In which of the following newspapers did Annie-Besant present her thoughts about Home Rule Movement ?
a. New India
b. Common Weal
c. Bombay Gazette
d. Telegraph

Question

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Correct — option (1), 'a and b only'. Annie Besant conducted the Home Rule agitation through two papers of her own, and they are statements a and b. New India was a daily: she acquired the Madras Standard in 1914 and renamed it, and it became the sharpest nationalist daily in the south, so sharp that the Madras government demanded securities from it and eventually moved against her under the Defence of India regulations. Common Weal was the weekly she began in the same year, more discursive in tone, carrying the argument for self-government as a matter of political principle. Between them a daily and a weekly gave her both the news columns and the space for sustained advocacy, and when she launched the Home Rule League in 1916 the campaign already had its press in place. Statement c, the Bombay Gazette, was an English-language Anglo-Indian paper of Bombay of an altogether different persuasion and was never hers. Statement d, the Telegraph, was not one of her papers either; the well-known Calcutta daily of that name is a foundation of a much later era. So the two statements that stand are a and b, and only option (1) takes exactly those. The wider point is that the Home Rule movement of 1916-18 was fought largely through newspapers on both wings: Besant used New India and Common Weal from Madras while Tilak used Kesari and Mahratta from Pune, and it was Besant's paper that drew the government's fire and led to her internment in June 1917 — an internment that made her so popular that she was elected president of the Congress at its Calcutta session in December of the same year.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) This option keeps Common Weal but exchanges New India for the Bombay Gazette, and both halves of the exchange are wrong. New India is the paper most closely identified with Besant's political work — the daily whose vigour brought the Madras government's action against her — so no correct answer can omit it. The Bombay Gazette, by contrast, was an established English-language paper of the Bombay Anglo-Indian world, not a nationalist organ and not Besant's. A candidate lands here by recognising two of the four printed titles as real newspapers and inferring that both real ones must be the answer. Existence is not ownership: the question asks which papers she used to put forward her thoughts on Home Rule.  (c) This option pairs New India, which is right, with the Telegraph, which is not. The Telegraph is included precisely because the name is familiar to any newspaper reader today, and familiarity is doing all the work — the Calcutta daily of that name belongs to a much later period and has no connection with the Home Rule agitation. The error to avoid is answering a historical question from present-day recognition. It is worth noting that this option would also require Besant's second paper, Common Weal, to be excluded, and Common Weal is the weekly she founded in the same year as she took over New India, so the two belong together in any correct answer.  (d) This is the near-miss, and the most instructive of the three. It takes the two genuine papers, New India and Common Weal, and then adds the Bombay Gazette, so a candidate who knows Besant's press correctly can still lose the mark by reasoning that a longer answer is a safer one. In combination questions the temptation to include one extra plausible item is the single commonest cause of error, and it is fatal in exactly the same way as omitting a correct one. The Bombay Gazette was an Anglo-Indian paper of Bombay and had no part in Besant's Home Rule campaign, which was conducted from Madras.

Concept: The Home Rule movement of 1915-18 filled the gap left by the Congress's caution during the First World War, and it did so through two leagues and four newspapers. Annie Besant, an Irishwoman who had come to India in 1893, become president of the Theosophical Society in 1907 and founded the Central Hindu College at Banaras, announced her intention in 1915 and launched her Home Rule League from Madras in 1916; her papers were New India, the daily she took over and renamed in 1914, and Common Weal, the weekly she started in the same year. Bal Gangadhar Tilak founded his Indian Home Rule League separately in April 1916 and worked through Kesari and Mahratta, with his league concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka, the Central Provinces and Berar while Besant's covered the rest of the country. The agitation demanded self-government within the empire, was carried on by lectures, pamphlets and branch organisation, and drew in men who would matter later, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jamnadas Dwarkadas among them. The government interned Besant in June 1917; the protest at her internment made her a national figure, she was released in September, and she presided over the Calcutta Congress in December 1917. The Montagu declaration of August 1917 was, in part, an answer to this agitation.

State PCS 2023 Q15 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2023 Q15 — History PYQ with Answer