Themes in World History

The Second Round Table Conference took place on 7th September 1931. The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Movement, was a Civil Disobedience Movement launched by Gandhi Ji on 8th August 1942. The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny was a rebellion launched on February 18, 1946, by seamen on the HMIS Talwar. Hence, the correct chronological sequence of the above events is 3-2-1.

Source: NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History 3

Statement 1 and 2 are correct. The events between May 1916 to January 1919 give us the background of the establishment of the Satyagraha Sabha in Bombay under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The newly started Home League was the leading force in all these events, which prepared the ground for the April Satyagraha. The Satyagraha Sabha was organised with Mr. Gandhi as President, Mr. Horniman as Vice-President, and the leading Home Rulers on the Committee.

Simon Commission was dispatched to India in 1928 way after Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Source Attribution: NCERT

Alexander Rea, A. H. Longhurst, Robert Sewell, James Burgess and Walter Elliot were associated with archaeological excavations.

Alexander Rea was a British archaeologist who worked mainly in South British India. He is known for unearthing a sarcophagus from the hillocks of Pallavaram in Tamil Nadu.

Albert Henry Longhurst was a British archaeologist and art historian, working in India and Ceylon. Longhurst was the brother-in-law of Sir John Marshall, the Director-General of the Archaeology Survey of India (1902-1928). In October 1913 he was appointed the Superintendent of the Southern Circle, Archaeological Survey of India. From 1927 to 1931 he was in charge of the systematic digging of Nagarjunakonda. Longhurst served as the Archaeological Commissioner, Archaeological Survey of Ceylon between 1934 and 1940, mainly working at Polonnaruwa but also at Anuradhapura and Sigiriya, concentrating more on conservation/restoration rather than excavation.

Robert Sewell worked in the civil service of the Madras Presidency during the period of colonial rule in India. He was Keeper of the Madras Record Office. Sewell's specialism was the Vijayanagara Empire, about which he authored A Forgotten Empire Vijayanagar: A Contribution to the History of India (1900). Sewell undertook archaeological work, including at the Buddhist stupa at Amaravati, which had already been largely destroyed prior to his arrival. The site had previously been surveyed by Colin Mackenzie and Walter Elliot.

In 1854, Walter Elliot, the commissioner of Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), visited Amaravati and collected several sculpture panels and took them away to Madras. (These came to be called the Elliot marbles after him.) He also discovered the remains of the western gateway and came to the conclusion that the structure at Amaravati was one of the largest and most magnificent Buddhist stupas ever built.

Source Citation: NCERT: Themes in Indian History Part 1

In the British territories in the south, there was a move away from the idea of Permanent Settlement. The new system that was devised came to be known as the ryotwar (or ryotwari). It was initially tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Reed in some of the areas that were taken over by the Company after the wars with Tipu Sultan. This system was subsequently developed by Thomas Munro and gradually extended all over south India. Lord Cornwallis was associated with the Zamindari/Permanent Settlement.

Source: NCERT: Our Pasts - Ruling the Countryside

The Government of India Act of 1919 was enacted to satisfy the people of India to some extent. The salient features of the Act were as follows:

• Preamble: The Act provided for a Preamble that laid down the basic principles and policies upon which it was based. According to it, the policy of the British Parliament was –
1. to provide for the increasing association of Indians in every branch of Indian administration,
2. to develop self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in British India as an integral part of the empire;
3. accordingly, the Preamble suggested for a decentralised unitary form of government.

The Act divided the functions of government into two categories: central and provincial. The provincial subjects were further subdivided into transferred and reserved. Thus, in the provinces, a new form of government, dyarchy, was introduced. Dyarchy means dual set of governments, e.g. accountable and non-accountable. In the transferred subjects, the Governors were to be assisted by the ministers responsible to the legislature, while in the reserved subjects, the Governors were to be advised by the councillors who were not accountable to the legislature.

Source: NCERT: Textbook Chapter 1 to 8 Indian Constitution and Administration Class 11