Who established Shantiniketan and when?

Correct — C. Rabindranath Tagore opened his school at Santiniketan in 1901, starting with a handful of pupils in an open-air, ashram-style setting.

That school grew into Visva-Bharati, which he expanded into a university in 1921. The remaining pairs fail on the year, on the person, or on both, so the pair the key takes is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Ravindranath Tagore, 1905 — Right man, wrong year. 1905 is the year of the partition of Bengal, which is why it feels familiar, but Tagore's school at Santiniketan opened in 1901.
• (b)
  Mahatma Gandhi, 1910 — Mahatma Gandhi founded ashrams at Sabarmati and later Sevagram, not Santiniketan. He visited Tagore there, which is the source of the confusion.
• (d)
  Devendranath Tagore, 1915 — Debendranath Tagore did establish the Santiniketan ashram, but decades earlier than 1915 and it was his son who opened the school there.

Santiniketan was not founded in one stroke, and the question compresses the story.

Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath's father, acquired the land and set up an ashram there in the 1860s. Rabindranath used that site to start a school in 1901, run on his own ideas: small classes, teaching in the open air, arts and music beside books.

The institution became Visva-Bharati, a university from 1921 and a central university in 1951.

Key facts

• Rabindranath Tagore started his school at Santiniketan in 1901.
• The school became Visva-Bharati, which he expanded into a university in 1921 and which was made a central university in 1951.
• Debendranath Tagore had set up the ashram at Santiniketan decades before the school opened.
• Santiniketan is in Birbhum district, West Bengal.

Common traps

• Picking 1905 because the partition of Bengal sits in memory next to Tagore.
• Choosing Debendranath Tagore because he really did establish the ashram, though not in 1915 and not the school.

No directly related past PYQ was found.