ram Manohar Lohia worked with him there.
2. Parallel governments: Ballia (Chittu Pandey), Tamluk (Jatiya Sarkar), Satara (Prati Sarkar).

Short trick: JP – Hazaribagh jail-break – Nepal border – Azad Dasta.

Concept: Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, in A Concise History of (Modern) India, observe that elements of the old colonial style of governance persisted under the new order after 1947.

1. They point to the continuity of the IAS, police, the 1935 Act framework and emergency powers.
2. Gallagher & Seal belong to the Cambridge School on nationalism; Spear and Thapar wrote the Penguin History of India.

Short trick: Metcalfs’ ‘Concise History’ – colonial continuities after 1947.

Concept: The first Asian-African Conference was held at Bandung, Indonesia, 18–24 April 1955, with 29 countries.

1. It adopted the ten principles of Bandung (based on Panchsheel).
2. It paved the way for the Non-Aligned Movement (Belgrade, 1961).

Short trick: Bandung 1955 → Belgrade 1961 (NAM).

Concept: During the Second Five Year Plan (1956–61) national (personal) income rose by about 20%.

1. First Plan (1951–56): national income +18%, per capita +11%.
2. Second Plan: income rose about 20% (target 25%) under the Mahalanobis heavy-industry strategy.
3. Third Plan (1961–66) fell far short due to wars and drought.

Short trick: Plan I ≈ 18%, Plan II ≈ 20%.

Concept: The Objectives Resolution, moved by Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 December 1946 and adopted on 22 January 1947, became the basis of the Preamble.

1. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee; Rajendra Prasad was President of the Constituent Assembly.

Short trick: Objectives Resolution (Nehru) → Preamble.

Concept: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) attacked the ‘mercantile system’ – the idea that wealth equals bullion and trade must be state-regulated.

1. Smith advocated free trade, division of labour and laissez-faire – the foundations of capitalism.
2. Socialism as a theory came later (19th century).

Short trick: Smith vs Mercantilism → laissez-faire.