SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 24 of 98

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.

Which of the following Sikh reform movements was started in 1873 in Amritsar?

(a)Singh Sabha Movement
(b)Gurudwara Movement
(c)Akali Movement
(d)Babbar Akali Movement

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The Singh Sabha Movement began at Amritsar in 1873, matching both the place and the year in the stem.

It was a reform movement from inside Sikhism: restore practice to the teaching of the Gurus, resist conversion drives by Christian missionaries and the Arya Samaj, and spread modern education through Punjabi.

A second Sabha followed at Lahore in 1879, and the network went on to found Khalsa College at Amritsar. Option (a) is the 1873 movement.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Gurudwara Movement — The Gurudwara movement, usually called the Gurdwara Reform Movement, belongs to the 1920s. It fought to take shrine management from hereditary mahants and ended in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925.
(c)
Akali Movement — The Akali Movement is the organised political face of that same 1920s gurdwara campaign, carried on through the Akali Dal. It is half a century later than 1873.
(d)
Babbar Akali Movement — The Babbar Akali movement was a militant offshoot of the Akali agitation in the early 1920s, choosing armed action over reformist methods. It is a 1920s movement, not an 1873 one.

Concept

Nineteenth-century India produced a wave of socio-religious reform bodies, and SSC asks them as a year-place-founder triple.

The Singh Sabha, founded at Amritsar in 1873, is the Sikh entry in that wave, standing beside the Brahmo Samaj (Calcutta, 1828) and the Prarthana Samaj (Bombay, 1867). Its concerns were doctrinal purity, education and the printing of Sikh literature.

The Sikh movements of the 1920s — gurdwara reform and the Akali agitation — belong to a later, political phase, and mixing the two decades is the trap this item sets.

The stem hands you two filters, 1873 and Amritsar. Three of the four options sit in the 1920s, so the date alone decides the item.

Key facts

The Singh Sabha Movement started at Amritsar in 1873.
A second Singh Sabha was founded at Lahore in 1879.
Khalsa College at Amritsar was established in 1892 through Singh Sabha efforts.
The Gurdwara Reform Movement of the 1920s led to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925.

Study next

Socio-religious reform movements of the nineteenth century and their foundersThe Akali movement, the SGPC and the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925The Arya Samaj's shuddhi campaign and the reactions it provoked

Common traps

Confusing the 1873 Singh Sabha with the 1920s Akali and gurdwara movements.
Placing the movement at Lahore, where the second Sabha was founded in 1879.
Reading 'reform movement' as political agitation against the British.

Founding year and city is the standard handle — the Brahmo Samaj at Calcutta in 1828 (18 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.3), the Prarthana Samaj at Mumbai in 1867 (9 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.22) and the Theosophical Society at New York in 1875 (25 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.14).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.