The Mughals & the Marathas

Answer: (a) Paragana—Sarkar—Suba

In the Mughal administrative set-up a suba (province) was divided into sarkars (districts), and a sarkar into parganas. So from smallest to largest the order is pargana, sarkar, suba.

• ✓ (a) NCERT's account of the Ain-i-Akbari lists the subas with their divisions (sarkars, parganas and mahals) and describes the sarkars as lying below the suba. The pargana is the smaller unit inside a sarkar, so the ascending order is pargana, sarkar, suba.
• ✗ (c) This is the descending order, from the largest unit (suba) to the smallest (pargana).
• ✗ (b) It puts the sarkar below the pargana, but parganas are the sub-divisions of a sarkar.

Remember · Mughal units, big to small: suba (province) > sarkar (district) > pargana > mahal. Ascending: pargana, sarkar, suba.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part II, Ch 4 (practise this chapter) · Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part II, Ch 4 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2021, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (b) 2 only

Only statement 2 is correct: the Wodeyar (Yadu) rulers of Mysore began as feudatories of the Vijayanagara kings and later ruled on their own. The Carnatic of the Arcot nawabs was a Mughal-era province, not a piece cut out of Hyderabad, and Rohilkhand grew out of Mughal decline, not out of land held by Ahmad Shah Durrani.

• ✗ 1. A Government of Tamil Nadu district page says the Nizam of Hyderabad, as Mughal representative in the south, entrusted the Carnatic to the Nawab of Arcot. The Arcot nawabs were thus Mughal-appointed governors under the Nizam, not a state that 'emerged out of' Hyderabad State.
• ✓ 2. The Mysuru Yadu dynasty rose to power in 1399 as feudatories of the Vijayanagara kings. NCERT adds that many Vijayanagara nayakas set up independent kingdoms in the seventeenth century, and lists Mysore among the nayaka centres.
• ✗ 3. Rohilkhand took shape in the early 18th century, when Mughal rule was fading and Rohilla Afghan settlers built their own power there. It was not carved from territory that Ahmad Shah Durrani, the Afghan invader, had occupied.

Remember · Mysore's Wodeyars were Vijayanagara feudatories; the Carnatic was a dependency of Hyderabad, not carved from it; Rohilkhand arose from Mughal decline.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part II, Ch 3 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2021, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error