British administration, land revenue & economy

Answer: (a) 1 and 2 only

Charles Wood's education despatch of 1854 set up a grants-in-aid system for schools that met government standards and led to universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1857. It wanted English for higher education but the vernacular languages at the school level, so statement 3 is wrong.

• ✓ 1. After 1854 the Company began supporting schools, including village pathshalas, with government grants on condition that they accepted its rules, routines and inspections.
• ✓ 2. Steps were taken to build a university system after the Despatch; in 1857, the year of the revolt, universities were being set up in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.
• ✗ 3. The Despatch favoured English as the medium of higher education only; for elementary schooling it pushed improvement of vernacular education.

Remember · Wood's Despatch (1854), Charles Wood, President of the Board of Control: grants-in-aid, education departments, universities (1857), English for higher and vernacular for lower education.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) Both 1 and 2

Both measures were taken. After the Santhal Revolt of 1855–56 the British carved out a separate Santhal Pargana territory, and special laws there protected Santhal land from passing to outsiders.

• ✓ 1. The Santhal Pargana was created after the revolt, carved out of Bhagalpur and Birbhum districts, in 1855, as a separate territory to conciliate the Santhals.
• ✓ 2. The special laws for the Santhal Pargana barred the transfer of raiyati land: Regulation III of 1872 (Section 7) made the holdings non-transferable, and Regulation III of 1908 declared their non-transferability and empowered the Deputy Commissioner to act against illegal alienation. Santhals had lost land to moneylenders and outsiders. The protection continues today in the Santal Parganas Tenancy (Supplementary Provisions) Act, 1949, which makes a raiyat's transfer invalid unless the right is recorded.

Remember · Santhal Hul (1855–56, Sido–Kanhu) led to the separate Santhal Pargana district and special land-protection laws against transfer to outsiders.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 1 (practise this chapter) · Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 1 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) commercialization of Indian agriculture

British rule commercialised Indian agriculture: farmers were pushed towards cash crops for the market and for export instead of growing mainly for their own needs. The railways helped this trend, while India's handicraft industries declined.

• ✓ (c) Railways, introduced in 1850, fostered commercialisation of Indian agriculture, and cash crops gave higher yields in some areas. It weakened the self-sufficiency of village economies.
• ✗ (a) The country's world-famous handicraft industries declined under colonial rule. Cheap machine-made goods, such as those from Manchester, replaced native manufactures.
• ✗ (b) India could not build a sound industrial base under colonial rule. No modern industrial base was allowed to take the place of the declining handicrafts.

Remember · 19th-century colonial economy: commercialised agriculture, decline of handicrafts (de-industrialisation), and railways serving colonial interests.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 11 Indian Economic Development, Ch 1 (practise this chapter) · Class 11 Indian Economic Development, Ch 1 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) Cotton, silk, saltpetre and opium

In the mid-18th century the Company's main exports from Bengal were cotton and silk cloth, saltpetre (used for gunpowder) and opium. Bengal was the Company's source of fine textiles, and after 1765 its revenue was used to buy these goods rather than importing bullion from Britain.

• ✓ (d) The Company bought fine cotton and silk cloth in Bengal, held a monopoly of Indian saltpetre from the middle of the 18th century, and by the late 18th century was expanding opium cultivation.
• ✗ (a) The Company bought finished cotton and silk cloth from Bengal, not raw cotton or oil-seeds; only opium in this list fits.
• ✗ (c) Gold and silver went the other way: before 1765 the Company brought them from Britain to pay for Indian goods.
• ✗ (b) Sugar, salt, zinc and lead were not the Company's staple Bengal exports of this period.

Remember · Bengal exports of the Company in the 1750s: cotton and silk textiles, saltpetre, opium. Before Diwani (1765) it paid for them with bullion from Britain.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) To secure a fixed income for the Company

Why not the tempting option · UPSC's key is (c). The subsidy an ally paid was a reimbursement for the British force kept in its territory, and rulers who could not pay lost territory instead (Awadh gave up half its land in 1801), so a fixed income for the Company was not an object of the system; its purposes were a large army at Indian expense, exclusion of the French and British paramountcy. In the exam, judge a policy by its stated aims, not by its incidental receipts.

The Subsidiary Alliance was a military and political device. It planted a British force in an ally's territory at the ally's cost, offered the ruler protection against external threats, and tied the states to British control. Securing a fixed income for the Company was never its aim: the subsidy was the price of the troops, and when a ruler could not pay it, territory was taken instead. So (c) is the statement that does not apply.

• ✓ (c) The money an ally paid was the cost of maintaining the British contingent stationed with it, not a revenue for the Company. NCERT notes that if the ruler failed to pay, part of his territory was taken away as a penalty; the object was control, not a steady income.
• ✗ (a) This did apply: the ally had to provide the resources for maintaining the British armed contingent stationed in its territory, which gave the Company a large army at Indian expense.
• ✗ (b) This did apply: NCERT says the British Resident was installed to protect rulers against internal or external threats, and Britannica names Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798-99, which created a new French threat to India, among the immediate causes of the Company's drive towards paramountcy in Wellesley's time.
• ✗ (d) This did apply: an ally could not negotiate with other rulers or go to war without British permission and had to accept a Resident, and NCERT says the system effectively transferred real power to the British, which placed British power above the Indian states.

Remember · Wellesley's Subsidiary Alliance: British troops in the ally's state, paid for by the ally (territory taken if unpaid); foreign relations only through the British, no wars without the Company's consent; protection against external threats. Its aims were military and political, not revenue.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 2 (practise this chapter) · Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), Ch 4 (practise this chapter) · Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), Ch 4 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

All three were links in one chain. The Charter Act of 1813 first set aside public money for Indian education, the General Committee of Public Instruction (1823) was set up to spend it, and the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy inside that committee ended with Macaulay's Minute (1835) and the English Education Act, which made English the medium of higher education.

• ✓ 1. When the Company's charter was renewed in 1813, a clause required the governor-general to spend not less than 100,000 rupees a year on the education of Indians. This created the funds and the official responsibility for education.
• ✓ 2. The General Committee of Public Instruction, formed in Calcutta in 1823, disbursed the grant. Younger members on it later argued for spreading Western knowledge through English, which led to the controversy.
• ✓ 3. The dispute over funding Oriental learning or Western knowledge was settled for the Anglicists by Macaulay's Minute of 1835, followed by the English Education Act of 1835.

Remember · Route to English education: Charter Act 1813 (Rs 1 lakh grant), General Committee of Public Instruction 1823, Orientalist-Anglicist debate, Macaulay's Minute and English Education Act 1835.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), Ch 4 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (b) 2 only

Only pair 2 is correct: Warren Hastings set up the Calcutta Madrasa in 1781. The Benaras Sanskrit College came from Jonathan Duncan in 1791, and Fort William College was set up by Governor-General Lord Wellesley in 1800.

• ✗ 1. The Benaras Sanskrit College was founded in 1791 by Jonathan Duncan, the British Resident at Benaras. Sir William Jones is remembered for founding the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784.
• ✓ 2. Warren Hastings founded the Calcutta Madrasa in 1781 to train Muslim gentlemen for posts in the Company's administration; NCERT says Hastings took the initiative to set it up.
• ✗ 3. Fort William College, Calcutta (1800), was set up by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General, to train Company civilians. Arthur Wellesley was his younger brother, the soldier who later became Duke of Wellington.

Remember · Calcutta Madrasa: Hastings (1781). Benaras Sanskrit College: Jonathan Duncan (1791). Fort William College: Lord Wellesley (1800).

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error