Arrange the following conquests of Alauddin Khalji in correct chronological order and select the correct answer from the code given below.
1. Ranthambore
2. Jaisalmer
3. Warangal
4. Chittor
Code :

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Correct — C, 2, 1, 4, 3 — Jaisalmer, then Ranthambore, then Chittor, then Warangal. Alauddin Khalji's campaigns fall into two clean phases, and the four forts in this list are strung across both. The Rajput phase came first. Jaisalmer was besieged in 1299, the same season as the raid on Gujarat, and ended in the saka and jauhar remembered in Rajput tradition. Ranthambore, held by the Chauhan Hammiradeva, fell in July 1301 after a long siege that Amir Khusrau accompanied. Chittor, the Guhila stronghold of Ratnasimha, was taken in 1303 after an eight-month siege — the campaign that later bardic literature, above all Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat of 1540, wrapped around the legend of Padmini. Then came the Deccan phase, run by the slave-general Malik Kafur: Devagiri in 1308, Warangal in 1310, and Dwarasamudra and Madurai in 1311. Warangal is therefore the last of the four by a clear seven years, and it was not an annexation — after a month-long siege the Kakatiya ruler Prataparudra bought peace with a vast tribute and continued to rule as a vassal, which is the pattern Alauddin used in the south generally. So the order is Jaisalmer 1299, Ranthambore 1301, Chittor 1303, Warangal 1310, which is 2, 1, 4, 3. One honest note on the evidence: of the four, Jaisalmer is the thinnest-documented. It is conventionally dated to 1299 and every standard account places it earliest, but it does not get the detailed narrative that Khusrau gives Ranthambore, Chittor and the Deccan campaigns, so the 1299 date rests on a weaker footing than the other three.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong at both ends. It opens with Ranthambore (1301) before Jaisalmer (1299) and closes with Warangal (1310) before Chittor (1303), so it inverts both halves of the sequence. This is the option a candidate picks by reading the printed numbers as though they were already in order — which is exactly what a chronology question is designed to punish.  (b) Gets the Rajput half right — Jaisalmer in 1299 before Ranthambore in 1301 — and then places Warangal ahead of Chittor. That reverses the two phases of the reign. Chittor fell in 1303, while the Deccan expeditions under Malik Kafur only began in 1308 with Devagiri and reached Warangal in 1310. Alauddin secured Rajputana before turning south; he did not do both at once.  (d) The mirror image of option (b). It gets the closing pair right — Chittor in 1303 before Warangal in 1310 — but opens with Ranthambore before Jaisalmer. Ranthambore fell in July 1301, roughly two years after the Jaisalmer siege of 1299, so the first two positions must be swapped. As with option (b), getting one pair right is not enough when the question is built out of two independent pairings.

Concept: Alauddin Khalji's territorial expansion between 1296 and 1316 ran in two distinct directions. First he secured northern and western India, taking the Rajput forts that commanded the routes and the treasuries: Gujarat raided in 1299 and annexed in 1304, Jaisalmer in 1299, Ranthambore in 1301, Chittor in 1303, Malwa in 1305, Siwana in 1308 and Jalore in 1311. Only after the north was under control, and after the Mongol threat had been beaten off, did he send Malik Kafur into the peninsula — Devagiri in 1308, Warangal in 1310, Dwarasamudra and Madurai in 1311. The southern campaigns were deliberately different in kind: they extracted enormous tribute and acknowledgment of overlordship rather than annexing territory, because Delhi could not garrison the far south.

State PCS 2025 Q119 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q119 — History PYQ with Answer