SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 18 of 99

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi is celebrated as the national festival of India. In which of the following years was Gandhi ji born?

(a)1869
(b)1890
(c)1885
(d)1877

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar, in present-day Gujarat.

That birth date is why 2 October is a national holiday in India and, since 2007, the International Day of Non-Violence observed by the United Nations.

The item turns on the year alone: option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
1890 — Around 1890 Gandhi was in London reading for the bar — he was called to the bar in 1891 and sailed for South Africa in 1893. The year belongs to his training, not his birth.
(c)
1885 — 1885 is the founding year of the Indian National Congress, which is why it feels like a landmark worth choosing. Gandhi was sixteen when the Congress was founded.
(d)
1877 — 1877 is the year of the Delhi Durbar at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. It is a colonial landmark with no bearing on Gandhi's birth.

Concept

The birth year anchors the whole Gandhi chronology, so it is worth fixing before the individual movements.

Born 2 October 1869, he left for London to study law in 1888 and went to South Africa in 1893. He returned to India for good in 1915, and led the Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad campaigns in 1917 and 1918.

Work the arithmetic once and the dates stop needing memorisation: he was 47 at Champaran in 1917 and 77 at independence in August 1947.

The stem calls 2 October a national festival. India treats three days as national festivals — Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti — and that is the framing the question leans on.

Key facts

Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar in present-day Gujarat.
The United Nations observes 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence, declared in 2007.
Gandhi returned from South Africa to India in 1915.
He was assassinated on 30 January 1948.

Study next

Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad, 1917 to 1918Gandhi's South African years and the Natal Indian CongressBirth and death years of the major figures of the national movement

Common traps

Confusing 1869 with 1885, the year the Indian National Congress was founded.
Mixing the year Gandhi was born with 1915, the year he returned to India.

SSC works the Gandhi chronology date by date — the year of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact is asked at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.2, and the Viceroy in office when the Dandi March began at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.11.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.