CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 47 of 120

Correct — B, Annie Besant. Besant founded the school at Benaras in July 1898, with Dr Arthur Richardson, a science graduate from England, as its first principal. Her purpose was a school that would teach Western science and English alongside Hindu religious instruction, which fitted the Theosophical Society's programme of reviving Indian traditions rather than displacing them. She later dedicated the institution to Madan Mohan Malaviya, and it became the nucleus of Banaras Hindu University when the University was established in 1916. That is the whole content of the question: Besant built the school, Malaviya built the University on it, and the paper is testing whether a candidate can keep the two acts apart.

• (a)Madan Mohan Malaviya — The near-miss, and the reason the question is asked. Malaviya founded Banaras Hindu University in 1916 and is rightly remembered as its maker — but the Central Hindu School that formed its nucleus was Besant's, and she handed it to him.
• (c)Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar — Vidyasagar's educational work belongs to Bengal a generation earlier — the Sanskrit College, the campaign for widow remarriage, and the girls' school later known as the Bethune Female School, of which he was Secretary.
• (d)Madame H.P. Blavatsky — Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875 and died in 1891, seven years before the Central Hindu School was founded. Besant, not Blavatsky, is the Theosophist associated with Indian educational and political work.

Annie Besant came to India in 1893 as a Theosophist and stayed to become one of the most visible figures in Indian public life. She built the Central Hindu School and College at Benaras, launched the Home Rule League in September 1916 and the newspaper New India, was interned by the Madras government in 1917, and presided over the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress later that year — the first woman to be Congress President. Her educational work and her political work came from the same conviction, that Indians should govern and educate themselves within their own cultural tradition.

Founder questions are decided by matching a person to a single act, and the danger here is that both Besant and Malaviya are genuinely connected to Benaras. The clean split is school in 1898 and university in 1916, one name to each. A second confusion the paper sets up is between Besant and Blavatsky: Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society, Besant joined it and led it in India, so a question about the Society's founding and a question about Indian institutions have different answers. It is worth adding that Banaras Hindu University was created by a statute, the Banaras Hindu University Act of 1915, which came into effect in 1916 — so the University's foundation is an Act of the Imperial Legislative Council, while the school's foundation was a private act of a single woman with a borrowed building and one English principal.

• Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu School at Benaras in July 1898, with Dr Arthur Richardson as its principal.
• The school was dedicated by Besant to Madan Mohan Malaviya and became the nucleus of Banaras Hindu University, established in 1916.
• The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott; Besant joined later and led its Indian work from Adyar.
• Besant announced the formation of her Home Rule League in September 1916 and was interned by the Madras government in 1917.
• She presided over the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1917, the first woman to hold the office.

• Answering Malaviya because he founded the University; the school that became its nucleus was Besant's.
• Swapping Besant for Blavatsky on anything Theosophical; Blavatsky founded the Society, Besant led its Indian work and died in 1933.
• Placing Vidyasagar's educational work in northern India; it belongs to Bengal and to the mid-nineteenth century.

Asked as a founder-to-institution match, often with a second name in the options who founded the successor institution.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Annie Besant became the first woman President of the Indian National Congress at which session?

  • (a)Lucknow, 1916
  • (b)Calcutta, 1917
  • (c)Amritsar, 1919
  • (d)Nagpur, 1920

  Answer(b) Calcutta, 1917 — presided over by Besant in the year the Madras government interned her.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Theosophical Society, whose Indian headquarters were established at Adyar near Madras, was founded in 1875 in New York by

  • (a)Annie Besant and Arthur Richardson
  • (b)H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott
  • (c)Dayanand Saraswati and Keshab Chandra Sen
  • (d)Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita

  Answer(b) H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott — Annie Besant joined the Society afterwards and led its work in India.