The Central Hindu School of Banaras, which later developed into Banaras Hindu University, was established by whom?
- (a)Madam Cama
- (b)Sarojini Naidu
- (c)Annie Besant
- (d)Sucheta Kriplani
Correct — C, Annie Besant.
Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College at Banaras in 1898, five years after she arrived in India and took up work through the Theosophical Society. Its school wing is the Central Hindu School, teaching Western subjects alongside Hindu religious instruction.
When Madan Mohan Malaviya's campaign for a national Hindu university succeeded, that college was merged into the new Banaras Hindu University in 1916 and became its nucleus.
The idea to carry away: the 1898 foundation at Banaras is Besant's, the 1916 university is Malaviya's. The stem names the school and only mentions the university as what it later became.
- (a)Madam Cama — Bhikaiji Cama worked from exile in Europe, where her energy went into revolutionary propaganda and nationalist journals circulated among Indians abroad.
She is the right answer to the unfurling of a flag of Indian independence at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907. That is a moment of political symbolism abroad, not the founding of an institution in Banaras.
- (b)Sarojini Naidu — Sarojini Naidu's reputation rests on her poetry and on her platform work inside the Congress, and later on office in independent India as Governor of the United Provinces from 1947.
She is the right answer to the president of the Kanpur session of the Indian National Congress in 1925, the first Indian woman to preside over a Congress session. Her Congress leadership belongs to the 1920s and after, a generation past the founding of the Banaras school.
- (d)Sucheta Kriplani — Sucheta Kriplani was born in 1908, a full decade after the Central Hindu School opened, so the dates alone rule her out.
Her public life belongs to the Quit India years, the Constituent Assembly and post-independence politics. She is the right answer to becoming Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963, the first woman to head an Indian state government.
Institutions founded in the colonial period often did not stay as they began. A small school started by one person is absorbed years later into a larger body raised by someone else.
The founder of the first and the founder of the second are then two different people, and it is usually the later, bigger name that survives in memory. Fixing which person belongs to which stage is the whole of this question.
The late nineteenth century produced a run of educational bodies outside the government and missionary systems, mixing modern subjects with religious and cultural instruction.
Besant's Banaras foundation sat in that current, coming out of her Theosophical work. Malaviya's campaign for a national Hindu university then gave the idea a full university form, and the college was folded into it.
- Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College at Banaras in 1898; the Central Hindu School is its school wing.
- Banaras Hindu University came into being in 1916 through Madan Mohan Malaviya's campaign, with the Central Hindu College as its nucleus.
- Annie Besant arrived in India in 1893 and worked through the Theosophical Society, whose headquarters were at Adyar near Madras.
- Besant launched a Home Rule League in 1916 and presided over the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1917.
- Bhikaiji (Madam) Cama unfurled a flag of Indian independence at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in 1907.
- Sarojini Naidu presided over the Kanpur session of the Congress in 1925 and became Governor of the United Provinces in 1947.
- Sucheta Kriplani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963, the first woman to head an Indian state government.
Besant's Banaras foundation of 1898 became the nucleus of the university Madan Mohan Malaviya raised in 1916.
- The stem's tail, 'which later developed into Banaras Hindu University', pulls the mind to Malaviya; the grammatical subject being asked about is the school of 1898.
- Reading 'Hindu' in the institution's name as proof the founder must have been an Indian — Besant was a British Theosophist who settled in India in 1893.
- Reaching for the most familiar name among the four rather than asking which of them founded an institution at Banaras.
- Mixing up the two Congress presidencies — Besant at Calcutta in 1917, Naidu at Kanpur in 1925 — when a question pairs a name with a session.
This appears as a straight founder-institution pairing: a school or college is named, sometimes with its later form attached, and four names are offered.
Prepare the fact so it works in either direction. Be ready to go from the institution to the person and from the person back to the institution, and to keep Besant's 1898 Banaras foundation apart from Malaviya's 1916 university.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q472021The same fact, almost word for word — who founded the Central Hindu School at Benaras that became BHU, keyed to Annie Besant. What differs is the option set and therefore the pressure: there the trap is Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of the university itself, sitting beside Besant; here the other three names are women of the national movement, so the work is recognising Besant rather than separating school from university.
UPSC_2021_GS1_Q462021The same person-and-institution pairing in colonial education, and Annie Besant appears again — but as a wrong option, with Vidyasagar as the answer for who served as Secretary of the Hindu Female School that became Bethune School. What differs is the institution, the city, the decade and the relation asked about: a secretaryship in mid-nineteenth-century Calcutta women's education, against founding at Banaras in 1898.
UPSC_2009_GS1_Q522009Also a founder question about a college whose name begins with 'Hindu', answered by Raja Rammohan Roy for Hindu College at Calcutta. What differs is that it is a different institution in a different era — 1817 Bengal, with David Hare and Alexander Duff named in the stem — so the shared word 'Hindu' in the two college names is exactly the resemblance that must not be allowed to merge them.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Central Hindu College at Banaras, which formed the nucleus of Banaras Hindu University, was founded in 1898 by
- (a)Dayanand Saraswati
- (b)Annie Besant
- (c)Swami Vivekananda
- (d)Madan Mohan Malaviya
Answerb — Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College at Banaras in 1898, the Central Hindu School being its school wing.Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, and the DAV schools were set up by his followers after his death. Vivekananda's institutional legacy is the Ramakrishna Mission, founded in 1897.
Malaviya founded Banaras Hindu University in 1916 — the body the college was merged into, not the college itself.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?
- (a)Bhikaiji Cama — unfurled a flag of Indian independence at Stuttgart, 1907
- (b)Sarojini Naidu — founded the Central Hindu School at Banaras
- (c)Sucheta Kriplani — presided over the Calcutta session of the Congress, 1917
- (d)Annie Besant — first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state
Answera — Cama unfurled a flag of Indian independence at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in 1907.The Banaras school in (b) was Annie Besant's. The Calcutta Congress of 1917 in (c) was presided over by Besant, not Kriplani. The office named in (d) belongs to Sucheta Kriplani, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1963.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Annie Besant presided over which session of the Indian National Congress?
- (a)Calcutta, 1917
- (b)Lucknow, 1916
- (c)Kanpur, 1925
- (d)Amritsar, 1919
Answera — Besant took the chair at the Calcutta session of 1917, the year after she launched her Home Rule League.The Lucknow session of 1916, remembered for the Congress-League pact, was presided over by Ambica Charan Mazumdar. Kanpur in 1925 was Sarojini Naidu's session, and Amritsar in 1919, held after Jallianwala Bagh, was presided over by Motilal Nehru.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Sucheta Kriplani is remembered as
- (a)the first woman Governor of an Indian state
- (b)the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state
- (c)the first woman to preside over a session of the Indian National Congress
- (d)the first Indian woman to preside over a session of the Indian National Congress
Answerb — Kriplani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963, the first woman to hold that office in any Indian state.Option (a) describes Sarojini Naidu, Governor of the United Provinces from 1947. Option (c) describes Annie Besant, who chaired the Calcutta Congress of 1917. Option (d) describes Naidu again, at the Kanpur session of 1925.