CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 44 of 120

Correct — D, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India, set up in 1893, was the second of the two bodies Sir Syed created to keep Muslims and loyalist landholders away from the Congress and firmly attached to the British connection. The first was the United Patriotic Association, which he founded at Aligarh in 1888 with Raja Shiv Prasad of Benares to promote political co-operation with the British. The Defence Association carried on the same argument in the same city, run from the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College he had founded at Aligarh in 1875, and it belongs to the last phase of a long public life that ran from 1817 to 1898.

• (a)Auckland Colvin — A British administrator, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, who exchanged public letters with Sir Syed about the Congress. He was a correspondent in the argument, not the founder of an Indian association.
• (b)Badruddin Tyabji — On the opposite side. Tyabji was the third president of the Indian National Congress, in 1887, and argued that Muslims should join the Congress rather than stand apart from it.
• (c)Theodore Beck — The strongest distractor, and a name genuinely tied to this story — Beck was the Englishman Sir Syed invited to be the first principal of the Aligarh college, and he worked closely with the Association. He was its officer and organiser, not the founder in whose name it was set up.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's project after 1857 had two halves. One was educational: modern, English-medium instruction for Muslims, embodied in the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College founded at Aligarh in 1875, which became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. The other was political: a settled loyalty to British rule and a case that representative institutions on the British model would leave Muslims permanently outnumbered. The associations of 1888 and 1893 were the instruments of that second half.

Both of the tempting wrong answers are real participants, which is what makes the item work. Theodore Beck ran the college and was deeply involved in the Association; Auckland Colvin was the official Sir Syed was arguing with. The key credits the founding to Sir Syed himself, and the 1888 body gives the pattern — Sir Syed founds, an English colleague administers. Note honestly that historians differ on how much of the 1893 initiative was Beck's; the printed key here is not in doubt, but the distractor is not a foolish one. The paper's spelling, Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental, is one of several forms in use; Muhammadan and Mohammadan both appear in the sources.

• Syed Ahmad Khan lived from 17 October 1817 to 27 March 1898.
• He founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh on 24 May 1875, raised to college status in 1877 and to Aligarh Muslim University in 1920.
• He established the United Patriotic Association at Aligarh in 1888 with Raja Shiv Prasad of Benares, to promote political co-operation with the British.
• The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India followed in 1893.
• Theodore Beck was the Englishman Sir Syed invited as the college's first principal and was closely associated with the Association.

• Crediting Theodore Beck with founding the Association because he ran the college and served it as an officer.
• Confusing the United Patriotic Association of 1888 with the Defence Association of 1893.
• Dating the Muslim League to Sir Syed's lifetime; it was founded in 1906, eight years after his death.

As a founder-to-organisation pick, as a date question on Aligarh institutions, or inside a matching item on colonial-era associations.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh was raised to the status of a university in which year?

  • (a)1875
  • (b)1877
  • (c)1906
  • (d)1920

  Answer(d) 1920 — it began as a school in 1875, became a college in 1877 and Aligarh Muslim University in 1920.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who among the following presided over the session of the Indian National Congress in 1887, becoming its first Muslim president?

  • (a)Syed Ahmad Khan
  • (b)Badruddin Tyabji
  • (c)Rahimtullah Sayani
  • (d)Muhammad Ali Jinnah

  Answer(b) Badruddin Tyabji — a Bombay lawyer who urged Muslims to work within the Congress.