Consider the following statements: 1. During the Gurkha Administration, the Judge was called ‘VICHARI’. 2. The other judicial workers were also called ‘SABHA’. 3. For the prompt justice the officer appointed was called ‘DIVYA’. Which of the above statements is/are correct?
- (a)Only 2
- (b)Only 3
- (c)1 and 2
- (d)2 and 3
Correct — C, 1 and 2.
Statements 1 and 2 report the period's vocabulary as it stands. The judge under the Gurkha administration was styled 'Vichari', and the other men staffing the court were spoken of as 'Sabha'. Each word names people holding a role.
Statement 3 changes category. 'Divya' names the ordeal — the divine test by which a doubtful case was decided on the spot, typically through fire, hot oil, water or a balance. It is a way of trying a case, not a post someone is appointed to.
Drop statement 3 and 1 and 2 is what survives. Carry away the check itself: ask whether a period term names a person or a procedure, because a statement can keep a real word and still attach it to the wrong kind of thing.
- (a)Only 2 — 'Only 2' accepts the Sabha statement but throws out the Vichari one. Statement 1 gives the judge's title as the Gurkha administration used it, so there is nothing in it to reject.
This option fits a version of the set in which the judge is given some other title, leaving the Sabha statement as the one survivor.
- (b)Only 3 — 'Only 3' inverts the paper. It discards the two statements that describe people correctly and keeps the one that turns a method of trial into an appointment.
It fits a set in which Divya is described as a mode of trial rather than as an officer, while the two title statements carry wrong names.
- (d)2 and 3 — '2 and 3' is where you land by holding on to the familiar 'Sabha', doubting the unfamiliar 'Vichari', and reading 'for the prompt justice the officer appointed' as confirmation that Divya was a post. The speed belonged to the ordeal, not to an officer.
It fits a set that misnames the judge and also describes Divya as a mode of trial.
The Gurkha administration of the Kumaon and Garhwal hills was a compact apparatus in which a small set of titles did the work of civil government.
Its judicial vocabulary holds two different kinds of word: names for the people who heard a case, and names for the methods by which a case was settled. Vichari and Sabha belong to the first kind, Divya to the second.
Uttarakhand's history sits in phases — the Chand kingdom in Kumaon and the Panwar kingdom in Garhwal, then the Gurkha years, then British administration from 1815. The Gurkha phase is short, and its own vocabulary is the most concrete thing about it, so the terms are worth learning as terms.
The skill is portable. Deciding whether a word names an office, a body or a procedure is the same move that separates a commission from a committee, or a writ from a court, in polity questions.
- Under the Gurkha administration of the Kumaon and Garhwal hills, the judge was titled 'Vichari'.
- Judicial workers other than the judge were referred to as 'Sabha'.
- 'Divya' denotes an ordeal — a divine test used to settle a disputed case — and so belongs to the vocabulary of procedure rather than of office.
- Ordeals of this kind took several recognised forms, among them fire, hot oil, water and the balance.
- Gurkha forces took Kumaon around 1790 and extended control over Garhwal in 1803-04.
- The period is remembered locally as 'Gorkhyani'.
- Gurkha rule in these hills ended in the course of the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-16, settled by the Treaty of Sugauli.
- The British annexed Kumaon and eastern Garhwal, while western Garhwal was restored to its ruling house as the princely state of Tehri.
Two of the three terms name people who staffed the court; the highlighted one names a method, which is why statement 3 falls and option C stands.
- A statement can be true in its noun and false in its verb: 'Divya' is genuine vocabulary from the period, but calling it an appointed officer misdescribes what kind of thing it is.
- Recognising one term you know, such as 'Sabha', and marking any option that contains it — an option must satisfy every statement it includes and exclude every one it leaves out.
- Reading the phrase 'for the prompt justice' as evidence that a post existed, when speed was a property of the method of trial.
- Treating unfamiliarity with 'Vichari' as a reason to reject statement 1; an unfamiliar term is not the same as a wrong term.
- Answering from the shape of the options — three statements with a two-statement key — instead of judging each statement on its own.
This idea reaches you as numbered statements pairing a period term with a role, where the work is to separate the correct pairings from the one moved into the wrong category.
No eligible match among this question's citable set.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Gurkha administration of the Kumaon and Garhwal hills, the term 'Vichari' referred to:
- (a)the judge
- (b)the ordeal by which a case was decided
- (c)the collector of land revenue
- (d)the commander of a hill fort
Answera — 'Vichari' was the title borne by the judge under the Gurkha administration.(b) fails because the ordeal is called divya, a method and not a person. (c) and (d) fail because the term belongs to the vocabulary of the court, not to revenue collection or to a military command.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the judicial practice of the Gurkha period in the Uttarakhand hills, 'Divya' refers to:
- (a)a category of land grant made to temples
- (b)an ordeal used to decide a disputed case
- (c)the senior-most judicial officer of a district
- (d)a written plaint filed before the court
Answerb — divya is the divine test, or ordeal, through which a doubtful case was settled.(a) misplaces it among tenures rather than trials. (c) describes a person, which is the category error the original question turns on. (d) names a document, whereas divya names the trial itself.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements about the Gurkha administration in the Kumaon and Garhwal hills: 1. Judicial workers other than the judge were referred to as 'Sabha'. 2. 'Divya' was the designation of an officer appointed to deliver prompt justice. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answera — statement 1 is correct: 'Sabha' was used for the judicial workers other than the judge.Statement 2 is wrong because divya is an ordeal, a mode of trial, not the designation of an appointee. That single error rules out (b) and (c), and since statement 1 stands, (d) is ruled out too.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Gurkha authority over Kumaon and Garhwal was brought to an end in the course of which one of the following conflicts?
- (a)The Third Anglo-Maratha War
- (b)The Anglo-Nepalese War
- (c)The First Anglo-Sikh War
- (d)The First Anglo-Burmese War
Answerb — the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-16, closed by the Treaty of Sugauli, ended Gurkha control of these hills and brought Kumaon and eastern Garhwal under British administration.(a) came later, in 1817-18, and concerned the Maratha powers. (c) was fought in Punjab in 1845-46. (d) was fought on the eastern frontier from 1824.