Given below are two statements one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : The territories of the Sultanate could be broadly divided into two parts - the Khalsa and the Jagirs. Reason (R) : The Jagirs comprised of the land under the control of the State. Select the correct answer from the code given below : Code :
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (b)(A) is true, but (R) is false
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true
- (d)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
Correct — B, (A) is true, but (R) is false. The Assertion states the standard textbook division of Sultanate territory into two categories, and that is accepted: one part was retained under direct state administration — the khalisa (khalsa) — and the other was assigned away to nobles and officers, the assignment being called iqta in the Sultanate period and, in the language the commission uses here, jagir. The Reason then inverts the definition. It is the khalisa, not the jagir, that was 'the land under the control of the State': its revenue was realised by the Sultan's own revenue officers and flowed into the central treasury, where it paid the standing army and the establishment of the court. A jagir or iqta was precisely the land the state did not administer directly — it was handed over to an assignee who collected the revenue himself in lieu of a cash salary and maintained a stipulated body of troops out of it, remitting only the surplus (fawazil) to the exchequer. So the Reason describes the wrong half of the pair, the Assertion survives, and the code that fits is 'A true, R false'.
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A) — This option concedes that the Reason is true, and it is not. The Reason assigns to the jagir the defining feature of the khalisa. Once you see that the two categories are opposites — one administered by the state, one assigned out of the state's direct administration — no code that begins 'Both (A) and (R) are true' can be right.
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true — This gets both halves the wrong way round. The two-fold division of the realm into directly administered land and assigned land is exactly how the Sultanate's revenue geography is described, so the Assertion is not false; and the Reason's definition of jagir is the one that fails.
- (d)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A) — The trap option, and the one a hurried candidate marks. It reads naturally — a division of territory, followed by a sentence that sounds like it is explaining one of the two parts — and the phrase 'under the control of the State' feels harmless because every part of the Sultanate was, in some sense, under the state. But the technical sense is narrower: 'under the control of the state' is the definition of khalisa. Note also that UPPSC has shuffled the usual assertion-reason code here, putting 'both true and R explains A' at (d) instead of the customary (a) — so a candidate who marks the code by position rather than by reading it is caught twice.
The Delhi Sultanate financed itself out of land revenue, and the whole of its territory was booked into one of two columns. The khalisa (khalsa) was the reserved or crown share — land whose revenue was assessed and collected by the central government's own officers, the amil or amalguzar working under the diwan-i-wizarat, and paid into the Sultan's treasury to meet the salaries of the standing army and the expenses of the court. Everything else was assigned: a territory, called an iqta, was made over to a commander or officer, the muqti or wali, who collected its revenue, kept what was due to him as pay, maintained the troop contingent fixed for him, and sent the balance to the exchequer. The label changed over time — iqta belongs to the Sultanate and jagir became the standard word under the Mughals, where jagir and khalisa are the matching pair — but the underlying architecture is the same: directly administered land on one side, assigned land on the other.
Assertion-reason items on medieval administration are almost always decided by one definition, and here the definition is the word 'State'. The examiner has taken the correct sentence — 'the khalisa comprised the land under the control of the State' — and swapped in the other term. The technique that catches it is to test the Reason on its own, before you ever ask whether it explains the Assertion: if a jagir were state-controlled land, the whole point of granting a jagir, which was to pay an officer without moving cash, would disappear. UPPSC's own 2019 paper makes the same point from the opposite direction: it asked which statement is NOT a characteristic of the iqta system, and the official answer was that iqta revenue was directly deposited in the Sultan's account — that is, it was not. Read the two papers together and the boundary is fixed.
- Sultanate territory was booked in two columns — khalisa (khalsa), administered directly by the state with its revenue going to the Sultan's treasury, and land assigned out as iqta (jagir in the later, Mughal vocabulary)
- The holder of an iqta was the muqti or wali; he collected the revenue, took his pay from it, maintained a fixed contingent of troops, and remitted the surplus to the centre
- That surplus had a name of its own — fawazil — and UPSC has asked it directly: fawazil was the excess amount paid to the exchequer by the iqtadars
- In the khalisa the revenue chain ran through the amil or amalguzar under the diwan-i-wizarat, the Sultanate's finance department
- Iqta was an institution imported from West Asia by the Turkish rulers, not an ancient Indian practice — a point UPSC tested in 2019
- The parallel terminology is worth fixing: iqta with the Delhi Sultans, jagir with the Mughals, amaram with Vijayanagara, mokasa with the Marathas
The Assertion's two-fold division stands; the Reason attaches the khalisa's definition to the wrong column.
- Reading 'under the control of the State' loosely; in revenue vocabulary it is the technical description of khalisa, not of assigned land
- Assuming the assertion-reason codes always run in the standard order — UPPSC has placed 'both true and R explains A' at option (d) here
- Treating iqta and jagir as belonging to the same dynasty; the exam usually wants iqta paired with the Delhi Sultans and jagir with the Mughals
UPPSC prefers the assertion-reason or 'which is NOT a characteristic' framing on Sultanate land categories, while UPSC drills the vocabulary itself — what fawazil meant, who the amil was, or which system belongs to which dynasty.
Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the codes given below the Lists: List I I. Iqta II. Jagir III. Amaram IV. Mokasa List II A) Marathas B) Delhi Sultans C) Mughals D) Vijayanagara Codes:
- (a) I-C, II-B, III-A, IV-D
- (b) I-B, II-C, III-D, IV-A
- (c) I-B, II-C, III-A, IV-D
- (d) I-C, II-B, III-D, IV-A
Answer(b) I-B, II-C, III-D, IV-A
The exact terminological point the Assertion raises. UPSC's key pairs iqta with the Delhi Sultans and jagir with the Mughals — the same institution under two names — which is why the label in the 2025 question does not change the logic: whichever word is used, it denotes the assigned land, not the state-administered land.
Fawazil in the Sultanate period meant
- (a) Extra payment made to the nobles
- (b) Revenue assigned in lieu of salary
- (c) Excess amount paid to the exchequer by the iqtadars
- (d) Illegal exactions extracted from the peasants
Answer(c) Excess amount paid to the exchequer by the iqtadars
Settles the Reason from the revenue side. Fawazil was the surplus an iqtadar had to deposit with the royal exchequer — proof that iqta revenue reached the state only as a residue, after the assignee had taken his pay and maintained his troops. Land whose revenue the state controlled directly was the khalisa.
Assertion (A): At first the Turkish administration in India was essentially military. Reason (R): The country was parcelled out as ‘Iqta’s among leading military leaders.
- (a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT a correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true, but R is false
- (d) A is false, but R is true
Answer(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
The same assertion-reason format on the same institution, and a useful contrast: there the Reason (the country was parcelled out as iqtas among military leaders) is true and does explain the Assertion, so the answer is the 'both true' code. Comparing the two shows that the 2025 item fails not on the structure of the argument but on one inverted definition.
Which one of the following is NOT the characteristics of 'Iqta System' ?
- (a) Iqta was a revenue collection system
- (b) Siyasatnama was the source of information for Iqta System
- (c) Revenue from Iqta was directly deposited in Sultan's account
- (d) Muqti was supported to maintain troops out of the revenue collected from Iqta
Answer(c) Revenue from Iqta was directly deposited in Sultan's account
UPPSC's own earlier ruling on the same boundary. Its official answer marks 'Revenue from Iqta was directly deposited in Sultan's account' as NOT a characteristic of the iqta system — exactly the reason the 2025 Reason, which puts the jagir under state control, is false.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the revenue system of the Delhi Sultanate, 'khalisa' referred to
- (a)land assigned to nobles and officers in lieu of cash salary
- (b)land kept under the direct administration of the state, its revenue going to the Sultan's treasury
- (c)revenue-free land granted to scholars and religious men
- (d)land held in common by the village community
Answer(b) land kept under the direct administration of the state, its revenue going to the Sultan's treasury — assigned land was the iqta, later the jagir.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The holder of an iqta under the Delhi Sultanate was known as
- (a)Amil
- (b)Muqti
- (c)Mansabdar
- (d)Mushrif
Answer(b) Muqti — also called wali; the amil was a revenue collector, the mushrif an accounts officer, and the mansabdar belongs to the Mughal system.