UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 147 of 150

Correct — A, A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3. Take the four pairs one at a time. (A) Lallanji Gopal, who taught Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology at Banaras Hindu University, wrote 'The Economic Life of Northern India, c. A.D. 700–1200' (Motilal Banarsidass, 1965) — so A-2. (B) 'Habib and Nizami' is not one author but two: Mohammad Habib and Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, both of Aligarh Muslim University, who edited Volume V of the Indian History Congress's 'A Comprehensive History of India', the volume titled 'The Delhi Sultanat', published by People's Publishing House in 1970 — so B-1. (C) Kishori Saran Lal (1920–2002) took his Allahabad doctorate on the Khaljis in 1945 and turned it into 'History of the Khaljis (A.D. 1290–1320)', first published in 1950 and revised in 1967 and 1980 — so C-4. (D) Dasharatha Sharma (1903–1976), the historian of Rajasthan who later headed the History department at the University of Jodhpur, published his thesis as 'Early Chauhan Dynasties' in 1959 (revised 1975), a study of Chauhan political history and institutions from about A.D. 800 to 1316 — so D-3. Only option (a) delivers all four. There is also a one-step route through this question that costs no memory at all: entry B names a PAIR of scholars, and only a large multi-volume collaborative series has co-editors rather than a single author. So B must go with 'A Comprehensive History of India : The Delhi Sultanat', i.e. B-1 — and (a) is the only code in the set that has B-1. Locate that single pairing and the other three follow for free.

• (b)A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 — Every pair is displaced by one. It makes Lallanji Gopal — an economic historian of the early-medieval north — the author of the Delhi Sultanate volume, hands Habib and Nizami a monograph on economic life, gives K.S. Lal the Chauhans and Dasharatha Sharma the Khaljis. It also fails the structural test: B-2 puts two co-editors on a single-author monograph.
• (c)A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1 — This is the straight reversal of the correct code (4, 3, 2, 1 against A, B, C, D), which is exactly the shape an examiner adds to catch a candidate who half-remembers the answer as 'the reverse order'. It credits Lallanji Gopal with the Khaljis, Habib and Nizami with 'Early Chauhan Dynasties', K.S. Lal with the economic-life book and Dasharatha Sharma with the Sultanate volume — all four wrong.
• (d)A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 — Wrong on all four. It attaches the Rajasthan specialist's book on the Chauhans to Lallanji Gopal, the Khalji monograph to Habib and Nizami, the collaborative Sultanate volume to the single author K.S. Lal, and the economic-life study to Dasharatha Sharma. Note the traps it exploits — the surname mnemonic 'Sharma → Sultanate' and the pull of pairing 'Lal' with anything medieval.

This is a secondary-source question: it tests not the medieval past itself but who wrote the standard modern books about it. Four different specialisations are on show. Lallanji Gopal works on the economy of early-medieval northern India, roughly the eighth to twelfth centuries. Mohammad Habib and K.A. Nizami are the Aligarh school of Delhi Sultanate history, and their joint volume is one instalment of the Indian History Congress's large collaborative 'A Comprehensive History of India' series. K.S. Lal is a monographer of individual Sultanate dynasties — the Khaljis first, then the later Sultanate in 'Twilight of the Sultanate' (1963). Dasharatha Sharma is a historian of Rajasthan and therefore of the Chahamanas, the dynasty better known as the Chauhans of Sakambhari, Ajmer and Ranthambore.

The way to crack a match list you have not memorised is to look for structural signals before you look for recall. Here there are two. The first is the plural entry: 'Habib and Nizami' is a pair, and a pair of names belongs to an edited multi-volume history, not to a monograph — that alone fixes B-1, and only (a) contains B-1. The second is the title-to-period signal: 'The Economic Life of Northern India' has no dynasty in it, so it belongs to the one scholar in the list who is an economic historian rather than a dynastic one, and that is Lallanji Gopal. After that the two dynastic monographs simply need to be attached to the right specialists — the Khaljis to K.S. Lal, the Chauhans to the Rajasthan man, Dasharatha Sharma. Note also that all four titles are modern scholarship, not medieval chronicles. Do not confuse them with the primary Persian sources — Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, Barani's and Afif's two Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, Amir Khusrau's Khazain-ul-Futuh — which UPPSC also asks about, in exactly the same match-list format.

• Lallanji Gopal, 'The Economic Life of Northern India, c. A.D. 700–1200' — Motilal Banarsidass, 1965. He taught at Banaras Hindu University; the book is a standard reference on agrarian relations, crafts, trade and coinage in early-medieval northern India.
• Mohammad Habib and Khaliq Ahmad Nizami (eds.), 'A Comprehensive History of India, Volume V: The Delhi Sultanat' — People's Publishing House, 1970, produced for the Indian History Congress. Nizami (1925–1997) was a professor and briefly Vice-Chancellor at Aligarh Muslim University.
• K.S. Lal (Kishori Saran Lal, 1920–2002), 'History of the Khaljis' — first published 1950, revised editions 1967 and 1980, developed from the D.Phil. he completed at Allahabad in 1945. He also wrote 'Twilight of the Sultanate' (1963) and chaired the ICHR in 2001.
• Dasharatha Sharma (1903–1976), 'Early Chauhan Dynasties' — 1959, revised 1975; his doctoral thesis, covering Chauhan political history, political institutions and life in the Chauhan dominions from about A.D. 800 to 1316. He also edited 'Rajasthan through the Ages' (1966).
• Structural shortcut: the only List-I entry with two names must map to the only List-II entry that is a volume of a collaborative multi-volume series, i.e. B-1 — and (a) is the sole code offering B-1.

• Reading 'Habib and Nizami' as a single person. Two names signal an edited, multi-volume collaborative history, which is the strongest structural clue in the whole question.
• Confusing modern monographs with medieval chronicles. 'History of the Khaljis' is a 1950 book by K.S. Lal; the contemporary Khalji-era source is Amir Khusrau's Khazain-ul-Futuh and Barani's later Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi.
• Mixing up Mohammad Habib with his son Irfan Habib. Mohammad Habib co-edited the Delhi Sultanat volume; Irfan Habib is known for 'The Agrarian System of Mughal India' and the Atlas of the Mughal Empire.

UPPSC asks author-and-book almost every year, either as this four-way match list or as 'which of the following is NOT correctly matched'; UPSC has shifted to 'consider the following pairs — literary work : author. How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?', which punishes partial knowledge harder because you must judge each pair independently.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The book 'Twilight of the Sultanate' was written by which historian?

  • (a)K.S. Lal
  • (b)Dasharatha Sharma
  • (c)Lallanji Gopal
  • (d)K.A. Nizami

  Answer(a) K.S. Lal — Kishori Saran Lal published 'Twilight of the Sultanate' in 1963, the sequel in subject to his earlier 'History of the Khaljis' (1950).

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs of book and author is NOT correctly matched?

  • (a)Early Chauhan Dynasties — Dasharatha Sharma
  • (b)Tabaqat-i-Nasiri — Minhaj-us-Siraj Juzjani
  • (c)The Agrarian System of Mughal India — Mohammad Habib
  • (d)Khazain-ul-Futuh — Amir Khusrau

  Answer(c) The Agrarian System of Mughal India — Mohammad Habib is the mismatch; that book is by Irfan Habib, his son. Mohammad Habib is remembered for co-editing, with K.A. Nizami, the Delhi Sultanat volume of A Comprehensive History of India.