BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 60 of 142

Correct — D, None of the above. Bihar's founding year is 1912, and 1912 is not on this list. On 22 March 1912 the Bihar and Orissa divisions were separated from the Bengal Presidency to form the Province of Bihar and Orissa, and the new province came into being on 1 April 1912 with Patna as its capital. That is the date the State itself observes: Bihar Diwas falls on 22 March every year and is a public holiday in the State, marking the separation from the Bengal Presidency on 22 March 1912. The 69th CCE of September 2023 asked the same fact in the opposite frame — 'when was Bihar first separated from the Bengal Presidency' — and keyed 1912 outright. Every other date in Bihar's constitutional history is likewise absent from these options: the province was partitioned into separate Bihar and Orissa provinces on 1 April 1936; Bihar became a State of the Indian Union under the Constitution in 1950; and the southern divisions of Chota Nagpur and Santhal Pargana left to form Jharkhand on 15 November 2000. Since not one of the three printed years corresponds to any event in the making of Bihar, the escape option is not an evasion here — it is the only truthful answer, and this is exactly the situation in which a 'None of the above' option earns its place.

• (a)1906 — A date-shaped decoy with no bearing on Bihar's formation. 1906 is remembered in Indian history for the founding of the All-India Muslim League at Dhaka and for the Calcutta session of the Congress that adopted the Swadeshi, Boycott, Swaraj and National Education resolutions. Nothing in the administrative history of Bihar happened in that year — the province was still six years away.
• (b)1915 — The weakest of the three, and pure filler: no step in the creation, partition or reorganisation of Bihar falls in 1915. By then the Province of Bihar and Orissa had already been running for three years from Patna, and it would run for another twenty-one before Orissa was separated in 1936.
• (c)1911 — The trap the question is built around, and the one a well-prepared candidate is most likely to fall into. At the Delhi Durbar of December 1911 the annulment of the 1905 Partition of Bengal was announced, along with the transfer of the capital to Delhi and the intention to create a new province out of Bihar and Orissa. But an announcement is not a province: nothing was constituted in 1911, and the separation took effect on 22 March 1912 with the province beginning work on 1 April 1912.

Bihar's existence as a separate unit is a by-product of the Partition of Bengal. Curzon divided Bengal on 16 October 1905, and the Bengal Presidency as it then stood was an administrative monster — Bengal proper, Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur under one government, with Bihari and Oriya speakers governed from Calcutta in a Bengali-dominated administration. The Swadeshi agitation against the partition ran for six years and forced its annulment, announced at the Delhi Durbar of December 1911. When Bengal was reunited, the non-Bengali tracts had to go somewhere, and the government took the opportunity to constitute Bihar and Orissa as a province in its own right from 22 March 1912, with Patna as capital and Cuttack as the winter seat. There had also been a distinct Bihari campaign for separation behind it — a movement for a province where Hindi and the Bihari languages, not Bengali, would be the language of administration and employment. The province lasted twenty-four years before Orissa was hived off on 1 April 1936, leaving Bihar Province with roughly the shape it kept until 2000.

The discipline this question tests is the difference between an announcement and an enactment, and BPSC has used the same distinction more than once. In every such pair the exam expects the year of legal effect: for Bihar, 1911 is when the intention was proclaimed at a durbar and 1912 is when the province came into existence. Since 1912 is not offered, the mechanics of answering are simple — verify that none of the three dates matches an actual event, then take the escape. That verification matters, because the standing rule on 'None of the above' is that it may be chosen only when every other option can be shown to fail, and here they visibly do: 1906 belongs to the Muslim League and the Calcutta Congress, 1915 to nothing in Bihar's story at all, and 1911 to a proclamation rather than a province. Carry the whole ladder of dates into the hall: 1905 partition, 1911 annulment announced, 22 March 1912 Bihar and Orissa formed, 1 April 1936 Orissa separated, 1950 State of the Union, 15 November 2000 Jharkhand separated.

• On 22 March 1912 the Bihar and Orissa divisions were separated from the Bengal Presidency to form the Province of Bihar and Orissa; the province began functioning on 1 April 1912 with Patna as capital (Cuttack was the winter seat).
• Bihar Diwas is observed on 22 March each year and is a public holiday in the State; it marks that 1912 separation and has been celebrated on a large scale by the State government since 22 March 2010.
• The Delhi Durbar of December 1911 only announced the annulment of the 1905 Partition of Bengal and the intended new province — nothing was constituted that year.
• The Province of Bihar and Orissa was partitioned on 1 April 1936 into the separate provinces of Bihar and Orissa.
• Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar's Chota Nagpur and Santhal Pargana divisions on 15 November 2000 under the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000.

• Choosing 1911 because the Delhi Durbar is the famous event. The Durbar announced the intention; the province was constituted on 22 March 1912.
• Confusing the two 1912 dates. 22 March 1912 is the separation and the date Bihar Diwas marks; 1 April 1912 is when the new province started functioning.
• Refusing an escape option on principle. 'None of the above' is correct here precisely because none of the three printed years matches any event in the formation of Bihar.

BPSC has asked this fact in both directions across editions — the 69th CCE of September 2023 gave 1912 among the options and keyed it, while this paper removes 1912 altogether and tests whether a candidate will take the escape rather than settle for the nearest plausible year. UPSC never asks when a State was formed; it asks about the event that produced it, such as what happened on 16 October 1905 or where the Partition of Bengal sits in a sequence of colonial measures.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Bihar Diwas is observed every year on

  • (a)1 April
  • (b)22 March
  • (c)15 November
  • (d)26 January

  Answer(b) 22 March — marking the separation of Bihar and Orissa from the Bengal Presidency on 22 March 1912. 1 April 1912 is when the new province began functioning, and 15 November 2000 is Jharkhand's foundation day.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Province of Bihar and Orissa was partitioned into the separate provinces of Bihar and Orissa in

  • (a)1919
  • (b)1930
  • (c)1936
  • (d)1947

  Answer(c) 1936 — the partition took effect on 1 April 1936, twenty-four years after the province was created.