QUIZ – 2020: INSIGHTS STATIC , 30 July 2021 – History – INSIGHTSIAS

Solution: c)

Alfonso de Albuquerque

• Albuquerque, who succeeded Almeida as the Portuguese governor in India, was the real founder of the Portuguese power in the East, a task he completed before his death. He secured for Portugal the strategic control of the Indian Ocean by establishing bases overlooking all the entrances to the sea. There were Portuguese strongholds in East Africa, off the Red Sea, at Ormuz; in Malabar; and at Malacca. The Portuguese, under Albuquerque bolstered their stranglehold by introducing a permit

system for other ships and exercising control over the major ship-building centres in the region. The nonavailability of timber in the Gulf and Red Sea regions for ship-building also helped the Portuguese in their objectives.

• Albuquerque acquired Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510 with ease; the principal port of the Sultan of Bijapur became “the first bit of Indian territory to be under the Europeans since the time of Alexander the Great”. An interesting feature of his rule was the abolition of sati.

Solution: d)

Dutch Settlements

• After their arrival in India, the Dutch founded their first factory in Masulipatnam (in Andhra Pradesh) in 1605. They went on to establish trading centres at different parts of India and thus became a threat to the Portuguese. They captured Nagapatam near Madras (Chennai) from the Portuguese and made it their main stronghold in South India.
• The Dutch got drawn into the trade of the Malay Archipelago. Further, in the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-74), communications between Surat and the new English settlement of Bombay got cut due to which three homebound English ships were captured in the Bay of Bengal by the Dutch forces. The retaliation by the English resulted in the defeat of the Dutch, in the battle of Hooghly (November 1759), which dealt a crushing blow to Dutch ambitions in India.

Solution: b)

The Ahoms migrated to the Brahmaputra valley from present-day Myanmar in the thirteenth century. They created a new state by suppressing the older political system of the bhuiyans (landlords).

• The Ahom state depended upon forced labour. Those forced to work for the state were called paiks.
• A census of the population was taken. Each village had to send a number of paiks by rotation. People from heavily populated areas were shifted to less populated ones.

Solution: c)

Bisra Munda started a movement called ‘Ulgulan’, or ‘The Great Tumult’. His struggle against the exploitation and discrimination against tribals led to a big hit against the British government in the form of the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act being passed in 1908. The act restricted the passing on of land from the tribal people to non-tribals.

Solution: c)

On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi embarked a historic Salt March from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad to the village of Dandi in the state’s coastal area to protest against the steep tax the British levied on salt.

• The Salt March began on March 12, 1930 and continued till April 6, 1930.

It was a direct-action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.

• It was a 24-day Salt March, which was non-violent in nature, is historically significant as it led to the mass Civil Disobedience Movement.