UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q133: Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon in 1905. In which

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q133?

D. Correct — D, 1911. Curzon's partition came into force on 16 October 1905, splitting the presidency and creating a new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam with its capital at Dacca. Six years of Swadeshi and boycott agitation made that arrangement politically expensive for the government to hold. At the Delhi Durbar of 12 December **1911**, King George V announced that Bengal would be reunited. The reorganised provinces began functioning the following year. Carry away the pairing: **1905 divides Bengal, 1911 undoes it** — the reversal came as a royal proclamation at a Durbar, announced alongside the shift of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 133 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.

Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon in 1905. In which year was the partition annulled?

(a)1905
(b)1909
(c)1910
(d)1911

Answer

Why

Correct — D, 1911.

Curzon's partition came into force on 16 October 1905, splitting the presidency and creating a new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam with its capital at Dacca. Six years of Swadeshi and boycott agitation made that arrangement politically expensive for the government to hold.

At the Delhi Durbar of 12 December 1911, King George V announced that Bengal would be reunited. The reorganised provinces began functioning the following year.

Carry away the pairing: 1905 divides Bengal, 1911 undoes it — the reversal came as a royal proclamation at a Durbar, announced alongside the shift of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
1905 — 1905 is the date the stem has already supplied. The partition was announced in July 1905 and took effect on 16 October 1905, so this option answers the year Bengal was partitioned.
The question asks for the closing date of that arrangement, not its opening one.
(b)
1909 — 1909 is the year of the Indian Councils Act, the Morley–Minto Reforms, which enlarged the legislative councils and introduced separate electorates for Muslims.
That was a constitutional concession made while the partition was still in force. It changed how councils were composed, not how Bengal's boundaries ran.
(c)
1910 — 1910 is the year of the Indian Press Act, passed under Lord Minto to curb the nationalist press that the Swadeshi years had energised. George V also came to the throne in May 1910.
The partition still stood through that year. The reversal waited for his Durbar at Delhi in December 1911.

Concept

A territorial reorganisation ordered by the colonial executive could be undone by that same authority once its political cost rose. Bengal is the cleanest illustration: divided by administrative order in 1905, put back together by royal proclamation in 1911.

The part worth holding is that 1911 was not a plain restoration of the earlier map. Bengal proper was regrouped on a language basis, and Bihar and Orissa were separated out as a province of their own.

The partition sat at the centre of the Swadeshi and Boycott movement, which gave Indian politics its first mass-scale economic weapon and sharpened the rift between Moderates and Extremists.

Its annulment is usually read as an early instance of sustained agitation forcing the reversal of a settled British administrative decision, which is why the 1905–1911 pair anchors so much of the early-nationalism chronology.

Key facts

Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal in July 1905; it came into force on 16 October 1905.
The partition created a new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, with its capital at Dacca.
King George V announced the annulment of the partition at the Delhi Durbar on 12 December 1911.
The same Durbar announced the transfer of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi.
Under the 1911 decision Bengal was regrouped on a language basis, and Bihar and Orissa were constituted as a separate province.
Assam reverted to a Chief Commissioner's province when Eastern Bengal and Assam was dissolved.
The changes announced in December 1911 took administrative effect in 1912.
Lord Hardinge was Viceroy of India at the time of the 1911 Delhi Durbar.

Bengal 1905 and Bengal 1911

Announced July 1905, in force 16 October 1905→Announced at the Delhi Durbar, 12 December 1911

Ordered by Viceroy Lord Curzon→Proclaimed by King George V

New province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, capital Dacca→Bengal reunited; Bihar and Orissa made a separate province

Boundaries drawn on administrative and communal lines→Regrouping on a language basis

Triggered the Swadeshi and Boycott movement→Paired with the capital's move from Calcutta to Delhi

Six years apart: the division of 1905 and the royal reversal of 1911, which took administrative effect in 1912.

Study next

Swadeshi and Boycott movement, 1905–1908Indian Councils Act 1909 and separate electoratesThe Delhi Durbars of 1877, 1903 and 1911Founding of the Muslim League at Dacca, 1906The Surat split of the Congress, 1907Creation of Bihar and Orissa and later provincial reorganisations

Common traps

The stem itself supplies 1905 and option (a) repeats it, so a fast read that latches onto the familiar date ends up answering the question the stem already answered.
1909 sits close enough to feel plausible, but it belongs to the Indian Councils Act — a change to legislative councils, not to Bengal's boundaries.
The announcement (December 1911) and the administrative effect (1912) fall in different years; a stem asking when the partition was annulled points at the Durbar announcement.
Reading the annulment as a clean return to pre-1905 Bengal misses that Bihar and Orissa were carved out as a separate province in the same settlement.
Curzon ordered the partition but was no longer Viceroy when it was undone, so attaching his name to the 1911 decision inverts the sequence.

This appears as a two-date item: the stem supplies one year of the pair and asks for the other, or a matching list sets 1905 and 1911 against events of the period. Options cluster the intervening years, so the exact date is what separates them.

A second framing attaches the year to its occasion — the Delhi Durbar — or bundles the annulment with the transfer of the capital to Delhi inside one statement set.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2014_GS1_Q812014

The same endpoint, approached from the other side. UKPSC asks for the year the partition was annulled; UPSC asks how long Curzon's partition lasted and keys the option naming the Delhi Durbar of 1911. UPSC tests the occasion and the actor, this item tests the bare year.

UPPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q62025

Same year, different device. UPPSC asks which listed events fall in 1911 and pairs the revocation with the transfer of the capital to Delhi, while offering the Lucknow Pact as a decoy. The UKPSC item isolates one date; the UPPSC item asks you to sort several events by year.

UPPSC_2019_PRE_GSI_Q952019

The other half of the story. This one is about the content of the 1905 measure — the rearranged provincial boundaries and the new province of East Bengal and Assam — rather than about when the measure ended. Together the two cover what was done in 1905 and when it was undone.

GEO_GS_2023_Q72023

Tests the actor where this item tests the date. It asks who was Viceroy in 1905 when the partition was announced, a fact the UKPSC stem supplies for free. Note that the Viceroy of 1911, when the annulment came, was a different man.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The annulment of the Partition of Bengal was announced on which occasion?
- (a)The Surat session of the Indian National Congress, 1907
- (b)The Delhi Durbar of December 1911
- (c)The Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress, 1916
- (d)The Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, 1906
Answerb — King George V announced the reunification of Bengal at the Coronation Durbar held at Delhi on 12 December 1911.
The Surat session of 1907 is remembered for the split between Moderates and Extremists, a quarrel inside the Congress rather than a government decision on Bengal.
The Lucknow session of 1916 produced the Congress–League pact, five years after the annulment, and the Calcutta session of 1906 endorsed the Swadeshi programme while the partition was still in force.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following was announced along with the annulment of the Partition of Bengal?
- (a)Introduction of separate electorates for Muslims
- (b)Transfer of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi
- (c)Establishment of the Indian National Congress
- (d)Enactment of the Rowlatt Act
Answerb — the 1911 Durbar carried both announcements: Bengal would be reunited, and the capital of British India would move from Calcutta to Delhi.
Separate electorates came with the Indian Councils Act of 1909, two years earlier, while the partition was still standing. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885, two decades before the partition, and the Rowlatt Act belongs to 1919.
practice — not a real PYQ
As part of the 1911 reorganisation that followed the annulment of the Partition of Bengal, which of the following was constituted as a separate province?
- (a)Eastern Bengal and Assam
- (b)Bihar and Orissa
- (c)North-West Frontier Province
- (d)Sind
Answerb — Bihar and Orissa were detached from the Bengal Presidency and made a province of their own under the settlement announced in 1911.
Eastern Bengal and Assam was the province the 1905 partition had created; this reorganisation dissolved it rather than creating it.
The North-West Frontier Province had been carved out in 1901 under Curzon, and Sind was separated from the Bombay Presidency in 1936.
practice — not a real PYQ
Who was the Viceroy of India when the Partition of Bengal was annulled?
- (a)Lord Curzon
- (b)Lord Minto
- (c)Lord Hardinge
- (d)Lord Chelmsford
Answerc — Lord Hardinge was Viceroy at the Delhi Durbar of December 1911, at which the annulment was announced.
Lord Curzon had ordered the partition and left India in 1905, so his name attaches to the division and not to its reversal.
Lord Minto held the office through the Swadeshi years and the 1909 reforms, until 1910, and Lord Chelmsford took charge in 1916, well after the annulment.