MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 89 of 100

Correct — option (2), only (a), (b) and (c). All four men named in the list were associated with Dr Ambedkar, so the question is not testing who his followers were; the operative words are 'after passing away of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar', and Ambedkar died on 6 December 1956. What decides the question is therefore a date, and the date belongs to statement (d). Bapusaheb Rajbhoj — P. N. Rajbhoj — had been general secretary of the Scheduled Castes Federation, the party Ambedkar founded in 1942, and won the Sholapur parliamentary seat on that party's ticket in the first general election of 1951-52. He then broke with the Federation, resigning in April 1955, and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955, more than a year before Ambedkar's death; he went to the Rajya Sabha from Bombay State for the term beginning in 1957. His move was made in Ambedkar's lifetime, so statement (d) does not answer the question as it is framed, and every option containing (d) falls with it. That single elimination removes options (1), (3) and (4) and leaves option (2). The other three names all belong to the movement of Ambedkarite leaders into the Congress that followed his death and the fragmentation of the Republican Party of India. R. D. Bhandare, whose full name was Ramchandra Dhondiba Bhandare, was in the Scheduled Castes Federation from its inception and president of its Bombay unit, was a founding member of the Republican Party of India and its president from 1964 to 1966, and then joined the Congress, winning the Mumbai Central seat in the Lok Sabha in 1967 and again in 1971. Rajabhau Bhole, whose name appears in the record as R. R. Bhole, was of the same stream — an Ambedkarite of the Bombay legislature of the late colonial period who contested Kolhapur on the Scheduled Castes Federation ticket in 1952 — and he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Mumbai South Central as a Congress member. Dadasaheb Rupwate, born Damodar Tatyaba Rupwate, converted to Buddhism with Ambedkar's movement in 1956, was a founding member of the Republican Party of India in 1957, and afterwards joined the Congress, sitting in the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 1968 to 1978, serving twice as a cabinet minister and rising to be a general secretary of the All India Congress Committee. The answer to be marked is option (2).

• (1)Only (a), (c), (d) — This option keeps Bhandare and Rupwate, both of whom belong, but drops Rajabhau Bhole and retains Bapusaheb Rajbhoj, which is exactly the wrong exchange. Bhole belongs in the answer: he was an Ambedkarite of the Bombay legislature in the years when Ambedkar led the opposition there, contested Kolhapur on the Scheduled Castes Federation ticket in the general election of 1952, and was later elected to the Lok Sabha from Mumbai South Central as a Congress member. Rajbhoj does not belong: he resigned from the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955, which is before, not after, Ambedkar's death on 6 December 1956. A candidate who reads the stem loosely as 'which followers of Ambedkar joined the Congress' will find this option attractive; the words 'after passing away' are what make it wrong.
• (3)Only (a), (b), (d) — This option drops Dadasaheb Rupwate and keeps Bapusaheb Rajbhoj, and both halves of that choice are mistaken. Rupwate is one of the clearest cases in the list: born in 1925, he converted to Buddhism in 1956 in the movement Ambedkar led, was a founding member of the Republican Party of India in 1957, and moved from that party into the Congress, where he sat in the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 1968 to 1978, held cabinet office in the State twice, held charge of Social Welfare, Housing, Cultural Affairs, Fisheries and Slum Development, edited the weekly Prabuddha Bharat and became a general secretary of the All India Congress Committee. Rajbhoj, by contrast, had joined the Congress on 15 August 1955, in Ambedkar's lifetime. The option therefore both excludes a man who fits the stem and includes one who does not.
• (4)(a), (b), (c), (d) — This is the option a candidate reaches when he recognises all four names as Ambedkarite leaders who at some point sat under the Congress banner, and it fails on the single word 'after'. Every list question of this kind is decided by the qualifier in the stem rather than by the general association of the names, and here the qualifier is the date of Ambedkar's death, 6 December 1956. Rajbhoj's move to the Congress is precisely dated to 15 August 1955 and had a public history behind it — a growing disagreement with Ambedkar and his resignation from the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 — so it cannot be brought inside the stem. It is worth adding that in this format an 'all of the above' option is offered as a genuine choice and not as a hint; this paper offers 'all of the above' ten times across its four hundred options, and being offered proves nothing about being correct.

Ambedkar's political vehicles came in three generations, and the question turns on knowing where the joins are. The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1936, fought the Bombay provincial election of 1937 and gave Ambedkar and his colleagues their first substantial legislative presence. It was replaced in 1942 by the All India Scheduled Castes Federation, a party built specifically on separate representation for the Depressed Classes, which fared poorly in the elections of 1946 and 1952 because the reserved seats it contested were decided by general electorates. In his last years Ambedkar concluded that a broader party was needed, and the Republican Party of India was formed in 1957, shortly after his death on 6 December 1956, out of the Scheduled Castes Federation. The Republican Party had real strength in Maharashtra in its first decade, and its leaders — Dadasaheb Gaikwad, R. D. Bhandare, Dadasaheb Rupwate, B. C. Kamble and others — carried the movement's weight. It then began to split, and one wing entered into arrangements with the Congress, which was in a position to offer office; a stream of Ambedkarite leaders became Congress legislators, ministers and, in Bhandare's case, a Governor. That movement is the subject of this question. A few had gone earlier and for their own reasons, and P. N. Rajbhoj, who left the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955, is the leading example.

MPSC's history block regularly examines the Ambedkarite movement after 1956, because it is the point at which the movement's history and Maharashtra's electoral politics meet, and because the names are dense and easy to confuse. The Commission's favourite instrument here is the multi-name list with a qualifier attached to the stem — after his death, before the founding of the Republican Party, at the time of the conversion — so that a candidate who knows the names but not the dates cannot answer. Note the mechanics of this particular item: the four options differ only in which names they include, and three of the four contain statement (d). One correctly dated fact about Rajbhoj therefore answers the whole question in a second, without any need to check the other three names. This is the general economy of list questions and it is worth practising deliberately: read the four options first, find the statement whose presence or absence separates them, and test that statement. The English stem here is printed with broken grammar — 'After passing away of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who from the followers of Dr. Ambedkar, became members of the Congress' — and the four labelled names are laid out in a two-column grid, which is layout and not grouping; neither affects the answer.

• Dr B. R. Ambedkar died on 6 December 1956, and the qualifier 'after passing away of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar' is what decides this question.
• P. N. Rajbhoj, called Bapusaheb Rajbhoj, was general secretary of the Scheduled Castes Federation and won the Sholapur parliamentary seat on its ticket in 1951-52; he resigned from the Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955, in Ambedkar's lifetime.
• R. D. Bhandare was in the Scheduled Castes Federation from its inception and president of its Bombay unit, a founding member of the Republican Party of India and its president from 1964 to 1966, and later a Congress member of the Lok Sabha from Mumbai Central in 1967 and 1971, resigning in 1973 to become Governor of Bihar.
• Rajabhau Bhole, recorded as R. R. Bhole, contested Kolhapur on the Scheduled Castes Federation ticket in 1952 and was later elected to the Lok Sabha from Mumbai South Central as a member of the Indian National Congress.
• Dadasaheb Rupwate converted to Buddhism in 1956 and was a founding member of the Republican Party of India in 1957 before joining the Congress; he sat in the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 1968 to 1978, was twice a State cabinet minister and became a general secretary of the All India Congress Committee.

• Ignoring the qualifier in the stem; every name in this list joined the Congress at some point, and only the timing relative to 6 December 1956 separates them
• Assuming that a leader who broke with Ambedkar must have done so after his death, when Rajbhoj resigned from the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress that August
• Reading the two-column printing of the four labelled names as a pairing or a grouping; it is layout only
• Treating an 'all of the above' option as a safe answer in a list question, when the qualifier in the stem usually exists precisely to exclude one of the items

The Ambedkarite movement is examined by MPSC in four recurring shapes: the founding year of one of Ambedkar's parties or organisations, the authorship of one of his books or journals, the sequence of events around the Poona Pact and the conversion of 1956, and lists of colleagues of the kind seen here. The list form is the hardest because it requires dates attached to individual careers rather than to events, and the Commission builds it so that the four options differ by a single name. The efficient preparation is a page of the movement's second rank — Dadasaheb Gaikwad, R. D. Bhandare, Dadasaheb Rupwate, B. C. Kamble, P. N. Rajbhoj, Shantabai Dani — with, for each, the party or parties they belonged to and the decade in which they changed. That page also serves the questions on the Republican Party's splits and on the ministries of the 1970s in Maharashtra.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Republican Party of India, formed out of the Scheduled Castes Federation, came into existence in which year, and in relation to Dr Ambedkar's death ?

  • (a)In 1942, fourteen years before his death
  • (b)In 1956, a few months before his death
  • (c)In 1957, shortly after his death
  • (d)In 1972, sixteen years after his death

  Answer(c) In 1957, shortly after his death. Ambedkar had concluded in his last years that a broader party than the Scheduled Castes Federation was needed and had planned the new formation, but he died on 6 December 1956 and the Republican Party of India was constituted in 1957 by colleagues such as Dadasaheb Rupwate and R. D. Bhandare. The Scheduled Castes Federation itself dates from 1942, and the Dalit Panthers, a separate and much later formation, from 1972.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following statements about P. N. Rajbhoj (Bapusaheb Rajbhoj) is correct ?

  • (a)He remained in the Scheduled Castes Federation until Ambedkar's death and joined the Congress only in 1957
  • (b)He resigned from the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955
  • (c)He founded the Republican Party of India and served as its first president
  • (d)He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Mumbai Central on a Congress ticket in 1967

  Answer(b) He resigned from the Scheduled Castes Federation in April 1955 and joined the Congress on 15 August 1955. He had been the Federation's general secretary and had won the Sholapur parliamentary seat on its ticket in 1951-52, and after joining the Congress he went to the Rajya Sabha from Bombay State. Option (4) describes R. D. Bhandare, who won Mumbai Central for the Congress in 1967 and 1971 after having been president of the Republican Party of India from 1964 to 1966.