Arrange the following events associated with Shivaji in chronological order : 1. Attack on Afzal Khan 2. Capture of Torna 3. Attack on Shaista Khan 4. Annexation of Javli Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a)2, 4, 1, 3
- (b)4, 2, 1, 3
- (c)1, 2, 3, 4
- (d)3, 1, 2, 4
Correct — A, 2, 4, 1, 3. The sequence is Torna, then Javli, then Afzal Khan, then Shaista Khan. Torna comes first and by a long margin: the hill fort above the Kanad valley in what is now Pune district was taken in 1646, while Shivaji was still in his teens, and it is traditionally counted as his opening move against Bijapur. The annexation of Javli followed a decade later, in 1656, when Chandrarao More — a Maratha deshmukh holding the valley for Bijapur — was killed and the Javli valley seized, giving Shivaji the wooded country in which Pratapgad was then built. Afzal Khan, sent by Bijapur to bring him to heel, was killed at the foot of Pratapgad on 10 November 1659. The attack on Shaista Khan is the last of the four: the Mughal governor of the Deccan had occupied Pune and quartered himself in Shivaji's own Lal Mahal, and the night raid that drove him out came in April 1663. So 2 before 4 before 1 before 3.
- (b)4, 2, 1, 3 — Puts Javli before Torna. Javli was annexed around 1656, a full decade after Torna was taken; the rest of this ordering is right, which is exactly what makes it the most attractive wrong answer.
- (c)1, 2, 3, 4 — The lazy pick that simply keeps the printed order of the statements. It would make the killing of Afzal Khan the earliest event and the annexation of Javli the latest, reversing the real sequence at both ends.
- (d)3, 1, 2, 4 — Starts with the attack on Shaista Khan, which is in fact the last of the four. It also separates the two Bijapur confrontations from the fort captures that preceded them.
Shivaji's rise falls into recognisable stages. First came the seizure of hill forts in the Maval country from a distracted Bijapur, beginning with Torna in 1646. Then came the subduing of rival Maratha deshmukh houses, of which Javli in 1656 is the sharpest example. Bijapur answered by sending Afzal Khan in 1659, and after his death the Mughals took over the task, which is where Shaista Khan and the Pune raid of 1663 belong.
The way to hold this chain is by which power Shivaji was fighting at each point. Torna and Javli are quarrels within the Bijapur sphere — first the sultanate's neglected forts, then a fellow feudatory who held a watan under Bijapur. Afzal Khan is Bijapur's formal military answer. Shaista Khan is the Mughal state entering the picture after Aurangzeb's accession. That order — internal, then Bijapur, then Mughal — is much easier to keep than four bare dates, and it fixes the answer even if you are unsure whether Torna fell in 1645 or 1646, since both readings sit far ahead of every other event on the list.
- Torna fort, in the Sahyadris of present-day Pune district, was taken in 1646 and is conventionally treated as Shivaji's first conquest.
- The Javli valley was seized in 1656 after the killing of the Bijapuri deshmukh Chandrarao More; Pratapgad was raised in that newly won country.
- Afzal Khan, commanding for Bijapur, was killed at Pratapgad on 10 November 1659.
- Shaista Khan, Aurangzeb's maternal uncle and governor of the Deccan, was attacked in the Lal Mahal at Pune in April 1663 and lost his fingers escaping.
- The great Maratha deshmukh houses — Sawant, Ghorpade, Nimbalkar, Shirke, Mane, Mohite — held hereditary watans under Bijapur, which is why Javli was a fight with a fellow Maratha rather than with the sultanate directly.
- Assuming the printed order of statements is the chronological order — this item is built to punish exactly that.
- Dating Javli to before Torna because the Javli episode is the more famous of the two.
- Confusing Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor attacked at Pune in 1663, with Afzal Khan, the Bijapuri commander killed at Pratapgad in 1659.
Usually as a chronological-ordering item on Shivaji's career, or as a single-event question asking which fort or campaign came first.
The member of Shivaji’s Astha Pradhana who looked after foreign affairs was
- (a) Peshwa
- (b) Sachiv
- (c) Pandit Rao
- (d) Sumant
Answer(d) Sumant
The other half of the Shivaji syllabus. This item traces the campaigns; that one tests the council of eight he formalised at his coronation in 1674, after the events listed here were behind him.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q442021Chronologically arrange the following treaties/conventions signed between the Marathas and the British (starting with the earliest) : 1. Treaty of Salbai 2. Treaty of Purandar 3. Convention of Wadgaon 4. Treaty of Surat Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a) 4-2-3-1
- (b) 4-3-2-1
- (c) 1-3-2-4
- (d) 1-2-3-4
Answer(a) 4-2-3-1
The same ordering pattern applied to Maratha history a century later. CDS returns to this format often enough that the drill — anchor two events firmly, then place the rest around them — is worth practising.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The killing of Afzal Khan by Shivaji in 1659 took place at the foot of which fort?
- (a)Raigad
- (b)Sinhagad
- (c)Pratapgad
- (d)Purandar
Answer(c) Pratapgad — the fort raised in the Javli country that Shivaji had annexed three years earlier.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Whose occupation of Pune was ended by Shivaji's night attack on the Lal Mahal in 1663?
- (a)Afzal Khan
- (b)Shaista Khan
- (c)Mirza Raja Jai Singh
- (d)Diler Khan
Answer(b) Shaista Khan — the Mughal governor of the Deccan, who escaped the raid with the loss of his fingers.