UPHESC Assistant Professor History 2025 PYQs

Concept: The Adali (‘Adal’) was the silver coin introduced by Muhammad bin Tughluq weighing about 140 grains (against the 175-grain tanka).

1. He issued a heavy gold dinar of 200 grains and the lighter silver adali of 140 grains to adjust the gold–silver ratio.
2. None of the printed weights (10, 15, 8 or 12 grains) matches 140 grains, so no option is correct as printed.

Short trick: Muhammad Tughluq: gold dinar 200 gr, silver adali 140 gr.

Concept: Guru Angad Dev (2nd Guru, 1539–52) standardised the Gurmukhi script for writing Punjabi and the Gurus’ hymns.

1. Guru Ram Das founded Amritsar; Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth (1604); Guru Hargobind built the Akal Takht and militarised the Panth.

Short trick: A for Angad, A for Alphabet (Gurmukhi).

Concept: Janakiparinaya, a Sanskrit mahakavya on the marriage of Sita, was composed by Chakrakavi (17th century).

1. Jagannatha Panditaraja (Shah Jahan’s court) wrote Rasagangadhara, Gangalahari.
2. Nabhadas wrote Bhaktamal in Braj, not Sanskrit.

Short trick: Janaki-parinaya ↔ Chakra-kavi; Rasagangadhara ↔ Jagannatha.

Concept: François Bernier, the French physician (1656–68), described Benares as ‘the Athens of India’ because of its many schools of Hindu learning.

1. He noted pandits teaching students in their houses and gardens.
2. Tavernier described Benares temples but the phrase is Bernier’s.

Short trick: Bernier – Benares – Athens (all with ‘B/A’ learning).

Concept: The Ranakpur (Ranpur) Jain temple inscription of 1439 CE belongs to the reign of Rana Kumbha of Mewar, under whose patronage Dharna Shah built the Chaumukha temple.

1. It gives the genealogy of the Guhila/Sisodia rulers of Mewar.
2. Ranakpur itself is named after Rana Kumbha.

Short trick: Ranakpur = Rana (Kumbha) + pur, 1439.

Concept: In 1632 Qasim Khan Juvaini, Shah Jahan’s governor of Bengal, besieged and captured Hugli, expelling the Portuguese for slave-raiding and piracy.

1. Thousands of Portuguese were taken captive to Agra.
2. Shaista Khan later (1666) took Chittagong from the Arakanese and Portuguese pirates.

Short trick: Hugli 1632 – Qasim Khan; Chittagong 1666 – Shaista Khan.

Concept: Put the dates in order.

1. IV – Calcutta Madrasa, Warren Hastings: 1781.
2. II – Sanskrit College, Benares, Jonathan Duncan: 1791.
3. III – Macaulay’s Minute: 1835.
4. I – Wood’s Despatch: 1854.

Short trick: Orientalist institutions first (1781, 1791), then Anglicist Minute (1835), then Wood (1854) – ‘Magna Carta’ of education.

Concept: The Charter Act of 1853 ended the Directors’ patronage and threw the Indian Civil Service open to competitive examination (first held 1855, Macaulay Committee).

1. The 1833 Act had proposed open competition but it was not implemented.
2. Satyendranath Tagore (1863) was the first Indian to qualify.

Short trick: 1853 – patronage out, competition in.

Concept: The younger Sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh – Zorawar Singh (9) and Fateh Singh (6) – were sentenced by Wazir Khan, faujdar of Sirhind, and bricked alive in December 1704 (commemorated on 26–27 December).

1. Statement I is therefore true.
2. The great plague of the Deccan struck the Mughal army in the 1680s–90s (Bijapur, 1688–89); no plague is recorded as reaching the Deccan on 27 December 1704 – Statement II is false.

Short trick: Shaheedi Jor Mela at Fatehgarh Sahib = 27 December.

Concept: François Martin founded the French settlement of Pondicherry in 1674 on land obtained from the Bijapur governor Sher Khan Lodi.

1. Earlier French factory: Surat (1668, Caron); Masulipatam (1669).
2. Pedro Alvares Cabral was a Portuguese navigator (1500).

Short trick: 1674 – Martin – Pondicherry.

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.