Arrange the following battles in chronological order and select the correct answer from the codes given below :
I. Battle of Sarnal
II. Battle of Bilgram
III. Battle of Dharmat
IV. Battle of Jajau
Cod

Question

Arrange the following battles in chronological order and select the correct answer from the codes given below :
I. Battle of Sarnal
II. Battle of Bilgram
III. Battle of Dharmat
IV. Battle of Jajau
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, II, I, III, IV. In date order the four battles run: (II) Bilgram, 17 May 1540 — also called the battle of Kannauj, where Sher Shah Suri routed Humayun on the Ganga and drove him out of India into a fifteen-year exile, founding Sur rule over Hindustan; (I) Sarnal, 1572 — fought during Akbar's Gujarat campaign, when Akbar crossed the Mahi river with a small advance force and stormed the rebel Mirzas' position at Sarnal in what is now Kheda district, a dash that opened the way to the annexation of Gujarat; (III) Dharmat, 15 April 1658 — near Ujjain, where Aurangzeb and Murad Baksh defeated the imperial army led by Jaswant Singh of Marwar, the first major engagement of the war of succession against Dara Shukoh; and (IV) Jajau, June 1707 — near Agra, where, weeks after Aurangzeb's death, Prince Muazzam defeated and killed his brother Azam Shah and took the throne as Bahadur Shah I. So the sequence is 1540 → 1572 → 1658 → 1707, that is II, I, III, IV.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) It starts correctly with Bilgram but then pushes Sarnal to the very end, after Jajau. Sarnal belongs to Akbar's Gujarat campaign of 1572, more than a century before the 1707 succession battle at Jajau.  (c) It opens with Dharmat. Dharmat was fought in 1658 during Aurangzeb's war of succession — it cannot precede Bilgram (1540) and Sarnal (1572), both of which belong to the sixteenth century.  (d) It makes the same error of putting the 1658 battle of Dharmat first, and additionally places Sarnal (1572) before Bilgram (1540).

Concept: The four battles are milestones of four different phases of Mughal history, and remembering which phase each belongs to is easier than remembering its date. Bilgram belongs to the crisis of the first Mughal generation — Humayun's defeat and the Sur interregnum. Sarnal belongs to Akbar's period of expansion, when Gujarat with its ports and wealth was brought into the empire. Dharmat belongs to the war of succession of 1657–59 that put Aurangzeb on the throne. Jajau belongs to the succession war of 1707 that followed Aurangzeb's death and opened the long decline. Place each battle in its phase and the chronology writes itself.

State PCS 2019 Q128 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q128 — History PYQ with Answer