Arrange the Battles of Babur given below in chronological order: I. Battle of Ghaghra II. First Battle of Panipat III. Battle of Chanderi IV. Battle of Khanwa
- (a)IV, II, I, III
- (b)II, IV, III, I
- (c)III, I, II, IV
- (d)I, IV, III, II
Correct — B, II, IV, III, I.
The four battles listed fall one to a year. The First Battle of Panipat came first, on 21 April 1526, against Ibrahim Lodi. The Battle of Khanwa followed in March 1527, against Rana Sanga of Mewar.
Chanderi came next, in January 1528, against Medini Rai. Ghaghra, fought in 1529 against an Afghan confederacy backed by Nusrat Shah of Bengal, is the latest of the four.
Read that list downwards and the roman numerals give II, IV, III, I. The anchor worth carrying away is the run of consecutive years: Panipat 1526, Khanwa 1527, Chanderi 1528, Ghaghra 1529.
- (a)IV, II, I, III — This opens with Khanwa and closes with Chanderi, so it makes two swaps at once: Khanwa ahead of Panipat, and Chanderi after Ghaghra.
Khanwa is the right answer to which battle broke the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga, but it was fought in March 1527, not quite eleven months after Panipat, so it cannot stand first.
- (c)III, I, II, IV — This puts the 1528 and 1529 battles ahead of the 1526 and 1527 ones, opening with Chanderi and ending with Khanwa.
Chanderi is the right answer to which fort Babur stormed from Medini Rai, and that was January 1528 — third in this run of four years, not first.
- (d)I, IV, III, II — This reads Ghaghra, Khanwa, Chanderi, Panipat: the latest battle (Ghaghra, 1529) put first and the earliest (Panipat, 1526) put last. Khanwa and Chanderi hold their correct relative order but sit stranded in the middle, so it is not even an exact reversal.
Ghaghra is the right answer to which of these four battles was fought last, in 1529. The stem asks for chronological order, which runs from the earliest event to the latest, so Ghaghra belongs at the end.
A chronological-ordering item is settled by pinning each entry to a year and then reading the list downwards. How famous or how decisive an event was carries no information about when it happened.
Babur's campaign in India is easy to anchor because these four battles fall in four consecutive years, each against a different adversary: the Delhi Sultan, the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga, a Rajput chief holding Chanderi in Malwa, and an Afghan resurgence in the east.
The four battles fall between April 1526 and May 1529, inside Babur's short spell as a ruler in India, which began with Panipat and ended with his death at Agra in December 1530.
Each removes a different rival. Panipat ends Lodi rule at Delhi, Khanwa breaks the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga, Chanderi takes a Rajput stronghold in Malwa, and Ghaghra checks the Afghan resurgence in the east that Humayun would have to face again.
- The First Battle of Panipat was fought on 21 April 1526 between Babur and Ibrahim Lodi, the Lodi Sultan of Delhi.
- The Battle of Khanwa, fought in March 1527 near Fatehpur Sikri, was against Rana Sanga of Mewar and the Rajput confederacy he led.
- Before Khanwa, Babur renounced wine; after the victory he assumed the title Ghazi.
- The Battle of Chanderi, in January 1528, was fought against Medini Rai, a Rajput chief in Malwa; the defenders performed jauhar.
- The Battle of Ghaghra, in 1529, was against Afghan forces under Mahmud Lodi allied with Nusrat Shah of Bengal, near the Ghaghra's confluence with the Ganga.
- Babur died at Agra in December 1530, the year after the Battle of Ghaghra.
Four consecutive years; reading the numerals down this column gives the keyed code II, IV, III, I.
- Khanwa is the more celebrated of the two Rajput encounters, but prominence is not chronology: Panipat (1526) comes before Khanwa (1527).
- Option d starts from the latest battle (Ghaghra) and ends at the earliest (Panipat) — 'chronological order' in this stem runs earliest to latest, so the sequence must open with Panipat 1526.
- Khanwa and Chanderi are both against Rajput opponents and sit in consecutive years, so the type of opponent cannot separate them — only the year can.
- Ghaghra's opponents are Afghans allied with Bengal rather than Rajputs, and it is the latest of the four battles listed.
- The same four battles can be listed under different roman numerals, so a memorised letter transfers nothing between papers; only the year order does.
The set turns up as a sequence to order. UKPSC put these same four battles in that format again in 2025, and UPPSC papers use the same ordering device on other lists of battles.
The same four battles can be renumbered so that the correct code sits at a different letter, as that 2025 UKPSC item does. Fixing the years first, then converting to the numerals printed in front of you, holds up whichever way the four are labelled.
UKPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q592025The same four battles of Babur, asked as the same chronological-ordering task. What differs is the numbering: there Panipat is I, Khanwa II, Ghaghra III and Chanderi IV, so the correct code reads I, II, IV, III and sits at a different option letter. The history is identical; only the labels move.
UPPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q792025Same ordering device, moved one reign forward: Chausa and Kannauj belong to Humayun's war against Sher Shah, so the sequence picks up where Babur's ends. It also stretches much further in time by including Samugarh from Aurangzeb's war of succession, whereas this question's four battles sit inside four consecutive years.
UPPSC_2022_PRE_GSI_Q1032022Again the same task on Mughal battles, but the difficulty is of a different kind: the engagements of Aurangzeb's war of succession fall close together, with Dharmat and Samugarh only weeks apart in 1658, so month-level dating decides the order. Here a year-level memory is enough.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Arrange the following battles of Babur in chronological order, earliest first: I. Battle of Ghaghra II. Battle of Khanwa III. First Battle of Panipat IV. Battle of Chanderi
- (a)III, IV, II, I
- (b)II, III, IV, I
- (c)III, II, IV, I
- (d)III, II, I, IV
Answerc — Panipat was fought in April 1526, Khanwa in March 1527, Chanderi in January 1528 and Ghaghra in 1529, which gives III, II, IV, I.Option (a) lifts Chanderi above Khanwa; (b) starts with Khanwa instead of Panipat; (d) puts Ghaghra ahead of Chanderi.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Babur fought the Battle of Khanwa in 1527 against:
- (a)Rana Sanga of Mewar
- (b)Medini Rai of Chanderi
- (c)Ibrahim Lodi
- (d)Nusrat Shah of Bengal
Answera — Khanwa was fought against Rana Sanga, the ruler of Mewar who headed the Rajput confederacy.Medini Rai was the opponent at Chanderi in 1528; Ibrahim Lodi was the Delhi Sultan defeated at Panipat in 1526; Nusrat Shah of Bengal stood with the Afghans at Ghaghra in 1529.
- practice — not a real PYQ
At the Battle of Ghaghra, Babur defeated a confederacy of Afghan chiefs supported by the ruler of:
- (a)Gujarat
- (b)Malwa
- (c)Mewar
- (d)Bengal
Answerd — the Afghans under Mahmud Lodi were backed by Nusrat Shah of Bengal, and the fighting took place near the confluence of the Ghaghra and the Ganga.The Malwa link belongs to Chanderi and Medini Rai, and the Mewar link to Khanwa and Rana Sanga; Gujarat figures in the campaigns of later reigns, not in this battle.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Medini Rai, defeated by Babur in 1528, held the fort of:
- (a)Kalinjar
- (b)Chanderi
- (c)Ranthambore
- (d)Gwalior
Answerb — Chanderi, in Malwa, was Medini Rai's stronghold; Babur stormed it in January 1528 and its defenders performed jauhar.Kalinjar and Ranthambore belong to other reigns: Sher Shah's siege of Kalinjar in 1545, Akbar's capture of Ranthambore in 1569. Gwalior did pass to Babur's officers in 1526, but as a separate acquisition — it was not Medini Rai's stronghold.