Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Author)
A. Lallanji Gopal
B. Habib and Nizami
C. K.S. Lal
D. Dasharatha Sharma
List-II (Book)
1.

Question

Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Author)
A. Lallanji Gopal
B. Habib and Nizami
C. K.S. Lal
D. Dasharatha Sharma
List-II (Book)
1. A Comprehensive History of India : The Delhi Sultanat
2. The Economic Life of Northern India
3. Early Chauhan Dynasties
4. History of the Khaljis
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3. Take the four pairs one at a time. (A) Lallanji Gopal, who taught Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology at Banaras Hindu University, wrote 'The Economic Life of Northern India, c. A.D. 700–1200' (Motilal Banarsidass, 1965) — so A-2. (B) 'Habib and Nizami' is not one author but two: Mohammad Habib and Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, both of Aligarh Muslim University, who edited Volume V of the Indian History Congress's 'A Comprehensive History of India', the volume titled 'The Delhi Sultanat', published by People's Publishing House in 1970 — so B-1. (C) Kishori Saran Lal (1920–2002) took his Allahabad doctorate on the Khaljis in 1945 and turned it into 'History of the Khaljis (A.D. 1290–1320)', first published in 1950 and revised in 1967 and 1980 — so C-4. (D) Dasharatha Sharma (1903–1976), the historian of Rajasthan who later headed the History department at the University of Jodhpur, published his thesis as 'Early Chauhan Dynasties' in 1959 (revised 1975), a study of Chauhan political history and institutions from about A.D. 800 to 1316 — so D-3. Only option (a) delivers all four. There is also a one-step route through this question that costs no memory at all: entry B names a PAIR of scholars, and only a large multi-volume collaborative series has co-editors rather than a single author. So B must go with 'A Comprehensive History of India : The Delhi Sultanat', i.e. B-1 — and (a) is the only code in the set that has B-1. Locate that single pairing and the other three follow for free.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Every pair is displaced by one. It makes Lallanji Gopal — an economic historian of the early-medieval north — the author of the Delhi Sultanate volume, hands Habib and Nizami a monograph on economic life, gives K.S. Lal the Chauhans and Dasharatha Sharma the Khaljis. It also fails the structural test: B-2 puts two co-editors on a single-author monograph.  (c) This is the straight reversal of the correct code (4, 3, 2, 1 against A, B, C, D), which is exactly the shape an examiner adds to catch a candidate who half-remembers the answer as 'the reverse order'. It credits Lallanji Gopal with the Khaljis, Habib and Nizami with 'Early Chauhan Dynasties', K.S. Lal with the economic-life book and Dasharatha Sharma with the Sultanate volume — all four wrong.  (d) Wrong on all four. It attaches the Rajasthan specialist's book on the Chauhans to Lallanji Gopal, the Khalji monograph to Habib and Nizami, the collaborative Sultanate volume to the single author K.S. Lal, and the economic-life study to Dasharatha Sharma. Note the traps it exploits — the surname mnemonic 'Sharma → Sultanate' and the pull of pairing 'Lal' with anything medieval.

Concept: This is a secondary-source question: it tests not the medieval past itself but who wrote the standard modern books about it. Four different specialisations are on show. Lallanji Gopal works on the economy of early-medieval northern India, roughly the eighth to twelfth centuries. Mohammad Habib and K.A. Nizami are the Aligarh school of Delhi Sultanate history, and their joint volume is one instalment of the Indian History Congress's large collaborative 'A Comprehensive History of India' series. K.S. Lal is a monographer of individual Sultanate dynasties — the Khaljis first, then the later Sultanate in 'Twilight of the Sultanate' (1963). Dasharatha Sharma is a historian of Rajasthan and therefore of the Chahamanas, the dynasty better known as the Chauhans of Sakambhari, Ajmer and Ranthambore.

State PCS 2024 Q147 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q147 — History PYQ with Answer