SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 2 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.

The first southern campaign of Alauddin Khilji in 1307-08 AD was led to which of the following regions?

(a)Madura
(b)Warangal
(c)Dwar Samudra
(d)Devagiri

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The first Deccan expedition of Alauddin Khilji's reign, in 1307-08, was sent against Devagiri — the Yadava capital of Ramachandra in the northern Deccan.

It was commanded by his general Malik Kafur, and the grievance was money: Ramachandra had stopped sending the tribute he promised after Alauddin's earlier raid.

Ramachandra was defeated, taken to Delhi, treated honourably and restored to his throne as a tributary ally.

Devagiri then served as the forward base for the deeper marches south.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Madura — Madura, the Pandya country, was the farthest point Malik Kafur reached, on the 1310-11 march — the end of the sequence, not its start.
(b)
Warangal — Warangal, the Kakatiya capital of Prataparudra, was the target of the campaign that followed Devagiri, in 1309-10.
(c)
Dwar Samudra — Dwar Samudra, the Hoysala capital of Ballala III, fell on the 1310-11 march — the same one that carried Kafur on to the Pandya country.

Concept

The Deccan campaigns of 1307-11 moved north to south, each conquered capital becoming the springboard for the next.

Devagiri of the Yadavas, then Warangal of the Kakatiyas, then Dwarasamudra of the Hoysalas and Madurai of the Pandyas.

What Delhi took from them was tribute and plunder, not territory. The defeated kings were left on their thrones as vassals.

Devagiri was the exception. It was brought under direct rule later, once its next ruler stopped paying.

Alauddin had already raided Devagiri in 1296, while he was still a provincial governor and not yet Sultan.

The question's 1307-08 fixes it to the first campaign of his reign — which is why Devagiri appears twice in his story.

Key facts

Malik Kafur commanded Alauddin Khilji's Deccan expeditions between 1307 and 1311.
The 1307-08 campaign was directed at Devagiri, the Yadava capital of Ramachandra.
The order of the campaigns ran Devagiri, then Warangal, then Dwarasamudra and Madurai — north to south.
The defeated southern rulers were made tribute-paying vassals rather than dispossessed.

Study next

Alauddin Khilji's market control and price regulation measuresThe four Deccan powers of the early fourteenth century: Yadavas, Kakatiyas, Hoysalas, PandyasMalik Kafur and the Khilji succession crisis after Alauddin's death in 1316

Common traps

Counting the 1296 raid on Devagiri, made before Alauddin became Sultan, as the first campaign of his reign.
Assuming the campaigns annexed the south — in 1307-11 they imposed tribute and left the dynasties in place.
Pairing a capital with the wrong dynasty: Warangal is Kakatiya, Dwarasamudra Hoysala, Devagiri Yadava.

SSC's Khilji questions turn on either the order of the Deccan campaigns or the capital-to-dynasty pairing, with 'who led it' and 'in which year' as the usual variants.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.