Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists.
List – I (Governor General/Viceroy)
A. Lord Dalhousie
B. Lord Curzon
C. Lord William Bentinck
D. Lord

Question

Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists.
List – I (Governor General/Viceroy)
A. Lord Dalhousie
B. Lord Curzon
C. Lord William Bentinck
D. Lord Cornwallis
List – II (Important contribution/work)
1. Permanent settlement of Bengal
2. Prohibition of Practice of Sati
3. Partition of Bengal
4. Doctrine of Lapse
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1. Each pairing is a fixed point of modern Indian history. A goes to 4: Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General from 1848 to 1856, formulated and applied the Doctrine of Lapse, under which an Indian state whose ruler died without a natural heir lapsed to the Company — Satara in 1848, Jaitpur and Sambalpur in 1849, Udaipur in 1852, Jhansi in 1853 and Nagpur in 1854. B goes to 3: Lord Curzon, Viceroy from 1899 to 1905, ordered the Partition of Bengal, announced in July 1905 and brought into effect on 16 October 1905, which created the new province of East Bengal and Assam and triggered the Swadeshi movement. C goes to 2: Lord William Bentinck promulgated Regulation XVII on 4 December 1829, declaring the practice of sati illegal and punishable in the courts, a measure campaigned for by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. D goes to 1: Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement of Bengal in 1793, fixing the land revenue demand in perpetuity and recognising the zamindars as proprietors. That gives A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1, which is option (d).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The first two pairings are right — Dalhousie with the Doctrine of Lapse and Curzon with the Partition of Bengal — but the last two are exchanged. It credits Bentinck with the Permanent Settlement, which was Cornwallis's measure of 1793, more than thirty years before Bentinck reached India, and it credits Cornwallis with the abolition of sati, which came in 1829, long after Cornwallis's death in 1805. This is the option that catches a candidate who is sure of the two annexation-and-partition pairs and then guesses the two Bengal measures.  (b) Not one pairing survives. It makes Dalhousie responsible for the Partition of Bengal, which came half a century after he left; it makes Curzon the author of the Doctrine of Lapse, which was already history by his time; and it repeats the Bentinck-Cornwallis swap of option (a).  (c) The mirror image of option (a). Bentinck with the ban on sati and Cornwallis with the Permanent Settlement are both correct here, but the top two are reversed, putting the Partition of Bengal in Dalhousie's tenure and the Doctrine of Lapse in Curzon's. The chronology alone rules it out: Dalhousie served 1848-56 and Curzon 1899-1905.

Concept: Four Governors-General and Viceroys account for four of the most consequential acts of British rule, and each is separated from the others by decades. Cornwallis (1786-1793) built the administrative and revenue frame — the Permanent Settlement of 1793 in Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, the Cornwallis Code and the Covenanted Civil Service. William Bentinck (1828-1835), the first to be styled Governor-General of India under the Charter Act of 1833, is remembered for social legislation, above all the outlawing of sati in 1829 and the suppression of thuggee. Dalhousie (1848-1856) was the great annexer and moderniser: the Doctrine of Lapse, the annexation of Awadh in 1856 on grounds of misgovernment, the first railway line from Bombay to Thane in 1853, the telegraph and Wood's Despatch on education. Curzon (1899-1905) is defined by the Partition of Bengal of 1905, along with the Indian Universities Act and the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904.

State PCS 2025 Q105 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q105 — History PYQ with Answer