Which one of the following statements about the religious policies of the Mughal kings is NOT correct?
- (a)The tax on pilgrimage was abolished in 1563, and the jizya tax on non-Muslim Subjects was abolished in 1564
- (b)Akbar issues instructions to his officers to follow the policy of religious toleration
- (c)Not all Mughal emperors gave grants for the building and maintenance of places of worship
- (d)Grants were issued for the repair of a number of temples in the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, after they had been destroyed during war
Correct — C, Not all Mughal emperors gave grants for the building and maintenance of places of worship. The item asks for the statement that is NOT correct, and this is it, because the textbook position is the opposite: all the Mughal emperors gave grants to support the building and maintenance of places of worship. Options (a), (b) and (d) each restate a settled fact — Akbar removed the pilgrimage tax in 1563 and the jizya in 1564; he issued instructions to his officers to follow a policy of religious toleration; and grants were issued for the repair of temples in the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb after those temples had been destroyed during war. Option (c) inverts that record and is therefore the answer.
- (a)The tax on pilgrimage was abolished in 1563, and the jizya tax on non-Muslim Subjects was abolished in 1564 — Both dates are correct as taught, and the sequence — pilgrimage tax first, jizya the following year — is the detail examiners test. The statement is correct, so it cannot be the answer to a NOT-correct item.
- (b)Akbar issues instructions to his officers to follow the policy of religious toleration — This is the administrative face of sulh-i kul and is well attested in the Akbar Nama. The printed tense is loose but the content is correct.
- (d)Grants were issued for the repair of a number of temples in the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, after they had been destroyed during war — Correct as stated. Grants of this kind under both emperors are documented, which is what makes the sweeping claim in option (c) fail.
Mughal religious policy is examined through a small set of concrete acts rather than through generalisations: the taxes remitted and reimposed, the grants recorded, and the instructions issued to officers. Akbar's abolition of the pilgrimage tax and the jizya, Aurangzeb's reimposition of the jizya in 1679, and the madad-i maash grants made to temples, mosques, dargahs and Sikh and Jain establishments are the anchors. A statement that begins 'not all emperors' or 'no emperor' is nearly always the inserted falsehood.
Read the four options as three facts and one inversion, because that is how a NOT-correct item is built. Two of them carry dates, which are easy to check; option (d) carries named reigns, also checkable. Option (c) alone carries no date, no name and no instance — a general negative, which is the shape of the planted statement. On the wider history, the record of the later reigns is genuinely mixed: Aurangzeb's reign includes both the grants described here and well-known demolitions, at Banaras in 1669 and Mathura in 1670. The exam is testing the grant record, and a card must not let the answer imply that nothing else happened.
- The pilgrimage tax was abolished in 1563 and the jizya on non-Muslim subjects in 1564.
- Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya in 1679, reversing Akbar's remission.
- Grants for the repair of temples are recorded in the reigns of both Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
- Revenue-free grants of this kind were made under the madad-i maash category to institutions of several faiths.
- Akbar instructed his officers to follow a policy of religious toleration, the administrative expression of sulh-i kul.
In a NOT-correct item the planted statement is usually the one you cannot attach a date or an instance to.
- Answering from a general impression of Aurangzeb rather than from the specific claim each option makes.
- Reversing the order of 1563 and 1564 for the two taxes.
- Missing the word NOT and picking the statement that is most obviously true.
Asked as a NOT-correct item in which three options are textbook sentences and the fourth is the same textbook sentence turned inside out.
Which one of the following statements about the Ain-i-Akbari is not correct?
- (a) It was written by Abu'l Fazl.
- (b) It is a part of a larger work called Akbar Nama.
- (c) It describes the Mughal Empire as having a diverse population and a composite culture.
- (d) It was later revised by Sadullah Khan on the orders of Shah Jahan.
Answer(d) It was later revised by Sadullah Khan on the orders of Shah Jahan.
The same NOT-correct shape applied to the source rather than to the policy. Abu'l Fazl's Ain-i Akbari is the text most of the claims in this item rest on, and its option (c) — that the work describes a diverse population and a composite culture — is the literary face of the patronage record being generalised about here.
Akbar issued a Farman in 1598 permitting in the city of Cambay (Khambat), Gujarat, the construction of a
- (a) Temple
- (b) Church
- (c) Synagogue
- (d) Jain Upashraya
Answer(b) Church
One documented instance of the patronage this item generalises about — an imperial order allowing a church in a Gujarati port, issued by the emperor whose tax remissions options (a) and (b) describe.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In which year did Aurangzeb reimpose the jizya on non-Muslim subjects?
- (a)1658
- (b)1669
- (c)1679
- (d)1707
Answer(c) 1679 — reversing the remission Akbar had made in 1564.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Revenue-free land grants made by Mughal rulers for the support of religious and learned men were known as
- (a)jagir
- (b)madad-i maash
- (c)watan jagir
- (d)khalisa
Answer(b) madad-i maash — grants of this kind supported institutions of several faiths.