Social & religious reform movements

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: (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) Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Neeldarpan.

Dinabandhu Mitra's play Neeldarpan (Nildarpan), on the oppression of indigo growers, dates from 1860, which is earlier than the other three events (1863, 1875 and 1882). Line the four dates up and the earliest is the play.

• ✗ (a) Swami Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, fifteen years after Neeldarpan.
• ✓ (b) Neeldarpan is listed among Dinabandhu Mitra's plays as of 1860, the year of the indigo agitation in Bengal; this is the earliest date in the set.
• ✗ (c) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel Anandamath came out in 1882, the latest of the four.
• ✗ (d) Satyendranath Tagore, eldest brother of Rabindranath, qualified for the Indian Civil Service in 1863, three years after Neeldarpan.

Remember · Order to remember: Neeldarpan (1860), Satyendranath Tagore in the ICS (1863), Arya Samaj (1875), Anandamath (1882).

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 2), Ch 2 (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 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error