UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q1: The McMahon line demarcates the boundary between which of

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q1?

B. Correct — B, Arunachal Pradesh and China. The McMahon Line takes its name from Sir Henry McMahon, Foreign Secretary of the Government of British India and Britain's chief negotiator at the Simla Conference of 1913-14. The alignment was fixed in an exchange of notes and maps between McMahon and the Tibetan plenipotentiary Lonchen Shatra in March 1914, and carried into the Simla Convention that Britain and Tibet signed in July 1914 after the Chinese government refused to ratify it. The line runs eastward from the eastern end of the Bhutan boundary to the trijunction with Burma (now Myanmar), broadly following the crest of the eastern Himalaya. Every stretch of Indian territory it encloses lies in what is today **Arunachal Pradesh**, which is why the key is (b). India treats it as the boundary in the Eastern Sector; China has never accepted it and claims the territory south of it, which it calls Zangnan or South Tibet. The idea worth carrying away is that **a named boundary line attaches to one sector of a frontier, not to the whole of it.** 'McMahon Line' answers a question about the eastern end of the India-China boundary and nothing west of Bhutan.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 1 of 147

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

The McMahon line demarcates the boundary between which of the following options?

(a)Sikkim and China
(b)Arunachal Pradesh and China
(c)Uttarakhand and China
(d)Himachal Pradesh and China

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Arunachal Pradesh and China.

The McMahon Line takes its name from Sir Henry McMahon, Foreign Secretary of the Government of British India and Britain's chief negotiator at the Simla Conference of 1913-14.

The alignment was fixed in an exchange of notes and maps between McMahon and the Tibetan plenipotentiary Lonchen Shatra in March 1914, and carried into the Simla Convention that Britain and Tibet signed in July 1914 after the Chinese government refused to ratify it.

The line runs eastward from the eastern end of the Bhutan boundary to the trijunction with Burma (now Myanmar), broadly following the crest of the eastern Himalaya. Every stretch of Indian territory it encloses lies in what is today Arunachal Pradesh, which is why the key is (b).

India treats it as the boundary in the Eastern Sector; China has never accepted it and claims the territory south of it, which it calls Zangnan or South Tibet. The idea worth carrying away is that a named boundary line attaches to one sector of a frontier, not to the whole of it.

'McMahon Line' answers a question about the eastern end of the India-China boundary and nothing west of Bhutan.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Sikkim and China — Sikkim does face Tibet, but that stretch was settled a generation before Simla, by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 signed at Calcutta, which placed the boundary on the watershed separating the Teesta system from the rivers flowing into Tibet.
It is the one part of the India-China boundary that rests on a treaty China itself signed. This option is the correct answer to a question about the 1890 Convention, or about where Nathu La and Jelep La lie, or about the sector that meets the Bhutan-Tibet-India trijunction near Doklam.
(c)
Uttarakhand and China — Uttarakhand genuinely borders Tibet along its Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh districts, and Uttarakhand is the home state of this paper. But this is the Middle Sector, and the McMahon Line does not extend west of Bhutan; no comparable named colonial line covers the Middle Sector at all.
This option answers questions about the Niti and Mana passes in Chamoli, about Lipulekh in Pithoragarh, or about Barahoti, the Chamoli pocket both sides claim.
(d)
Himachal Pradesh and China — Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti face Tibet, and Shipki La, where the Sutlej enters India, sits on that boundary. Like Uttarakhand this is Middle Sector territory, far west of anything McMahon negotiated.
It answers a question about Shipki La or about the Sutlej's entry into India, not about the Simla Convention.

Concept

The India-China boundary has never been settled as a single negotiated line. It is conventionally handled in three sectors, each with a different documentary history. In the east, India's claim follows the McMahon Line of the Simla Conference.

In the middle, opposite Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the alignment follows the Himalayan watershed and customary usage rather than any famous named line. In the west, opposite Ladakh, rival colonial-era proposals such as the Johnson Line and the Macartney-MacDonald Line never produced an agreed boundary, and Aksai Chin remains under Chinese control.

Layered on top of all three is the Line of Actual Control, which marks where the two armies actually stand rather than where either government says the boundary lies.

Confusing the named historical line with the sector it belongs to, or with the LAC, is what makes questions of this type work.

Named boundary lines are the shorthand of Indian political geography, and each attaches to a specific pair of territories: McMahon in the east, Radcliffe for the 1947 partition boundaries, Durand between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For a Uttarakhand candidate the topic also sits close to home, because Uttarakhand is itself a frontier state with an international boundary against Tibet in the north and against Nepal along the Kali in the east.

Knowing which line governs which sector is the difference between recognising your own state's frontier as Middle Sector territory and mistaking it for McMahon country.

Key facts

The line is named after Sir Henry McMahon, Foreign Secretary of the Government of British India, who led the British delegation at the Simla Conference of 1913-14.
The alignment was fixed by an exchange of notes and maps between McMahon and the Tibetan plenipotentiary Lonchen Shatra in March 1914; the Simla Convention was signed by Britain and Tibet in July 1914 after China's government declined to ratify it.
It runs from the eastern end of the Bhutan boundary to the trijunction with Myanmar, broadly along the crest of the eastern Himalaya.
India treats the line as the boundary in the Eastern Sector; China rejects it and claims the Arunachal Pradesh territory south of it, referring to the area as Zangnan or South Tibet.
Chinese forces crossed into territory south of the line in the Eastern Sector during the 1962 war, including the Tawang and Walong areas.
The Sikkim-Tibet boundary rests instead on the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890, signed at Calcutta.
In Uttarakhand, the districts of Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh touch the boundary with Tibet; Niti and Mana passes lie in Chamoli and Lipulekh in Pithoragarh.
Barahoti, in Chamoli district, is the Middle Sector pocket that both India and China claim.
Shipki La, in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, is the pass through which the Sutlej enters India.
The Radcliffe Line refers to the boundaries drawn at Partition in 1947; the Durand Line, agreed in 1893, separates Afghanistan from what is now Pakistan.

Which named line governs which boundary

Arunachal Pradesh - Tibet (Eastern Sector)→McMahon Line, from the Simla Conference of 1913-14

Sikkim - Tibet→Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890, signed at Calcutta

Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh - Tibet (Middle Sector)→No single named line; watershed and customary alignment, with Barahoti claimed by both

Ladakh - Xinjiang and Tibet (Western Sector)→Rival colonial proposals (Johnson, Macartney-MacDonald); no agreed boundary, Aksai Chin held by China

India - Pakistan and India - Bangladesh→Radcliffe Line of 1947; in Jammu and Kashmir the Line of Control

Afghanistan - Pakistan→Durand Line, agreed in 1893

All four of the options in this question border Tibet. What separates them is which document the boundary came from, not whether China lies on the other side.

Study next

The three sectors of the India-China boundary and the documentary basis of eachThe Simla Conference of 1913-14: participants, the exchange of notes, and why China refused to ratifyThe Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 and the Sikkim-Tibet boundaryUttarakhand's frontier with Tibet: Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh, the Niti, Mana and Lipulekh passes, and BarahotiThe Line of Actual Control and how a line of control differs from a delimited boundaryOther named lines that appear in Indian geography papers: Radcliffe, Durand, Johnson, Macartney-MacDonald, and the Actual Ground Position Line on the Siachen Glacier

Common traps

Seeing 'China' in all four options and then picking whichever Indian state you most associate with the China border. All four of these states really do face Tibet, so the fact that a state borders China decides nothing here.
Treating 'McMahon Line' as a name for the whole India-China boundary. Country-level phrasing, as in the UPPSC 2018 version of this question, lets that error survive unnoticed until a paper asks for the state.
Assuming the McMahon Line and the LAC are the same thing in the east. India's claim follows the McMahon alignment, but the two sides hold differing perceptions of the LAC at several points in that sector, so a statement equating them is not safe.
Attaching the wrong document to Sikkim. Swapping the two documents - attaching 1890 to Arunachal and 1914 to Sikkim - reverses the answer, and both halves of the swap are then wrong.
For a Uttarakhand candidate specifically, over-reading the home-state option. The presence of Uttarakhand in the option list is not a signal that the answer is local.

The two citable versions of this topic show the range it can be asked across. This UKPSC item gives the line and asks which boundary it demarcates, and because the options are Indian states the answer has to be pinned to a sector.

The UPPSC 2018 item asks the same thing at country level, where 'India and China' is enough to score.

The HPSC 2014 item leaves the map aside altogether and asks for the year of the Simla Accord, so preparing only where the line runs leaves the date side of the same fact uncovered.

Related PYQs

UPPSC_2018_PRE_GSI_Q322018

The same line, asked at country level: the options there are pairs of countries, so 'India and China' is enough to score. This UKPSC item pushes one level finer and asks which Indian state the line borders, which a candidate carrying only the country-level fact cannot answer. Working the UPPSC version first and then this one shows exactly where the country-level memory runs out.

HPSC_2014_PRE_GSII_Q122014

Also about the McMahon Line, but tests a different attribute of it: the year of the Simla Accord under which Britain and Tibet agreed the line, answered by 1914. Same object, different handle - one paper asks where the line runs, the other when it was drawn. A candidate who prepares only the map side of this topic is exposed to the date side.

UPSC_2025_GS1_Q522025

Shares the subject of this question's answer - Arunachal Pradesh's international boundaries - but tests matching rather than naming. It presents three State:Description pairs - Arunachal Pradesh bordering three countries, Meghalaya's boundary with Bangladesh, Mizoram bordering two - and asks how many are correctly matched. It never mentions the McMahon Line. The link is that both reward knowing which of India's north-eastern states faces which neighbour; the UPSC item is a pairs-matching format while this one is a single-fact recall.

Practice

practice - not a real PYQ
The McMahon Line was drawn as part of which of the following?
- (a)The Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890
- (b)The Simla Convention of 1914
- (c)The Treaty of Yandabo, 1826
- (d)The Treaty of Sugauli, 1816
Answerb - The line was negotiated at the Simla Conference of 1913-14 and carried into the Simla Convention signed by Britain and Tibet in 1914. (a) is the convention that delimited the Sikkim-Tibet boundary, not the eastern one.
(c) ended the First Anglo-Burmese War; Burma ceded Arakan and Tenasserim, renounced its claims on Assam and its dependencies and on Cachar and Jaintia, and recognised Gambhir Singh as Rajah of Manipur - it concerns the Burmese frontier, not Tibet.
(d) was signed with Nepal after the Anglo-Nepalese War and brought Kumaon and Garhwal under British control, fixing an India-Nepal boundary, not an India-China one.
practice - not a real PYQ
Which of the following passes lies on the boundary between Uttarakhand and Tibet?
- (a)Nathu La
- (b)Shipki La
- (c)Niti Pass
- (d)Bum La
Answerc - Niti Pass lies in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, on the Middle Sector boundary with Tibet. (a) Nathu La is in Sikkim, on the stretch governed by the 1890 Convention.
(b) Shipki La is in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, where the Sutlej enters India. (d) Bum La lies in Arunachal Pradesh near Tawang, in the Eastern Sector along the McMahon alignment.
practice - not a real PYQ
The boundary between Sikkim and Tibet was delimited by which of the following?
- (a)The Simla Convention of 1914
- (b)The Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890
- (c)The Treaty of Tientsin, 1858
- (d)The Panchsheel Agreement of 1954
Answerb - The Anglo-Chinese Convention signed at Calcutta in 1890 fixed the Sikkim-Tibet boundary along the watershed. (a) produced the McMahon Line in the east, not the Sikkim stretch.
(c) was one of the treaties concluding a phase of the Second Opium War and settled matters of trade and diplomatic residence in China; it delimited no Himalayan boundary.
(d) was the agreement on trade and intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India, famous for enunciating the five principles; it dealt with trade and pilgrimage arrangements and did not delimit any boundary.
practice - not a real PYQ
Which of the following districts of Uttarakhand does NOT touch the international boundary with Tibet (China)?
- (a)Uttarkashi
- (b)Chamoli
- (c)Pithoragarh
- (d)Bageshwar
Answerd - Bageshwar is an interior district, enclosed by Chamoli, Pithoragarh and Almora, and reaches no international boundary.
(a), (b) and (c) all extend north to the boundary with Tibet: Uttarkashi in the west, Chamoli in the centre with the Niti and Mana passes and the contested Barahoti pocket, and Pithoragarh in the east with the Lipulekh route.