SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 17 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 6 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.

In which year was the battle of Buxar fought?

(a)1777
(b)1793
(c)1764
(d)1757

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764.

Hector Munro's East India Company army defeated a combined force of three: Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.

The date is held in place by what followed it. The Treaty of Allahabad came in 1765 and gave the Company the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the right to collect revenue. A battle settled in 1765 cannot be fought in 1777 or 1793, which leaves option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
1777 — 1777 falls inside the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775-1782) and names no decisive Company battle in Bengal. Buxar's settlement is dated 1765, more than a decade earlier.
(b)
1793 — 1793 is a law-and-revenue year, not a battle year: the Permanent Settlement of Bengal under Cornwallis and the Charter Act of the same year.
(d)
1757 — 1757 is the Battle of Plassey, Clive against Siraj-ud-Daula. Plassey installed a compliant Nawab, while Buxar seven years later broke the Nawabs and the Mughal emperor together.

Concept

Plassey and Buxar are the pair on which British-conquest questions are built, and they sit seven years apart.

Plassey (1757) was won largely by conspiracy, Mir Jafar's defection, and made the Company the power behind the Nawab of Bengal.

Buxar (1764) was won in open battle against the Nawab of Awadh, the deposed Nawab of Bengal and the Mughal emperor at once, which is why it is treated as the decisive one.

The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) turned that victory into legal authority: the Diwani, the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

SSC frames the same period from the other side elsewhere. At 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q4 the key is Plassey, not Buxar, as the formal beginning of British rule in India. Learn both dates with their consequences attached and the framing of a given stem stops mattering.

Key facts

The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764, at Buxar in present-day Bihar on the Ganga.
The Company force under Hector Munro defeated Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II together.
The Treaty of Allahabad in 1765 gave the Company the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
The Battle of Plassey was fought in 1757, seven years before Buxar.

Study next

The Treaty of Allahabad, 1765 and the grant of the DiwaniDual government in Bengal from 1765 and its end under Warren HastingsThe Nawabs of Bengal from Siraj-ud-Daula to Mir Qasim

Common traps

Swapping 1757 and 1764, when Plassey is the earlier battle and Buxar the decisive one
Dating the Diwani to the battle itself rather than to the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765

Early Company history arrives as a year, a battle or an Act. 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q4 asks which battle formally began British rule, and GA Q7 of this shift asks who fought Humayun at Chausa in 1539 — a battle item is really a date-and-parties item.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.