NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 130 of 150

Correct — A, Ahmadullah Shah. The battle of Chinhat was fought on 30 June 1857 at Ismailganj near Chinhat, a few miles east of Lucknow, and Ahmadullah Shah, the Maulvi of Faizabad, was among the leaders on the rebel side; the rebel force was commanded in the field alongside him by Barkat Ahmad, a former officer of the Company's army. It was one of the few occasions in the whole rising when the rebels beat a British force in open battle. Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Oudh, marched out of Lucknow, was defeated, fell back on the Residency and was mortally wounded there days later, which began the siege of the Lucknow Residency. Ahmadullah Shah had travelled through Delhi, Meerut, Patna and Calcutta before the rising, and one British historian credited him with organising the chapati movement that preceded it.

• (b)Shah Mal — Shah Mal led the Jat cultivators of the Baraut pargana in Uttar Pradesh, west of the Ganga, and his rising was a local one against the revenue demand and the moneylenders. He was killed in July 1857. He was nowhere near the fighting at Lucknow.
• (c)Mangal Pandey — Mangal Pandey's act at Barrackpore on 29 March 1857 opened the sequence that led to the rising, and he was hanged on 8 April 1857 — nearly three months before Chinhat was fought. He was already dead when this battle took place, which is the cleanest way to rule him out.
• (d)Kunwar Singh — Kunwar Singh was the aged zamindar of Jagdishpur in present-day Bihar and led the revolt there and in the country around Arrah. His theatre was Bihar and the eastern districts, not Awadh, and he died in April 1858.

The 1857 rising had no single command, and it is best held as a set of centres, each with its own leaders. Delhi rallied around Bahadur Shah II; Kanpur around Nana Sahib and Tantia Tope; Jhansi around Rani Lakshmibai; Lucknow and Awadh around Begum Hazrat Mahal and Ahmadullah Shah; Bihar around Kunwar Singh; and Baraut around Shah Mal. Awadh was the most stubborn region of all, since its annexation in 1856 on the doctrine of misgovernment had dispossessed the taluqdars and unsettled the sepoys, a large proportion of whom were recruited from there.

The examiner is testing whether a candidate can attach a leader to a place, and the fastest route is to test the four names against the map and the calendar rather than against the battle. Chinhat lies just outside Lucknow, in Awadh. Shah Mal belongs to the Doab, Kunwar Singh to Bihar, and Mangal Pandey to Barrackpore in Bengal and to March 1857. That leaves the Awadh name. Ahmadullah Shah kept fighting long after Lucknow fell, took Shahjahanpur, and was killed on 5 June 1858 when the Raja of Powayan had him shot at the palace gate and claimed the reward the British had posted for him.

• The battle of Chinhat was fought on 30 June 1857 at Ismailganj near Chinhat, close to Lucknow.
• It was a rebel victory over a force led by Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Oudh, who was mortally wounded soon afterwards at the Residency.
• Ahmadullah Shah, the Maulvi of Faizabad, was a leader on the rebel side, with Barkat Ahmad as field commander.
• Mangal Pandey was hanged on 8 April 1857, before Chinhat was fought.
• Kunwar Singh led the rising at Jagdishpur in Bihar; Shah Mal led the Jats of Baraut pargana.

• Picking Mangal Pandey for any 1857 question — he was executed before the rising proper began.
• Placing Kunwar Singh in Awadh; his theatre was Bihar, around Jagdishpur and Arrah.
• Assuming a religious title means the man was only a preacher — Ahmadullah Shah led troops in the field for a full year.

NDA names a battle, a town or a region and asks for the leader, or reverses it and gives the leader to be placed.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The rebel leader Shah Mal led the rising of 1857 among the cultivators of

  • (a)Jagdishpur in Bihar
  • (b)the Baraut pargana in the Doab
  • (c)Bundelkhand
  • (d)the Rohilkhand plain

  Answer(b) the Baraut pargana in the Doab — a local Jat rising against the revenue demand and the moneylenders.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which British officer, defeated at Chinhat, died soon afterwards during the defence of the Lucknow Residency?

  • (a)General Havelock
  • (b)Sir Colin Campbell
  • (c)Sir Henry Lawrence
  • (d)General Neill

  Answer(c) Sir Henry Lawrence — Chief Commissioner of Oudh, mortally wounded at the Residency days after Chinhat.