MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 5 of 100

Correct — option (3), '(b), (c) and (d) are correct'. The question is decided by a single discrimination: Jivya Soma Mashe (the paper prints 'Mhase', and 'Warali' for Warli) received the Padma Shri, not the Padma Bhushan. Statement (b) is therefore right and statement (a) is wrong, and once that is settled only option (3) survives, because it is the one combination that keeps (b) and drops (a). The other two awards named are also genuinely his: he received the National Award for Tribal Art in 1976, long before the wider art world discovered him, and the Shilp Guru award — the Government of India's highest recognition for master craftspersons, instituted in 2002 by the Ministry of Textiles — in 2002. The Padma Shri came much later, in 2011, by which time his work had been exhibited abroad for decades and he had also received the Netherlands' Prince Claus Award in 2009. Jivya Soma Mashe earned all this for a specific break with tradition rather than for volume of output. Warli painting was ritual work: it was made by married women on the mud walls of a house for particular occasions, above all the marriage chauk built around the goddess Palaghata, and it was not made for sale or display. Mashe was the man who began painting every day rather than only at ritual moments, and who moved the images from the wall onto paper and canvas, which is what allowed Warli art to travel, to be collected and to support a whole community of painters in the Thane and Palghar hinterland. He is routinely described as the artist who took Warli art to the world, and he died on 15 May 2018.

• (1)(a) and (d) are correct — This option keeps statement (a), the Padma Bhushan, which is the one award in the list Jivya Soma Mashe did not receive — his civilian honour was the Padma Shri, conferred in 2011. It also drops the Shilp Guru award of 2002, which is genuinely his. The option is built to catch two habits at once: the assumption that a famous artist must have been given a higher Padma award than he actually was, and the failure to notice that the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri are separate honours at different levels of the same series.
• (2)Only (a) is correct — This is the same Padma Bhushan error in its most extreme form: it asserts the one honour Mashe never held and denies the three he did. Anyone who selects it is treating 'a Padma award' as a single undifferentiated category and has also not registered that the National Award for Tribal Art of 1976 and the Shilp Guru award of 2002 are documented parts of his record — indeed they are the awards that mark his recognition inside India's craft establishment long before the Padma Shri.
• (4)Only (d) is correct — Statement (d), the national award for tribal arts, is by itself true — Mashe received the National Award for Tribal Art in 1976 — so this option is not wrong about what it asserts, only about what it leaves out. It denies the Shilp Guru award of 2002 and the Padma Shri of 2011, both of which he held. It is the trap for a candidate who remembers only the earliest of the honours, or who is being cautious and picks the narrowest option on the assumption that the safest answer is the one that claims least.

Warli painting is the wall art of the Warli people of the northern Konkan uplands, in what are now the Palghar and Thane districts of Maharashtra and adjoining areas. Its visual language is austere: rice-paste white on a ground of mud and cow dung, human and animal figures built from two triangles joined at the point, circles for the sun and moon, and a square enclosure — the chauk — for ritual subjects. Traditionally it was a women's ritual practice, painted for occasions such as marriage around the image of the goddess Palaghata, not a commercial or decorative art, and not signed by an individual. Jivya Soma Mashe's importance in the history of Indian art is that he broke both conventions: he painted outside ritual occasions and he painted as a named individual on portable surfaces, which turned a domestic ritual practice into an art form with a market, a body of collectors and a recognisable authorship.

MPSC's questions on Maharashtra's art and culture usually ask either which community or district an art form belongs to, or which honour a named practitioner received, and this question does the second in the harder multiple-statement format. Awards questions are attractive to a commission because the answer is a published government record, and the Padma series in particular provides a ready-made trap — Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri are three different grades, and a candidate who remembers only 'he got a Padma award' cannot answer. The general lesson is that when a statement set contains one plainly checkable falsehood, the fastest route is to find it and then keep only the options that exclude it, rather than trying to verify all four statements independently. The whole family of Padma-award questions becomes faster once the order of precedence within the series is secure, because an option list that offers both the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri is almost always testing which grade was actually conferred rather than whether any honour was received at all.

• Jivya Soma Mashe, the Warli painter of Maharashtra, received the National Award for Tribal Art in 1976, the Shilp Guru award in 2002 and the Padma Shri in 2011; he did not receive the Padma Bhushan.
• The Shilp Guru award was instituted by the Ministry of Textiles in 2002 as the country's highest recognition for master craftspersons, distinct from the Padma series of civilian honours.
• Mashe also received the Prince Claus Award of the Netherlands in 2009, an international recognition of contributions to culture and development; he died on 15 May 2018.
• Warli painting is traditionally made by women in white rice paste on mud-and-cow-dung walls, using triangles, circles and squares, for ritual occasions such as marriage, around the goddess Palaghata.
• Mashe's historical significance is that he painted outside ritual occasions and moved Warli imagery onto paper and canvas, giving the form an individual authorship and a market beyond the village.

• Assuming that a nationally celebrated artist must hold the Padma Bhushan when the award actually conferred was the Padma Shri
• Trying to verify every statement in the list when one demonstrable falsehood is enough to eliminate every option that contains it
• Picking the narrowest 'only one is correct' option out of caution, which here denies two awards Mashe genuinely received

MPSC asks Maharashtra art and culture in two recurring shapes: the art form matched to its district or community, and the practitioner matched to the honour he or she received. The awards version is normally built as a statement set exactly like this one, with three true statements and one plausible but false honour, which means the candidate who can identify a single false statement can answer without knowing the rest. Expect the same construction around Padma awardees from Maharashtra in music, theatre, folk art and social work, and expect the Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri to be swapped as the standard trap.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Shilp Guru award, conferred by the Government of India on master craftspersons, is administered by which ministry ?

  • (a)Ministry of Culture
  • (b)Ministry of Textiles
  • (c)Ministry of Tribal Affairs
  • (d)Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

  Answer(b) Ministry of Textiles — the Shilp Guru award was instituted in 2002 under the Ministry of Textiles as the highest recognition for master craftspersons, alongside the National Awards for handicrafts. It is separate from the Padma series of civilian honours, which are announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and from the Sangeet Natak Akademi awards in the performing arts.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Warli painting, traditionally executed in white rice paste on mud walls, belongs chiefly to which region of Maharashtra ?

  • (a)The northern Konkan uplands of Palghar and Thane
  • (b)The Marathwada plateau around Aurangabad
  • (c)The Vidarbha plains around Nagpur
  • (d)The Western Ghats around Satara and Sangli

  Answer(a) The northern Konkan uplands of Palghar and Thane — the Warli community lives in this belt and the painting tradition is rooted there. The form uses triangles, circles and squares in white rice paste on a mud-and-cow-dung ground and was traditionally painted by women for ritual occasions such as marriage.