Who among the following is the author of the book, Bandi Jivan?
- (a)Rash Behari Bose
- (b)Veer Savarkar
- (c)Aruna Asaf Ali
- (d)Sachindranath Sanyal
Correct — D, Sachindranath Sanyal. Bandi Jivan, or A Life of Captivity, was written by Sachindra Nath Sanyal and published in 1922. He wrote it in Bengali while serving a life sentence in the Cellular Jail at Port Blair, transported there for his part in the Ghadar conspiracy of 1915. The book became something close to a recruiting text for the next generation of revolutionaries — Bhagat Singh's circle read it — because it argued the revolutionary case in the voice of a man who had already paid for holding it. Sanyal's career explains why he, of the four names, is the one who could have written it. He set up a branch of the Anushilan Samiti at Patna in 1913, was released from the Andamans under the amnesty of 1920, and in October 1924 was a founder of the Hindustan Republican Association at Kanpur and a co-author of its manifesto. The Kakori train action of 1925 sent him back to prison, this time at Naini, and he died of tuberculosis in Gorakhpur jail on 7 February 1942 — the only Indian to have been transported to the Cellular Jail twice.
- (a)Rash Behari Bose — A genuine revolutionary of the same years — the Delhi conspiracy of 1912 and the Ghadar plan of 1915 — but he escaped to Japan and spent the rest of his life there, founding the Indian Independence League. Bandi Jivan is a prison memoir, and he was never in an Indian prison.
- (b)Veer Savarkar — The strongest distractor, because Savarkar was in the Cellular Jail and did write about it. His prison book is My Transportation for Life, and his best-known work is The Indian War of Independence, 1857.
- (c)Aruna Asaf Ali — Of a later generation and a different kind of activism — she is remembered for hoisting the flag at Gowalia Tank in August 1942 and for the underground work of the Quit India movement, well after Bandi Jivan appeared.
The revolutionary strand of the Indian freedom movement produced a small but influential prison literature. These were not memoirs written in retirement; they were arguments made from inside a sentence, smuggled or published on release, and they carried the movement's ideas to readers the underground could not otherwise reach. Bandi Jivan is the best-known example from the Hindustan Republican Association's founding generation.
The reliable way through a book-to-author item is to date the book and then ask which of the named people was in the right place at the right time. Bandi Jivan is a Cellular Jail memoir published in 1922, which immediately narrows the field to men transported to the Andamans before 1920 — Sanyal and Savarkar of the four. Savarkar's own Andaman book has a different title, so Sanyal is left. The Hindustan Republican Association he helped found in 1924 was re-founded at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi in September 1928 as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, with the word 'Socialist' inserted; Sanyal belongs to the first body, not the second, and papers do sometimes attach him to the wrong one.
- Bandi Jivan was published in 1922, written in Bengali by Sachindra Nath Sanyal during his imprisonment in the Cellular Jail.
- Sanyal founded a branch of the Anushilan Samiti at Patna in 1913 and was a founder and manifesto author of the Hindustan Republican Association at Kanpur in October 1924.
- He was jailed at Naini Central Prison after the Kakori conspiracy case and died of tuberculosis in Gorakhpur jail on 7 February 1942.
- Savarkar's prison writing from the same jail is My Transportation for Life; his 1909 work is The Indian War of Independence, 1857.
- The Hindustan Republican Association was renamed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association at a meeting in Delhi in September 1928.
- Attaching Sanyal to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of 1928; he belongs to the 1924 Hindustan Republican Association.
- Assuming any Cellular Jail memoir must be Savarkar's — two of the four names in this question were transported there.
- Confusing Rash Behari Bose with Subhas Chandra Bose; the first founded the Indian Independence League in Japan and handed the Indian National Army over to the second.
As a book-to-author item, or in a match-the-list format pairing revolutionaries with the organisations or conspiracies they are associated with.
Match List I with List II and select the correct answer by using the codes given below the lists: List I I. Chittagong Armoury Raid II. Kakori Conspiracy III. Lahore Conspiracy IV. Ghadar Party List II A) Lala Hardayal B) Jatin Das C) Surya Sen D) Ram Prasad Bismil E) Vasudev Phadke
- (a) I–C, II–D, III–A, IV–E
- (b) I–D, II–C, III–B, IV–E
- (c) I–C, II–D, III–B, IV–A
- (d) I–B, II–D, III–C, IV–A
Answer(c) I–C, II–D, III–B, IV–A
The same cast of revolutionaries, mapped onto their actions instead of their books. Kakori is the event that sent Sanyal back to prison, and Ram Prasad Bismil was his colleague in the association Sanyal helped found.
Who among the following is the author of the book 'The Indian Struggle 1920 – 1942' ?
- (a) Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
- (b) Subhas Chandra Bose
- (c) Vallabhbhai Patel
- (d) Sarat Chandra Bose
Answer(b) Subhas Chandra Bose
The same question type six months later in the same exam. Freedom-movement books and their authors are a standing CDS habit, and the distractor set is drawn from the same pool of names.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Hindustan Republican Association, of which Sachindra Nath Sanyal was a founder, was formed in 1924 at which one of the following places?
- (a)Kanpur
- (b)Lahore
- (c)Calcutta
- (d)Bombay
Answer(a) Kanpur — the association was founded there in October 1924, and was re-founded as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association at Delhi in 1928.
- practice — not a real PYQ
'My Transportation for Life', an account of imprisonment in the Cellular Jail, was written by which one of the following?
- (a)Sachindranath Sanyal
- (b)V. D. Savarkar
- (c)Barindra Kumar Ghosh
- (d)Ram Prasad Bismil
Answer(b) V. D. Savarkar — his Andaman memoir, distinct from Sanyal's Bandi Jivan, which came out of the same prison.