UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 133 of 150

Correct — B, A-2, B-3, C-1, D-4. Taking them in the order of the list: the Pabna agitation (A) opened in 1873 in Pabna district of eastern Bengal, where cultivators formed agrarian leagues, struck against enhanced rents and illegal cesses and fought their landlords largely through the courts; the movement and its litigation ran on into the mid-1880s and fed directly into the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 — hence the paper's span 1873-85, which is item 2. The Eka or 'Unity' movement (B) belongs to the Awadh districts of the United Provinces — Hardoi, Bahraich, Barabanki, Sitapur — where tenants took a symbolic oath to pay only the recorded rent and to resist eviction; begun in the closing weeks of 1921, it ran through and was crushed during 1922, which is item 3. The Santhal Hul (C), led by the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu against zamindars, moneylenders and the police in the Rajmahal hills, is 1855-56, item 1. The Tana Bhagat movement (D), begun by Jatra Oraon among the Oraons of Chotanagpur as a monotheistic reform that turned into a refusal of rent and forced labour, dates from 1914, item 4. Only option (b) carries all four.

• (a)A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3 — This code hands Pabna the Santhal dates (1855-56) and pushes the Santhal Hul forward to 1914, which is the Tana Bhagat year. It effectively rotates the whole list, so every single pair is wrong.
• (c)A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2 — It dates Pabna to 1922 and the Eka movement to 1855-56 — an impossibility, since Eka grew out of the Awadh Kisan Sabha activity that followed the First World War and is inseparable from the Non-Cooperation years. All four pairs are wrong.
• (d)A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1 — The most tempting wrong option, because it gets Eka right at 1922 and then fails on the other three: Pabna is placed in 1914, the Santhal Hul in 1873-85 and the Tana Bhagat movement in 1855-56. In a match-list question one correct pair is not enough — check every row before choosing.

Colonial India saw two overlapping streams of rural protest that examiners deliberately mix. The first is the peasant or agrarian movement of the settled plains, aimed at zamindars, planters and moneylenders and at the rent and revenue system behind them — the Indigo revolt, Pabna, the Deccan riots, the Awadh Kisan Sabha and Eka. The second is the tribal or adivasi uprising of the forest and hill tracts, aimed at outsiders (dikus) who took over land, forest rights and credit — the Santhal Hul, Birsa Munda's Ulgulan, the Tana Bhagat movement. Each is fixed by three things: where it happened, when, and who led it.

For a four-way match the fastest route is to anchor the two you are surest of and let elimination do the rest. Almost every candidate knows the Santhal Hul is pre-1857, so item 1 (1855-56) goes to C immediately — and that alone kills options (a), (c) and (d). If you want a second check, Eka belongs to the Non-Cooperation period, so the only plausible year on the list for it is 1922. A UP-specific point worth carrying into the exam hall: the Eka movement is the Uttar Pradesh entry in this list, rooted in Awadh and led at its peak by Madari Pasi after it slipped out of the hands of the Congress and Khilafat organisers who had first called the meetings.

• Pabna agrarian league — eastern Bengal, from 1873; rent strikes and litigation against zamindari rack-renting and illegal cesses, feeding into the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885.
• Eka (Unity) movement — Awadh districts of the United Provinces (Hardoi, Bahraich, Barabanki, Sitapur), late 1921 into 1922, with Madari Pasi emerging as its leader.
• Santhal Hul — 1855-56 in the Rajmahal hills, led by Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu against zamindars, mahajans and the police; its suppression was followed by the creation of the Santhal Parganas.
• Tana Bhagat movement — 1914 among the Oraons of Chotanagpur, begun by Jatra Oraon as a religious reform that became a refusal of rent and begar, and later drew close to the Gandhian movement.
• Two of these four — Santhal and Tana Bhagat — are tribal uprisings; the other two are agrarian tenant movements of settled districts.

• Choosing an option because one pair in it is right — match-list questions are designed so that a wrong code still contains a correct row.
• Confusing the Eka movement (Awadh, 1921-22) with the earlier Awadh Kisan Sabha agitation under Baba Ramchandra (1920-21); Eka is the later, more radical breakaway under Madari Pasi.
• Treating the Tana Bhagat movement as part of Birsa Munda's Ulgulan; Birsa's revolt was 1899-1900 among the Mundas, while the Tana Bhagats were Oraons and began in 1914.

UPPSC likes this block as a match-list of movement against year or region, with at least one Uttar Pradesh entry hidden in it. UPSC asks the same movements as region-matching, chronological ordering, or 'what did the government do afterwards' — so store each movement with its date, its province, its leader and its legislative aftermath.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Eka movement of 1921-22 was mainly confined to which of the following regions?

  • (a)Malabar
  • (b)Awadh in the United Provinces
  • (c)Chotanagpur
  • (d)Eastern Bengal

  Answer(b) Awadh in the United Provinces — the movement spread through Hardoi, Bahraich, Barabanki and Sitapur, and its later leadership passed to Madari Pasi.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?

  • (a)Santhal Hul — Birsa Munda
  • (b)Tana Bhagat movement — Jatra Oraon
  • (c)Pabna agitation — Baba Ramchandra
  • (d)Ulgulan — Sidhu and Kanhu

  Answer(b) Tana Bhagat movement — Jatra Oraon. The Santhal Hul was led by Sidhu and Kanhu, the Ulgulan by Birsa Munda, and Baba Ramchandra belongs to the Awadh Kisan Sabha, not to Pabna.