SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 19 of 100

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 5 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.

Under the leadership of which of the following revolutionaries was Chittagong Armoury Raid conducted?

(a)Rash Behari Bose
(b)Surya Sen
(c)Hemu Kalani
(d)Badal Gupta

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The Chittagong Armoury Raid of 18 April 1930 was planned and led by Surya Sen, a school teacher his followers called Masterda.

His group seized the police and auxiliary force armouries, cut telegraph and telephone lines, disrupted the rail link, and proclaimed a provisional revolutionary government.

Four days later they were surrounded in the Jalalabad hills. Sen evaded capture until 1933 and was hanged in January 1934.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Rash Behari Bose — Wrong decade, and by 1930 the wrong country. Rash Behari Bose organised the 1912 bomb attack on Viceroy Hardinge and the planned rising of 1915, then escaped to Japan.
(c)
Hemu Kalani — Wrong province. Hemu Kalani was a revolutionary of Sindh, hanged in 1943 for attempting to derail a train carrying British military supplies.
(d)
Badal Gupta — Different action. Badal Gupta was one of the Benoy–Badal–Dinesh trio who stormed the Writers' Building in Calcutta in December 1930, months after Chittagong.

Concept

Chittagong belongs to the second wave of Bengal's revolutionary movement, which revived after Gandhi withdrew Non-Cooperation in 1922.

It drew on the older Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar networks.

What set Surya Sen's group apart was scale. Not one assassination, but a coordinated seizure of a town's armouries.

The raiders called themselves the Indian Republican Army, Chittagong branch, and declared a provisional government.

The group also drew women into armed action — Pritilata Waddedar led the attack on the Pahartali European Club in 1932, and Kalpana Datta was tried alongside Sen's group.

The raiders never found the ammunition they needed, so most of the arms they seized were unusable. The raid's importance is as an example, not as a military success.

Key facts

The Chittagong Armoury Raid took place on 18 April 1930 under Surya Sen, known as Masterda.
The raiders fought a pitched battle in the Jalalabad hills days after the raid.
Surya Sen was captured in 1933 and hanged in January 1934.
Pritilata Waddedar led the Pahartali European Club attack in 1932.

Study next

Revolutionary nationalism in Bengal — Anushilan Samiti, Jugantar and the Alipore Bomb CaseThe Hindustan Socialist Republican Association — Kakori 1925, Saunders 1928, Assembly bomb 1929Women in the armed revolutionary movement — Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Datta, Bina Das

Common traps

Attaching the Writers' Building attack of December 1930 to Surya Sen. That was Benoy, Badal and Dinesh.
Dating the raid to 1929 or 1931 by association with the Lahore Congress or the Gandhi–Irwin Pact.

SSC pairs an event with its leader and fills the options with revolutionaries from other regions and decades. Anchor every name to a place and a year, not to a general reputation for revolutionary activity.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.