CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 70 of 120

Correct — D, 1, 2 and 3. Every one of the three belongs to 1916, which is what makes the year worth remembering as a single block. The Congress met at Lucknow in December 1916, and that session ended the split of Surat: the Extremists led by Tilak were readmitted and the party functioned as one organisation again. At the same joint sitting the Congress and the All-India Muslim League concluded the Lucknow Pact, under which the Congress accepted separate electorates and weighted representation for Muslims in the provincial councils in return for a common demand for self-government — Tilak negotiating for the Congress and Muhammad Ali Jinnah taking a leading part for the League. And the Home Rule agitation was launched the same year in two Leagues rather than one: Tilak set up the Indian Home Rule League at the Bombay provincial conference at Belgaum in April 1916, and Annie Besant announced the All India Home Rule League from Adyar in Madras in September 1916. Three developments, one year, so nothing on the list is left out.

• (a)1 and 3 only — Leaves out the Congress-League pact, which was concluded at that very Lucknow session in December 1916 and is the reason the session is remembered at all.
• (b)2 and 3 only — Leaves out the Lucknow session itself, which is where the pact was signed and where the Congress reunited after nine years of division.
• (c)1 and 2 only — Leaves out the Home Rule Leagues. Both of them were founded in 1916 — Tilak's in April at Belgaum, Besant's in September at Adyar — and they gave the year its political energy.

1916 is the hinge year of the moderate-extremist phase. The Congress had split at Surat in 1907 and had been the weaker for it; Tilak returned from his Mandalay imprisonment in 1914 and Annie Besant threw the Theosophical network behind Indian self-government. To avoid competing, the two Home Rule Leagues divided the country between them: Tilak's worked Maharashtra excluding Bombay city, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces and Berar, while Besant's took the rest of India. Membership grew from around 1,400 in Tilak's League in April 1916 to tens of thousands within a year.

The safest way to handle a which-of-these-belong-to-year-X item is to test each entry separately rather than to look for the pattern the options suggest. Here all three survive the test, so the all-of-them option is the answer — and candidates who distrust an all-of-them option on principle are the ones this question catches. Two extra anchors help. The Lucknow session and the Lucknow Pact are the same event seen from two sides, so an option that keeps one and drops the other is almost always wrong. And the Home Rule Leagues are a pair, not a single body, founded five months apart in the same year. On the later history: Besant's All India Home Rule League was revived by Gandhi in 1920 and renamed the Swarajya Sabha.

• The Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress met in December 1916 and readmitted the Extremists, ending the Surat split of 1907.
• The Lucknow Pact was agreed at a joint sitting of the Congress and the All-India Muslim League at Lucknow in December 1916; the Congress accepted separate electorates in exchange for a joint demand for self-government.
• Tilak founded the Indian Home Rule League at the Bombay provincial conference at Belgaum in April 1916.
• Annie Besant announced the All India Home Rule League at Adyar, Madras, in September 1916.
• The two Leagues divided their territory by agreement: Tilak's took Maharashtra outside Bombay city, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces and Berar; Besant's took the rest of India.

• Assuming a single Home Rule League; there were two, founded five months apart in 1916.
• Separating the Lucknow session from the Lucknow Pact; the pact was concluded at that session.
• Dating Tilak's League to Poona or Bombay city; it was set up at the provincial conference at Belgaum, and Bombay city was left to Besant's League by agreement.

As a year-block item like this one, as a match between each Home Rule League and its founder or its territory, or as a single question on what the Lucknow Pact conceded.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Tilak's Indian Home Rule League was founded in April 1916 at

  • (a)Poona
  • (b)Belgaum
  • (c)Adyar
  • (d)Nagpur

  Answer(b) Belgaum — at the Bombay provincial conference; Annie Besant's League was announced from Adyar in September 1916.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Lucknow Pact of 1916, the Indian National Congress accepted

  • (a)the partition of Bengal
  • (b)separate electorates for Muslims
  • (c)dominion status as the final goal
  • (d)the abolition of the Legislative Councils

  Answer(b) separate electorates for Muslims — in return for a joint Congress-League demand for self-government.