Indian History Quiz

In a 1944 broadcast on Azad Hind Radio, which leader addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the 'Father of our Nation', a title India still uses for him?

• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Subhas Chandra Bose
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
• Rabindranath Tagore

Answer: Subhas Chandra Bose. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, then leading the Indian National Army, used the words on Azad Hind Radio in mid-1944, asking for Gandhi's blessings for the INA's campaign. The government never formally conferred the title; it stuck through use.

In Mewar's ballads, which horse carried Maharana Pratap out of the Battle of Haldighati in 1576 and died soon after?

• Chetak
• Kanthaka
• Bucephalus
• Uchchaihshravas

Answer: Chetak. Chetak is remembered at the Chetak Smarak near Haldighati, said to mark where he fell. Kanthaka was the Buddha's horse, Bucephalus was Alexander's, and Uchchaihshravas is the seven-headed horse of Hindu myth.

On 28 February 1948, the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, the last British troops in India, marched out through which monument?

• India Gate
• Red Fort
• Fort William
• Gateway of India

Answer: Gateway of India. The arch on Bombay's waterfront had been built to mark King George V's arrival in 1911. So the last British soldiers left through the very gate raised to welcome a British king.

On 8 April 1929, two young revolutionaries threw low-power bombs onto empty benches of the Central Legislative Assembly, with leaflets saying it takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear. One was Batukeshwar Dutt. Who was the other?

• Chandrashekhar Azad
• Sukhdev Thapar
• Bhagat Singh
• Ram Prasad Bismil

Answer: Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh and Dutt shouted 'Inquilab Zindabad' and waited to be arrested, so that their trial would spread their message. A few members were hurt, but no one was killed.

Socialist Yusuf Meherally greeted the Simon Commission at Bombay's docks with 'Simon Go Back'. In July 1942 he is credited with offering Gandhi a two-word slogan for a new movement. What was it?

• Purna Swaraj
• Quit India
• Inquilab Zindabad
• Jai Hind

Answer: Quit India. Gandhi took up the slogan, and the Congress launched the Quit India movement in Bombay on 8 August 1942.

Iron-cased rockets captured in South India in the 1790s were studied in England and led to the Congreve rocket, whose 'red glare' made it into the US national anthem. Whose army had fired them?

• Tipu Sultan's
• Maharaja Ranjit Singh's
• The Marathas'
• Siraj-ud-Daulah's

Answer: Tipu Sultan's. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan of Mysore used rocket troops against the East India Company. After Tipu died at Srirangapatna in 1799, rockets were shipped to Britain, and William Congreve built his own version.

In April 1819, a British cavalry officer out hunting tigers was led, the story goes, by a local shepherd boy to a cave entrance, and later scratched his name and the year inside. Which site had he stumbled on?

• Ellora Caves
• Elephanta Caves
• Ajanta Caves
• Bhimbetka rock shelters

Answer: Ajanta Caves. Captain John Smith's graffiti can still be seen in Cave 10 at Ajanta, whose Buddhist murals are among the finest ancient paintings in India. Bhimbetka's rock art was found much later, in 1957.

The 2019 film Kesari, with Akshay Kumar as Havildar Ishar Singh, retells how 21 soldiers of the 36th Sikhs held a signalling post against thousands of tribesmen in 1897. Name the battle.

• Battle of Chillianwala
• Battle of Rezang La
• Battle of Longewala
• Battle of Saragarhi

Answer: Battle of Saragarhi. Saragarhi, in today's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, relayed signals between Fort Lockhart and Fort Gulistan, which could not see each other. The Sikh Regiment marks 12 September as Saragarhi Day.

On 9 August 1925, revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association stopped a train near Lucknow and took government money to buy arms. Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan were later hanged for it. What is the event called today?

• Kakori Train Action
• Chauri Chaura incident
• Chittagong armoury raid
• Alipore bomb case

Answer: Kakori Train Action. Uttar Pradesh renamed the 'Kakori Kand' the 'Kakori Train Action' in 2021. Bismil and Ashfaqulla, a Hindu and a Muslim who were close friends, are remembered together as a symbol of unity.

India's first printed newspaper was started in Calcutta in 1780 by an Irishman. It attacked Governor-General Warren Hastings, and its press was seized within two years. What was it called?

• Samachar Darpan
• Hicky's Bengal Gazette
• The Bombay Courier
• Amrita Bazar Patrika

Answer: Hicky's Bengal Gazette. James Augustus Hicky ran his weekly from January 1780 until a court order had his types and press seized in March 1782. He was jailed for libel and kept the paper going from prison for a while.