Daily Static Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
- 1. Indigo Revolt (Nil Darpan) 2. Deccan Riots 3. Champaran Satyagraha 4. Tebhaga Movement
The correct chronological order is Indigo Revolt, Deccan Riots, Champaran Satyagraha, then Tebhaga Movement. The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60 saw Bengali cultivators rise against forced indigo cultivation under European planters, with Dinabandhu Mitra's Nil Darpan documenting their plight, the Deccan Riots of 1875 were a peasant uprising in Pune and Ahmednagar districts against moneylenders, triggered by the post-American Civil War cotton boom collapse and exploitative debt bondage, the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 was Gandhi's first civil disobedience experiment in India against the tinkathia system, and the Tebhaga Movement of 1946-47 saw Bengal sharecroppers demand two-thirds of the harvest, led by the All India Kisan Sabha with strong CPI involvement.
The Santhal Hul, led by brothers Sido and Kanhu Murmu, targeted diku, or outsider, moneylenders, traders, zamindars, and the British revenue machinery that had systematically alienated Santhal land and labour, directly leading to the creation of Santhal Parganas as a separate administrative district in 1855. Option (a) confuses this with Birsa Munda's Ulgulan, or Munda Rebellion, of 1899-1900, a different tribe and movement nearly half a century later, a classic UPSC trap, and option (c) wrongly links it to the Tana Bhagat movement, a separate early 20th-century Oraon tribal reform movement unrelated to the Santhal Hul. Option (d) overstates the outcome, since the rebellion was militarily suppressed and while Santhal Parganas was created as a scheduled district, the zamindari system itself was not abolished.
Statement 2: The Bengal government partially conceded the Tebhaga demands by passing the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Regulation Act.
Statement 2 is correct, while Statement 1 is wrong. The Bengal government responded with the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Regulation Act (1947), partially conceding the two-thirds, or tebhaga, share demand, though enforcement remained patchy and limited in practice. The Tebhaga Movement is actually specifically noted for the prominent and active participation of women, particularly in North Bengal, who marched carrying paddy to their own threshing floors, openly defying landlord authority, and this women's mass mobilisation is a celebrated and historically documented feature of the movement that UPSC setters specifically target with statements like the one given.
The Kol Uprising (1831-32) in Chota Nagpur is incorrectly matched, since it was actually led by Buddhu Bhagat, Joa Bhagat, and Madara Mahato, not Tantia Tope, who was instead a commander in the Revolt of 1857, a completely different event, era, and region, making this a deliberate cross-period placement trap. Birsa Munda correctly led the Ulgulan of 1899-1900, demanding Munda Raj and an end to colonial land alienation in Chota Nagpur, Alluri Sitarama Raju correctly led the Rampa Rebellion in the Agency tracts of Andhra Pradesh, combining tribal grievances with Gandhian and revolutionary nationalist ideology, and Sido and Kanhu Murmu correctly led the Santhal Hul, the most significant pre-1857 tribal uprising in eastern India.
Reason (R): It was Gandhi's first civil disobedience experiment on Indian soil — he successfully secured the abolition of the tinkathia system, demonstrating that non-violent organised resistance could win concrete economic victories for India's peasantry.
Both A and R are correct, and R directly explains A. Champaran (1917) is universally regarded as Gandhi's first major satyagraha success in India, transforming him from a returning South Africa activist into a credible mass leader capable of linking peasant grievances to the broader freedom movement, and the tinkathia system, forcing farmers to cultivate indigo on 3/20th of their holdings at fixed prices, was investigated by a government-appointed committee that included Gandhi and was subsequently abolished. Winning a concrete economic victory through organised non-violence simultaneously validated Gandhi's method and established his mass credibility, making R the direct causal explanation for the turning point described in A.
