UPHESC Assistant Professor History 2025 PYQs

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.

Concept: The Planning Commission was set up by a Cabinet resolution on 15 March 1950 with Nehru as chairman.

1. It was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015.
2. The First Five Year Plan started in April 1951.

Short trick: 15-3-1950 Planning Commission; 1-1-2015 NITI Aayog.

Concept: The African National Congress (founded 1912) led the struggle against apartheid; Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black President in 1994.

1. Banned 1960–90; armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (1961).
2. Freedom Charter adopted in 1955.

Short trick: ANC – Mandela – 1994.

Concept: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published in 1776; Book IV attacks the ‘mercantile system’.

1. 1776 is also the year of the American Declaration of Independence.
2. 1676 is before Smith’s birth (1723); 1876 after his death (1790).

Short trick: 1776 – Wealth of Nations + American Independence.

Concept: The Cold War was a ‘war of nerves’ (Hindi snayu yuddh) – a struggle of pressure, propaganda and threats short of actual fighting. In Indian textbooks this description is attributed to US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the diplomat of ‘brinkmanship’.

1. Walter Lippmann was a journalist who popularised the term ‘Cold War’ (1947), not a diplomat.
2. Nehru and Tito led non-alignment, standing outside the Cold War blocs.

Short trick: Dulles – brinkmanship – war of nerves.

Concept: Herbert Butterfield, critic of the ‘Whig interpretation of history’, insisted that the historian must study the past for its own sake, impartially – objectivity is the very language of history.

1. Croce – ‘All history is contemporary history’ (subjective stress).
2. E. H. Carr – objectivity is only relative; history is a dialogue between historian and facts.

Short trick: Butterfield = anti-Whig, pro-objectivity.

Concept: The Molotov–Ribbentrop (Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression) Pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939.

1. Its secret protocol divided Poland and Eastern Europe.
2. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 – the start of WWII.

Short trick: 23 Aug pact → 1 Sept invasion of Poland.

Concept: E. H. Carr, in What is History? (1961), defined history as ‘a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past’.

1. G. R. Elton (The Practice of History) opposed Carr’s relativism.
2. G. J. Renier wrote History: Its Purpose and Method; W. H. Walsh wrote on philosophy of history.

Short trick: Carr = ‘unending dialogue’.

Concept: After the Muzaffarpur bomb (1908), police raided the Maniktala garden house; in the resulting Alipore (Maniktala) Bomb Conspiracy Case Aurobindo Ghosh was named the principal accused.

1. Defended by C. R. Das, Aurobindo was acquitted (1909); Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Ullaskar Dutt were sentenced.
2. Prafulla Chaki had already died (shot himself) in 1908; B. K. Dutt belongs to 1929.

Short trick: Maniktala garden → Alipore case → Aurobindo (C. R. Das defended).

Concept: Mussolini founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (‘Italian League/Bands of Combat’) in Milan on 23 March 1919 – the nucleus of the Fascist Party (1921).

1. After the March on Rome (1922) he became Prime Minister.
2. Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919; Karl Lueger, Vienna’s mayor, died in 1910.

Short trick: Fasci di Combattimento = combat league = Mussolini, 1919.

Concept: Feudalism declined because royal power increased (rise of strong national monarchies), not decreased.

1. Black Death (1348) – labour shortage freed serfs.
2. Gunpowder – castles and knights became obsolete.
3. Crusades – nobles died or sold lands; trade and towns revived.
4. A weak king was the very condition in which feudalism flourished.

Short trick: Strong king = weak feudal lords.