UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q141: In Tehri Riyasat under which Deputy Commissioner Thakur

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q141?

C. Correct — C, Windham. The stem hands you the man and the post — Thakur Jodh Singh Negi, settlement officer in Tehri Riyasat — and asks only for the superior in whose time that appointment was made. UKPSC's provisional answer key puts **Windham** in that slot. Negi is in Uttarakhand's administrative record because of that career: he began in a subordinate capacity in a district office and rose to Settlement Officer of the Tehri-Garhwal State, a post to which he was selected by Government. He also wrote the travel account Himalayan Travels. The idea to carry away is that hill-administration history is stored **as pairs — a name, the office it held, and the officer it worked under**. The paper prints one half of the pair and asks for the other.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 141 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.

In Tehri Riyasat under which Deputy Commissioner Thakur Jodh Singh Negi was appointed as a settlement officer?

(a)Lt. Col. Young
(b)H. V. Herasay
(c)Windham
(d)Captain Hyder

Answer

Why

Correct — C, Windham.

The stem hands you the man and the post — Thakur Jodh Singh Negi, settlement officer in Tehri Riyasat — and asks only for the superior in whose time that appointment was made. UKPSC's provisional answer key puts Windham in that slot.

Negi is in Uttarakhand's administrative record because of that career: he began in a subordinate capacity in a district office and rose to Settlement Officer of the Tehri-Garhwal State, a post to which he was selected by Government. He also wrote the travel account Himalayan Travels.

The idea to carry away is that hill-administration history is stored as pairs — a name, the office it held, and the officer it worked under. The paper prints one half of the pair and asks for the other.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Lt. Col. Young — In this region's past the name Young attaches to Frederick Young, who raised the Sirmoor battalion of Gurkhas in 1815 and belongs to the early colonial story of the Dehra Dun valley.
That is a military and Doon-valley association. The stem is asking who held the Deputy Commissioner's office over a Tehri settlement appointment, and the key answers Windham.
(b)
H. V. Herasay — The spelling here resembles Hearsey, a name that in this region answers the 1812 journey with William Moorcroft across the Garhwal passes to Lake Manasarovar in pilgrim disguise.
The paper prints the initials H. V., so treat that as a resemblance rather than a settled identification. Either way the association is exploration and soldiering in the foothills, not revenue work in Tehri.
The key puts Windham in the office the stem names.
(d)
Captain Hyder — Hyder is a given name, and 'Captain Hyder Hearsey' is a styling under which the Doon explorer of that name is known. So both (b) and (d) point at the Hearsey name rather than at the revenue establishment of Tehri state.
Neither is a revenue officer of Tehri state. The stem asks for the Deputy Commissioner, and the key puts Windham in that slot.

Concept

A settlement, or bandobast, is the operation by which a state fixes what it will take from the land. Fields are measured, soil is classified, produce is assessed, the demand is fixed for a stated term of years, and rights in land are written down.

The officer who runs that operation is the settlement officer, working under the district authority of the day. In the Garhwal hills these operations produced the land records on which later administration was built, and much of its written administrative history.

Garhwal was split in two after the Anglo-Gurkha War. The eastern half, lying east of the Alaknanda and Mandakini, became British Garhwal, administered from Srinagar; Pauri became the headquarters in 1840, when Garhwal was formed into a separate district under an assistant commissioner.

The tract west of the Alaknanda and Mandakini was restored to Sudarshan Shah in 1815, and the capital he built at Tehri gave the princely state its name.

Land settlement is where the paperwork of both halves is generated. Names such as Jodh Singh Negi survive in Uttarakhand's history because settlement operations recorded the men who conducted them.

Key facts

UKPSC's provisional answer key names Windham as the Deputy Commissioner under whom Thakur Jodh Singh Negi was appointed settlement officer in Tehri Riyasat.
Jodh Singh Negi began in a modest capacity in a district office and rose to Settlement Officer of the Tehri-Garhwal State, being selected for it by Government.
Jodh Singh Negi wrote the travel account Himalayan Travels, whose own biographical note records that career.
A settlement (bandobast) surveyed and classified land, fixed the revenue demand for a term of years, and recorded who held rights in the land.
Tehri became the capital of a Garhwal princely state when Sudarshan Shah received the tract west of the Alaknanda and Mandakini in 1815, after Gorkha rule over Garhwal ended.
Tehri Garhwal ceased to be a princely state in 1949, when it was merged into the United Provinces and became a district.
Hyder Young Hearsey travelled with William Moorcroft through Garhwal to Lake Manasarovar in 1812.
Frederick Young raised the Sirmoor battalion of Gurkhas in 1815 and is associated with early British Dehra Dun.

Which name answers 'Deputy Commissioner'?

Windham→the Deputy Commissioner named in UKPSC's provisional key

Lt. Col. Young→Frederick Young — Sirmoor Gurkha battalion, 1815

H. V. Herasay→the Hearsey name — Moorcroft's companion to Manasarovar, 1812

Captain Hyder→the same Hearsey name in another styling

The stem asks for an office-holder; the key names Windham, while the other three labels carry names from the Doon's military and exploring past.

Study next

Land-revenue settlements in Kumaon and Garhwal — the bandobast cycle and the records it producedTehri Garhwal princely state: its founding in 1815, the Panwar rulers, and the 1949 mergerBritish Garhwal after the Anglo-Gurkha War and the administration of the Kumaon divisionHyder Young Hearsey, William Moorcroft and the 1812 crossing to Lake ManasarovarSri Dev Suman and the Praja Mandal movement in Tehri state

Common traps

Hyder and Hearsey are two pieces of the single name Hyder Young Hearsey, while 'Young' also stands on its own as Frederick Young of Dehra Dun — a familiar syllable is not a person you have placed.
'Settlement' here means land-revenue settlement (bandobast), not a peace settlement and not a resettlement scheme.
The stem names two things — the office asked for (Deputy Commissioner) and the post filled (settlement officer). Answering with a name famous in Garhwal for exploration or for a regiment answers a different question.
The options print European surnames in unfamiliar spellings. A spelling you do not recognise is not proof of a different man, and one that looks familiar is not proof you have placed him.
Jodh Singh Negi is supplied in the stem, so the unknown is his superior; recalling more about Negi does not narrow the four options.

The one linked item here, UKPSC 2025's set on Gorkha-period judicial titles, puts the same demand in a statement-verification frame: each statement joins a title to an office, and the work is to accept or reject each join.

This item strips the frame away. One side of an administrative pairing is printed — the settlement officer and the state he served — and the other side, the office he worked under, is the blank.

Related PYQs

UKPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q692025

Same commission and the same underlying demand: recall an administrative office in this region's past by its name. What differs is the period, the branch and the format — that item tests Gorkha-period judicial vocabulary ('Vichari' and the rest) through a statement-verification set, while this one tests a colonial-era revenue appointment in Tehri state through a single-name choice. Prepared together, they build the habit of storing Uttarakhand's history as office-and-name pairs.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
In colonial land-revenue administration in the Kumaon and Garhwal hills, a 'settlement' operation was principally concerned with:
- (a)Surveying and classifying land, fixing the revenue demand for a term of years and recording rights in land
- (b)Relocating villagers whose fields had been destroyed by landslides
- (c)Resolving succession disputes among the ruling families of the hill states
- (d)Recruiting hill men into the army and fixing village recruitment quotas
Answera — A settlement, or bandobast, measured and classified the land, assessed what it could yield, fixed the state's demand for a stated term and wrote down who held what.
(b) describes relief and resettlement work. (c) is a dynastic and political matter, not a revenue operation. (d) describes recruitment, which ran through military channels rather than the settlement establishment.
practice — not a real PYQ
Tehri became the capital of a Garhwal princely state in the arrangement that followed which event?
- (a)The Anglo-Gurkha War of 1814-16
- (b)The Revolt of 1857
- (c)The Treaty of Allahabad, 1765
- (d)The annexation of Awadh in 1856
Answera — When Gorkha rule over Garhwal ended, the tract west of the Alaknanda and Mandakini was restored to Sudarshan Shah in 1815 and he made Tehri his capital, while the eastern half stayed with the British as British Garhwal.
(b) and (d) fall decades later than the 1815 arrangement. (c) concerns the grant of the diwani in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765, a different region and a different transaction.
practice — not a real PYQ
Who accompanied William Moorcroft on the 1812 journey through Garhwal to Lake Manasarovar?
- (a)Frederick Young
- (b)Hyder Young Hearsey
- (c)Sudarshan Shah
- (d)Thakur Jodh Singh Negi
Answerb — Hearsey crossed the Garhwal passes with Moorcroft in pilgrim disguise and reached Manasarovar in 1812.
(a) Frederick Young is remembered for the Sirmoor Gurkha battalion of 1815 and for the Dehra Dun valley. (c) Sudarshan Shah was the Garhwal ruler who founded Tehri as his capital. (d) Jodh Singh Negi belongs to a later period, as a settlement officer of Tehri state.
practice — not a real PYQ
Thakur Jodh Singh Negi appears in the administrative history of Tehri Garhwal as:
- (a)Settlement officer of the Tehri-Garhwal State
- (b)Commander of the Tehri state forces
- (c)The last ruler of Tehri state
- (d)The British Resident attached to Tehri
Answera — Negi rose from a subordinate post in a district office to Settlement Officer of the Tehri-Garhwal State, and also wrote the travel account Himalayan Travels.
(b) and (d) name offices of a different kind, one military and one diplomatic. (c) belongs to the Panwar ruling line, which ended with Manabendra Shah, and not to an officer of the revenue establishment.