Who founded a branch of the 'Home-Rule League' at Dehradun in 1918 ?
- (a)Swami Satyadeva
- (b)Swami Dayanand Saraswati
- (c)Swami Vicharanand Saraswati
- (d)Tara Dutt Gairola
Correct — C, Swami Vicharanand Saraswati.
The stem asks one narrow thing: who opened a branch of the Home Rule League at Dehradun in 1918. UKPSC's key names Swami Vicharanand Saraswati, the sannyasi credited with setting up that branch in the Doon, then a district of the United Provinces.
Mind the two-step chronology. The Leagues themselves belong to 1916 — Tilak's in April, Besant's in September. A branch at Dehradun in 1918 comes after Besant's internment and release in 1917 had pushed Home Rule to the front of national politics.
The idea to carry away is the one the stem turns on: founding a local branch is not founding the League. Attribution questions of this shape reward a name tied to a town and a year, not the all-India founders whose names come to mind first.
- (a)Swami Satyadeva — This name is associated with Swami Satyadev Parivrajak (1879-1961), an Arya Samaj sannyasi, Hindi travel writer and nationalist of the same generation, which is why it sits plausibly in this set.
He is the man to reach for on the founding of the Satya Jnana Niketan library at Jwalapur and on early Hindi travel narratives — not on the Dehradun branch of 1918, which the key assigns to Vicharanand Saraswati.
- (b)Swami Dayanand Saraswati — Dayanand Saraswati died in 1883, so a founding act in 1918 lies outside his life. The shared word 'Saraswati' is a Dasanami monastic title borne by many sannyasis; it marks an order, not one individual.
He is the answer to the founding of the Arya Samaj at Bombay in 1875, and to authorship of the Satyarth Prakash. Matching him here means matching on a title rather than on the deed the stem describes.
- (d)Tara Dutt Gairola — Tara Dutt Gairola (1875-1940) was a lawyer, editor and writer of Garhwal, a real figure of the same region and decade, which is why he sits plausibly in this set.
He is the man to reach for on the pioneering of modern Garhwali poetry, and on 'Himalayan Folklore: Kumaon and West Nepal', which he co-authored with E. S. Oakley. His documented record is literary and legal; the key gives the Dehradun branch of 1918 to Vicharanand Saraswati.
The Home Rule movement of 1916 was run by two organisations working in parallel: Tilak's Indian Home Rule League and Annie Besant's Home Rule League. Both demanded self-government within the Empire.
Neither was a single central body only. Each spread by opening local branches in towns across its agreed territory, and those branch foundings are separate events with their own founders, places and dates.
Home Rule sits between the Congress's Lucknow reunion of 1916 and the mass agitations that began with Rowlatt in 1919. It is the phase in which constitutional demand acquired a permanent local machinery.
For Uttarakhand, this decade is when all-India politics reached the hill and Doon towns: the Kumaun Parishad was formed at Almora in 1916, and a Home Rule League branch appeared at Dehradun in 1918.
- Tilak set up the Indian Home Rule League in April 1916, at the Bombay Provincial Conference held at Belgaum.
- Annie Besant announced the formation of her Home Rule League in September 1916, working from Madras.
- By the understanding between them, Tilak's League worked in Maharashtra excluding Bombay city, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces and Berar; Besant's League took the rest of India.
- Dehradun was then a district of the United Provinces, which lay in Besant's League's sphere under that division.
- Besant was interned in 1917, released in September that year, and presided over the Congress session at Calcutta in December 1917.
- Gandhi became president of Besant's Home Rule League in 1920, and it was renamed Swarajya Sabha.
- Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj at Bombay in 1875 and died in 1883.
- Swami Satyadev Parivrajak (1879-1961) was an Arya Samaj sannyasi and Hindi travel writer who founded the Satya Jnana Niketan library at Jwalapur.
- The Kumaun Parishad was founded at Almora in 1916.
Dehradun lay in the United Provinces, which the 1916 division of territory left to Besant's League; the branch in the stem is a local unit set up two years after either League was founded.
- Answering on the monastic title: 'Saraswati' is a Dasanami suffix carried by many sannyasis, so it cannot pick out Dayanand from Vicharanand.
- A date check settles option (b) on its own — Dayanand Saraswati died in 1883, thirty-five years before the branch in the stem.
- Collapsing 'founded a branch at Dehradun in 1918' into 'founded the Home Rule League', which is a 1916 event with two all-India founders.
- Assuming any northern branch belonged to Tilak's League; the 1916 territorial understanding placed the United Provinces with Besant's League.
- Merging the Kumaun Parishad of 1916 at Almora with the Dehradun Home Rule branch of 1918 — different bodies, different towns, different years.
This idea appears as a name-to-event pairing: a person, an organisation, a place and a year, with one element removed. Here the rival names are real figures of the same period or region, so elimination has to run on dates and deeds rather than on how familiar a name sounds.
The same material also appears as year-anchored items on 1916, as chronological sequencing against the Lucknow Pact or Gandhi's return, and as statement-pairs on the two Leagues' territories and leadership.
NDA_GAT_2025_II_Q792025Same organisation, examined at the all-India level: Tilak's April 1916 announcement at Belgaum, Besant's in September 1916, and the division of working territory between them. Our item drops to the local layer instead — who opened one branch, at Dehradun, in 1918 — so the NDA statements supply the frame within which the Doon branch has to be placed, not the answer to it.
CDS_GK_2022_I_Q702022Shares the year anchor: the CDS item asks what 1916 carries, listing the Lucknow session, the Congress-League Pact and the formation of the Home Rule League together. Ours turns on a different year, 1918, and on a person rather than an event list — the very gap that makes 'the League was founded in 1916' an insufficient answer here.
UPSC_2015_GS1_Q162015Same organisation at a later moment: Gandhi's attempt to use the Home Rule League machinery during the Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919. It tests the League as an instrument of a national campaign; ours tests its spread into a town a year earlier. Together they mark the League's arc from 1916 branches to 1919 mobilisation.
UPSC_1998_GS1_Q691998Uses Tilak's Home Rule League as a chronology peg against the Kamagata Maru incident and Gandhi's return to India. The skill there is ordering; ours is attribution. Both need the same date sense — the League predates the Dehradun branch by two years — but only ours asks for a named founder.
UPSC_2001_GS1_Q62001A structural twin rather than a topical one: a branch of a political body founded in a stated year, with the person to be named. The subject differs entirely — the London branch of the All-India Muslim League in 1908, and its president rather than its founder — but the reading discipline is identical, since the answer hangs on branch, place and year together.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Tilak set up his Indian Home Rule League in April 1916 at a provincial conference held at:
- (a)Poona
- (b)Belgaum
- (c)Nagpur
- (d)Ahmedabad
Answerb — Tilak announced the Indian Home Rule League at the Bombay Provincial Conference held at Belgaum in April 1916.Poona was his own base and the seat of his newspapers, but not the venue of this announcement; Nagpur is remembered for the Congress session of December 1920; Ahmedabad belongs to Gandhi's ashram, not to Tilak's League.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under the understanding that divided the field between the two Home Rule Leagues, which of the following areas was left to Tilak's League?
- (a)The United Provinces
- (b)Madras Presidency
- (c)Central Provinces and Berar
- (d)Bengal
Answerc — Tilak's League worked in Maharashtra excluding Bombay city, in Karnataka, and in the Central Provinces and Berar.Besant's League took the rest of the country, so the United Provinces, Madras Presidency and Bengal all lay on her side of the line. That is also why a 1918 branch at Dehradun falls in Besant's sphere.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In 1920 Gandhi became president of Annie Besant's Home Rule League, which was thereafter known as the:
- (a)Swarajya Sabha
- (b)Swaraj Party
- (c)Servants of India Society
- (d)Independence for India League
Answera — under Gandhi the League was renamed Swarajya Sabha.The Swaraj Party was formed in 1923 by C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru after the withdrawal of Non-Cooperation; the Servants of India Society was Gokhale's, founded in 1905; the Independence for India League came in 1928, with Jawaharlal Nehru among its leaders.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Kumaun Parishad, formed in 1916, was founded at:
- (a)Nainital
- (b)Almora
- (c)Dehradun
- (d)Srinagar (Garhwal)
Answerb — the Kumaun Parishad was founded at Almora in 1916.Nainital served as the summer seat of the United Provinces administration and Srinagar is a Garhwal town on the Alaknanda, but neither was the Parishad's founding venue. Dehradun belongs to a different event, the Home Rule League branch of 1918.