BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 46 of 143

Correct — A, I – b, II – c, III – d, IV – a. Take the four organisations in turn. The Khaksars were the Khaksar Tehrik, raised in 1931 by Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi at Ichhra near Lahore — a uniformed volunteer movement whose members drilled in khaki carrying a spade, so I pairs with b. The Socialist Party in Indian nationalist history begins with the Congress Socialist Party, formed at Patna in 1934 as a socialist bloc working inside the Congress, with Acharya Narendra Deva as its president and Jayaprakash Narayan as its general secretary and driving organiser; of the four names offered, Jayaprakash Narayan is the only socialist, so II pairs with c. The Independent Labour Party was founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1936 to contest the provincial elections held under the Government of India Act, 1935; it was active in the Bombay Presidency and the Central Provinces and was reorganised in 1942, together with the Madras Scheduled Castes Federation, into the All India Scheduled Castes Federation. So III pairs with d. The All India Forward Bloc was founded by Subhas Chandra Bose on 3 May 1939, days after he resigned the Congress presidency at the end of April that year, making IV pair with a. The full set is I – b, II – c, III – d, IV – a, which is option (a). In practice you never need all four legs: Mashriqi is unmistakable with the Khaksars, and that alone reduces the field to options (a) and (b), after which Bose with the Forward Bloc — the single best-known pairing in the whole list — settles it, because option (b) hands the Forward Bloc to Jayaprakash Narayan.

• (b)I – b, II – d, III – a, IV – c — Gets the Khaksars right and then scrambles the remaining three completely: it makes Ambedkar the founder of the Socialist Party, Bose the founder of the Independent Labour Party and Jayaprakash Narayan the founder of the Forward Bloc. It is the trap for a candidate who recognises only Mashriqi and then marks the first option that begins correctly.
• (c)I – d, II – c, III – b, IV – a — Correct on the two political anchors — Jayaprakash Narayan with the Socialist Party and Bose with the Forward Bloc — but it swaps the other two, making Ambedkar the founder of the Khaksars and Mashriqi the founder of the Independent Labour Party. The word 'Labour' in a party's name is doing the misleading here.
• (d)I – c, II – d, III – a, IV – b — Wrong on all four legs. It gives the Khaksars to Jayaprakash Narayan, the Socialist Party to Ambedkar, the Independent Labour Party to Bose and the Forward Bloc to Mashriqi. Any one of the anchors — Mashriqi with the Khaksars or Bose with the Forward Bloc — eliminates it immediately.

The 1930s produced a crowd of new political organisations outside, or on the edge of, the Congress, and the exam tests whether you can attach each to the right founder. Four distinct impulses are represented in this list. The Khaksar Tehrik was a paramilitary volunteer movement of the kind that appeared across the world in that decade — khaki uniform, drill, discipline, a spade as its emblem — founded by Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi in 1931. The Congress Socialist Party of 1934 was an attempt by younger Congressmen, radicalised by the collapse of the Civil Disobedience Movement and by the Depression, to give the national movement an economic programme without leaving the Congress. The Independent Labour Party of 1936 was Ambedkar's vehicle for contesting the new provincial legislatures created by the Government of India Act, 1935, on a platform that combined labour with the interests of the depressed classes. The All India Forward Bloc of 1939 was Bose's answer to losing the argument inside the Congress, formed as a left consolidation after his resignation from its presidency. Each therefore belongs to a different strand — communal-paramilitary, socialist, anti-caste-labour and militant-nationalist.

Matching questions are won by anchors, not by working through every leg. Scan the list for the pairing you are surest of, use it to delete options, and repeat. Here the two anchors are Mashriqi with the Khaksars and Bose with the Forward Bloc, and no option other than (a) carries both. That is a two-step solution to a four-part question. Notice also the wording trap in leg III: 'Independent Labour Party' sounds as though it should belong to a trade unionist or a socialist, which is why options (b) and (d) can plausibly hand it to Bose — but it is Ambedkar's, and remembering that it later became the Scheduled Castes Federation fixes it permanently. One honest caveat on leg II: the party founded in 1934 was the Congress Socialist Party, and Acharya Narendra Deva was its first president, so 'Socialist Party' plus 'founder' is loose phrasing on the Commission's part. Within this option set it makes no difference, because Jayaprakash Narayan is the only socialist among the four names — but the same looseness is exactly what UPSC exploited in 2024 when it keyed 'Socialist Party — C. Rajagopalachari' as an incorrect pair.

• Khaksar Tehrik — founded in 1931 by Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi at Ichhra near Lahore; a uniformed volunteer movement whose members carried a spade, Mashriqi died at Lahore on 27 August 1963
• Congress Socialist Party — formed at Patna in 1934 with Acharya Narendra Deva as president and Jayaprakash Narayan as general secretary; it functioned as a socialist bloc inside the Congress and left it in 1948
• Independent Labour Party — founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1936 to contest the provincial elections under the Government of India Act, 1935; active in the Bombay Presidency and the Central Provinces, and reorganised with the Madras Scheduled Castes Federation into the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942
• All India Forward Bloc — founded by Subhas Chandra Bose on 3 May 1939, days after he resigned the Congress presidency at the end of April 1939
• The Bihar connection runs through leg II: the Congress Socialist Party was founded at Patna, and Jayaprakash Narayan, born at Sitabdiara on the Bihar–Uttar Pradesh border, is the state's foremost socialist figure

• Assigning the Independent Labour Party to a trade unionist or socialist because of its name; it is Ambedkar's party
• Treating 'Socialist Party' and 'Congress Socialist Party' as separate entities with separate founders — the 1934 body is the ancestor of the later Socialist Party
• Working every leg of a matching question in order instead of using the pairing you are surest of to eliminate options first

BPSC sets this area as a four-by-four match and expects rapid recall of founder-to-organisation pairs, with the Bihar-linked entry — here the Congress Socialist Party — usually somewhere in the list. UPSC prefers the same content in a counting format: it gives you four 'party — leader' pairs and asks how many are correctly matched, which punishes half-knowledge much harder because you cannot solve it with a single anchor.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Congress Socialist Party was founded in 1934 at which city ?

  • (a)Bombay
  • (b)Patna
  • (c)Lahore
  • (d)Nagpur

  Answer(b) Patna — the Congress Socialist Party was formed there in 1934, with Acharya Narendra Deva as president and Jayaprakash Narayan as general secretary.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Independent Labour Party founded in 1936 was later reorganised into which organisation ?

  • (a)The All India Forward Bloc
  • (b)The All India Scheduled Castes Federation
  • (c)The Peasants and Workers Party of India
  • (d)The Hind Mazdoor Sabha

  Answer(b) The All India Scheduled Castes Federation — formed in 1942 by reorganising Ambedkar's Independent Labour Party together with the Madras Scheduled Castes Federation.