Economics Basics — Production & Monetary System

Why This Chapter Matters

The freedom struggle is the single most reliably tested history topic across every RRB paper, ALP, Technician, NTPC, and Group D alike, regularly worth 5 or more marks. Examiners love it because it has a clean cause-and-effect chain, movement leads to Act leads to reaction leads to next movement, which makes it easy to build precise, testable questions. That is good news for you: once you understand the chain, the facts stop feeling like a random pile of names and dates and start feeling like a story you can walk through.

The most common mistake here is treating the freedom struggle as one long undifferentiated block from 1857 to 1947. It is not. It has clear phases: European trading companies arriving, the East India Company's political takeover, the 1857 revolt as a turning point, the moderate phase of the Congress, the rise of mass movements under Gandhi, and finally the endgame leading to Partition and independence. Students who cannot place a movement in its correct phase lose marks even when they know the fact itself. This chapter is organised strictly by phase, in order, so you build the timeline correctly the first time.

1. The Arrival of Europeans in India

Trade, not conquest, brought Europeans to India first. India's textiles, spices, and other goods were in high demand in Europe, and several nations set up trading posts along the coast in sequence.

Memory hook — order of European arrival: "Pepper Drew Everyone, Finally." Portuguese, Dutch, English, French. Say it as a shorthand chain and the order locks in.

• Portuguese: First to arrive, in 1498, when Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut (present-day Kozhikode, Kerala), having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese established their major base at Goa in 1510 under Afonso de Albuquerque.
• Dutch: Formed the Dutch East India Company in 1602, focused heavily on the spice trade, with strongholds including Pulicat and later Nagapattinam. Their India presence eventually faded as they concentrated more on Indonesia's spice islands.
• English: The English East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, initially trading through concessions granted by Mughal emperor Jahangir, with an early trading post established at Surat in 1613. Over the following century and a half, this company transformed from a trading firm into the dominant political power in India.
• French: The French East India Company was established in 1664, with Pondicherry as its main base. The English and French fought a long rivalry known as the Carnatic Wars (three wars, mid-18th century) for dominance in south India, which the English ultimately won.

Exam trap: Students often assume the English arrived first because of how dominant they eventually became. The Portuguese arrived a full century earlier, in 1498, and the English only received their royal charter in 1600, arriving in India for actual trade slightly after that. Dominance later does not mean arrival first.

2. The East India Company's Rise to Political Power

The English East India Company's transformation from trader to ruler is the hinge on which all subsequent Indian history turns, and two battles anchor this transformation firmly in exam memory.

Battle of Plassey (1757)

Fought between the English East India Company, led by Robert Clive, and Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. The Company won decisively, helped enormously by the betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah's own commander, Mir Jafar, who had been secretly bribed to switch sides. This victory gave the Company effective control over Bengal, one of India's richest provinces, and marked the real beginning of British political dominance in India.

Memory hook: "Plassey opened the door; Buxar locked it shut." Plassey (1757) gave the Company its first real foothold in Bengal's politics; Buxar (1764) confirmed and formalised that power on a much larger scale.

Battle of Buxar (1764)

Fought between the East India Company and a combined force of Mir Qasim (the deposed Nawab of Bengal), Shuja-ud-Daulah (Nawab of Awadh), and Shah Alam II (the Mughal emperor). The Company's decisive victory here was arguably even more significant than Plassey, because it led directly to the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), under which the Mughal emperor granted the Company Diwani rights (the right to collect land revenue) over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. This is the moment the Company effectively became a ruling power with a legal claim to tax collection, not merely a trading firm with an army.

Exam trap: Plassey and Buxar are often mixed up in sequence and outcome. Plassey came first (1757) and defeated a regional Nawab through betrayal from within. Buxar came second (1764) and defeated a combined force including the Mughal emperor himself, and it is Buxar, not Plassey, that directly produced the Diwani grant.

Subsequent Company Expansion

Following Buxar, the Company expanded steadily through a mix of direct conquest and diplomatic subjugation. Key mechanisms you must know:

• Subsidiary Alliance, introduced by Governor-General Lord Wellesley (late 1790s–early 1800s): Indian rulers who accepted this system had to maintain British troops at their own expense, accept a British Resident at court, and surrender control of foreign policy, effectively becoming dependent states while nominally retaining their thrones.
• Doctrine of Lapse, introduced by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie (1848–1856): If a ruling prince died without a natural male heir, his state would be annexed directly by the Company rather than passing to an adopted heir, a policy that dispossessed several states including Satara, Jhansi, and Nagpur, and created deep resentment that fed directly into the 1857 revolt.

Exam trap: Do not confuse the Subsidiary Alliance (Wellesley, about controlling a ruler's army and foreign policy while letting the ruler nominally remain) with the Doctrine of Lapse (Dalhousie, about annexing a state outright upon a ruler's death without a natural heir). They achieved similar British expansion but through completely different mechanisms and different Governors-General.

3. The Revolt of 1857

Often called India's First War of Independence, though historians also describe it more narrowly as a Sepoy Mutiny that spread into a broader civil rebellion, this uprising marks the true turning point between Company rule and direct Crown rule.

Causes

The revolt had layered causes building for decades: political resentment from annexations like the Doctrine of Lapse, economic exploitation of peasants and artisans, social and religious anxiety over British interference in customs (including the abolition of practices and suspicion around missionary activity), and military grievances among Indian sepoys over pay, promotion, and treatment.

The immediate trigger was the introduction of the new Enfield rifle cartridges, which soldiers believed were greased with cow and pig fat, offensive to Hindu and Muslim religious sensibilities respectively, since loading the rifle required biting off the cartridge tip.

Course of the Revolt

It began on 10 May 1857 at Meerut, when sepoys mutinied after their fellow soldier Mangal Pande had already been executed weeks earlier (on 29 March 1857 at Barrackpore) for attacking his officers over the cartridge issue. The Meerut mutineers marched to Delhi and declared the elderly Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as their symbolic overall leader, even though he held no real military power by this point.

Major centres of the revolt and their key leaders:

Centre	Leader
Delhi	Bahadur Shah Zafar (symbolic leader)
Kanpur	Nana Sahib, assisted by Tantia Tope
Jhansi	Rani Lakshmibai
Lucknow	Begum Hazrat Mahal
Bihar (Arrah)	Kunwar Singh
Faizabad	Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah

Memory hook: Picture the revolt as a wheel with Delhi at the hub (symbolic centre, the old Mughal capital) and spokes reaching out to Kanpur, Jhansi, Lucknow, and Bihar, each with its own local leader driving resistance in that region even though no single command structure unified them. This lack of central coordination is exactly why the British, despite being caught off guard, eventually suppressed the revolt by 1858.

Outcome

The British Crown formally took over direct governance of India through the Government of India Act, 1858, ending East India Company rule entirely. The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was exiled to Rangoon (Burma), marking the symbolic end of the Mughal dynasty. This period is called the beginning of the British Raj, direct rule by the British Crown through a Viceroy, rather than indirect rule through a chartered trading company.

Exam trap: A frequent wrong-option trap claims 1857 immediately led to India's independence. It did not. It ended Company rule and began direct Crown rule, a full 90 years before actual independence in 1947. Do not confuse "end of Company rule" with "end of British rule."

4. Formation of the Indian National Congress (1885)

After 1857, Indian political activity gradually shifted from scattered regional uprisings toward organised, structured political demands. The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded in December 1885 in Bombay, with A.O. Hume, a retired British civil servant, playing a key organisational role in bringing it together, and W.C. Bonnerjee serving as its first president.

The Moderate Phase (1885–1905)

Early Congress leaders, called Moderates, believed in constitutional methods: petitions, resolutions, and dialogue with the British government, seeking gradual reform rather than confrontation. Prominent Moderates include Dadabhai Naoroji (who articulated the influential Drain of Wealth theory, arguing that British policies systematically drained India's wealth to Britain, detailed in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India), Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Pherozeshah Mehta.

Exam trap: Dadabhai Naoroji is sometimes confused with later economic critics. He is specifically remembered for the Drain of Wealth theory and for being the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons (in 1892), a distinct and separately testable fact.

The Extremist Phase and the Swadeshi Movement

By the early 1900s, a younger, more assertive group, the Extremists, grew impatient with slow Moderate methods. Key figures included Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lala Lajpat Rai, together often remembered by the phrase "Lal-Bal-Pal", a genuinely useful and widely recognised shorthand for this trio (note this is a well-established historical grouping, safe to use as reference, not a coaching-brand invention).

The trigger for the Extremist phase's most famous mass movement was the Partition of Bengal (1905) by Viceroy Lord Curzon, officially justified as an administrative convenience but widely seen as a deliberate attempt to weaken Bengali unity along religious lines. This sparked the Swadeshi Movement, promoting boycott of British goods and encouragement of Indian-made goods, along with the Boycott Movement targeting British institutions and products more broadly. Public pressure eventually forced the British to reverse the partition in 1911.

Exam trap: The Partition of Bengal (1905) is separate from the later Bengal Presidency reorganisation and should not be confused with the 1947 Partition of India, which split British India into India and Pakistan. Same word "Partition," two completely different events, 42 years apart.

The Congress Split at Surat (1907)

Growing tension between Moderates and Extremists over methods and goals led to a formal split at the Surat session of the Congress in 1907, temporarily weakening the organisation's unity. The two factions later reunited at the Lucknow Session in 1916, the same session that also produced the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League, an important, if ultimately fragile, moment of Hindu-Muslim political cooperation.

5. The Gandhian Era (1915–1947)

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, where he had already developed and tested his method of Satyagraha (truth-force, non-violent resistance) against discriminatory laws targeting Indians there. His return marks the beginning of what historians call the Gandhian era of the freedom struggle, defined by mass, non-violent civil resistance rather than the narrower elite-led politics of earlier decades.

Early Movements: Champaran, Kheda, Ahmedabad

Gandhi's first major actions in India were local and specific, testing his methods before scaling nationally:

• Champaran Satyagraha (1917), Bihar: Supported indigo farmers forced by British planters into exploitative cultivation contracts. This was Gandhi's first Satyagraha in India.
• Kheda Satyagraha (1918), Gujarat: Supported farmers seeking tax relief after crop failure.
• Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918), Gujarat: Supported textile mill workers demanding better wages, resolved through Gandhi's fast and subsequent negotiation.

Memory hook: "Champaran for farmers wronged, Kheda for farmers taxed, Ahmedabad for workers' wages." Three early causes, three different groups (indigo farmers, taxed farmers, mill workers), same non-violent method applied and refined each time before Gandhi moved to the national stage.

Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919)

The Rowlatt Act (1919) allowed the British government to arrest and detain individuals without trial, provoking widespread outrage. Protests against it culminated tragically at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, on 13 April 1919, when General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to open fire on an unarmed crowd of men, women, and children gathered peacefully (many unaware of a curfew order, some there simply for the Baisakhi festival), inside an enclosed garden with limited exits. Hundreds were killed. This massacre became a defining moment that pushed many previously moderate Indians toward full support for mass resistance against British rule.

Exam trap: Jallianwala Bagh is in Amritsar, Punjab, not Delhi, and the date, 13 April 1919, coincided with Baisakhi, a major Punjabi harvest festival, which is exactly why the garden was unusually crowded that day.

Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922)

Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, calling on Indians to withdraw cooperation from British institutions: boycotting British goods, schools, courts, and titles, in a unified nationwide campaign for the first time bringing the Congress into direct mass mobilisation rather than elite petitioning. The movement was called off abruptly by Gandhi in February 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident in Uttar Pradesh, where an angry crowd set fire to a police station, killing several policemen. Gandhi withdrew the movement because it had turned violent, insisting non-violence was non-negotiable regardless of provocation.

Memory hook: "Chauri Chaura closed the chapter." One violent incident, and Gandhi shut down a nationwide movement rather than compromise on non-violence as a principle, a decision that surprised and frustrated many contemporaries but defined his method going forward.

Civil Disobedience Movement and the Dandi March (1930)

Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930, most famously opened by the Dandi March (or Salt March), where Gandhi walked roughly 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, on the Gujarat coast, over about 24 days, arriving on 6 April 1930 to symbolically break the British salt law by making salt from seawater himself. The salt tax was chosen deliberately because it affected every Indian regardless of class or religion, making it a powerful, universally relatable symbol of unjust British taxation on a basic daily necessity.

This movement led to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931), under which the government agreed to release political prisoners and Gandhi agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Congress.

Exam trap: Students sometimes confuse the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22, focused on withdrawing cooperation from institutions) with the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930 onward, focused on deliberately breaking specific unjust laws like the salt law). Non-Cooperation is about non-participation; Civil Disobedience is about active, deliberate law-breaking as protest.

Quit India Movement (1942)

With the Second World War underway and Japanese forces advancing in Southeast Asia, Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942, demanding immediate British withdrawal from India with the call "Do or Die." The British responded with mass arrests of top Congress leadership almost immediately, which meant the movement, unusually for Gandhi-led campaigns, proceeded largely without centralised top leadership, driven instead by spontaneous local action across the country. It was the last major nationwide movement before independence and demonstrated how deeply the demand for full independence, not just reform, had spread through Indian society by this point.

Exam trap: "Do or Die" is specifically the Quit India slogan (1942), not to be confused with other freedom struggle slogans. Keep slogans matched precisely to their movement and speaker.

Key Slogans and Their Originators

Slogan	Person/Movement
"Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it"	Bal Gangadhar Tilak
"Do or Die"	Mahatma Gandhi, Quit India Movement (1942)
"Inquilab Zindabad"	Bhagat Singh (popularised)
"Jai Hind"	Subhas Chandra Bose
"Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom"	Subhas Chandra Bose

6. Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA

Subhas Chandra Bose, a Congress leader who eventually broke from Gandhi's non-violent approach over strategic disagreements, formed the Indian National Army (INA, also called Azad Hind Fauj) with support from Japan during World War II, aiming to militarily liberate India from British rule. He also led the Azad Hind Government, a provisional government-in-exile. Bose is believed to have died in an air crash in Taiwan in August 1945, though the exact circumstances have remained a subject of historical debate over the decades.

Exam trap: Do not confuse the INA (formed with Japanese support during WWII, led by Bose) with earlier revolutionary groups like the Ghadar Party (formed 1913 in the United States and Canada among Indian immigrants) or the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (formed 1928, associated with Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad). All were revolutionary in method, but from different decades, different locations, and different leadership.

7. Towards Independence and Partition

World War II left Britain economically exhausted and less able to sustain its empire. The Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) attempted to find a formula for a united, federal independent India but ultimately failed to reconcile Congress and Muslim League demands.

The Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had increasingly pushed for a separate Muslim-majority state, formalised in the Lahore Resolution (1940), sometimes called the Pakistan Resolution. Rising communal tension, including violence around Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) called by the League in Calcutta, made a united independent India increasingly difficult to sustain politically.

Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, oversaw the final transfer of power. The Indian Independence Act (1947), passed by the British Parliament, provided for the creation of two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, effective 15 August 1947. This was accompanied by mass migration and severe communal violence during Partition, among the largest forced migrations in human history, with wide-ranging and lasting human cost.

Jawaharlal Nehru became independent India's first Prime Minister, delivering the famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech at midnight on 14–15 August 1947. C. Rajagopalachari became independent India's last Governor-General (India remained a dominion under a Governor-General until it formally adopted its Constitution and became a republic on 26 January 1950, after which the position of President replaced Governor-General).

Exam trap: Do not confuse "Independence Day" (15 August 1947, when India became a sovereign dominion) with "Republic Day" (26 January 1950, when the Constitution came into force and India became a full republic with an elected President as head of state rather than a Governor-General representing the Crown). These are two distinct constitutional milestones, two and a half years apart, and are among the most frequently tested date-pairs in the entire GA syllabus.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, the first European sea route to India.
• The English East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600.
• The French East India Company's main base in India was Pondicherry.
• The Battle of Plassey (1757) was won through Mir Jafar's betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah.
• The Battle of Buxar (1764) led directly to Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
• The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) formalised the Company's revenue collection rights.
• The Subsidiary Alliance was introduced by Lord Wellesley.
• The Doctrine of Lapse was introduced by Lord Dalhousie.
• The 1857 revolt began on 10 May 1857 at Meerut, over greased cartridges.
• Mangal Pande's attack at Barrackpore preceded the Meerut mutiny by weeks.
• Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared symbolic leader of the 1857 revolt and later exiled to Rangoon.
• Rani Lakshmibai led resistance at Jhansi during 1857.
• The Government of India Act 1858 ended Company rule and began direct Crown rule.
• The Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885 in Bombay.
• A.O. Hume played a key organisational role in founding the Congress; W.C. Bonnerjee was its first president.
• Dadabhai Naoroji proposed the Drain of Wealth theory and was the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons.
• The Partition of Bengal (1905) by Lord Curzon triggered the Swadeshi Movement.
• Lal-Bal-Pal refers to Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal.
• The Congress split at Surat in 1907 and reunited at Lucknow in 1916.
• The Lucknow Pact (1916) was an agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League.
• Gandhi's first Satyagraha in India was at Champaran, Bihar, in 1917.
• The Jallianwala Bagh massacre occurred on 13 April 1919 in Amritsar, ordered by General Dyer.
• The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22) was withdrawn after the Chauri Chaura incident.
• The Dandi March (1930) protested the salt tax, covering about 240 miles in 24 days.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931) followed the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• The Quit India Movement (1942) used the slogan "Do or Die."
• Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Indian National Army with Japanese support during WWII.
• The Lahore Resolution (1940) is also called the Pakistan Resolution.
• India became independent on 15 August 1947 under the Indian Independence Act.
• India became a republic on 26 January 1950, adopting its Constitution.

Memory Tables

Table A — Key Battles and Acts That Shaped British Rule

Event	Year	Outcome
Battle of Plassey	1757	Company gains control of Bengal politics via Mir Jafar's betrayal
Battle of Buxar	1764	Company defeats combined Mughal-Awadh-Bengal force
Treaty of Allahabad	1765	Company receives Diwani (revenue) rights
Revolt of 1857	1857	Sepoy mutiny spreads into broader civil rebellion
Government of India Act	1858	Ends Company rule, begins direct Crown rule
Indian Independence Act	1947	Creates independent India and Pakistan

Table B — Gandhian Movements at a Glance

Movement	Year	Trigger/Focus	End reason
Champaran Satyagraha	1917	Indigo farmer exploitation	Resolved through negotiation
Non-Cooperation Movement	1920–22	Boycott of British institutions	Withdrawn after Chauri Chaura violence
Civil Disobedience Movement	1930	Salt tax, Dandi March	Led to Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931)
Quit India Movement	1942	Demand for immediate British withdrawal	Suppressed by mass arrests, but sustained pressure toward 1947

Practice MCQs

Q1. Who was the first European to reach India by sea, landing at Calicut in 1498? (a) Afonso de Albuquerque (b) Vasco da Gama (c) Robert Clive (d) Warren Hastings

Q2. The Battle of Plassey (1757) was won by the English East India Company mainly due to: (a) Superior artillery alone (b) The betrayal of Mir Jafar (c) Direct support from the Mughal emperor (d) A naval blockade

Q3. The Battle of Buxar (1764) directly led to which outcome? (a) The abolition of the East India Company (b) The grant of Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha (c) The Partition of Bengal (d) The founding of the Indian National Congress

Q4. The Doctrine of Lapse, which led to the annexation of states like Jhansi and Satara, was introduced by: (a) Lord Wellesley (b) Lord Curzon (c) Lord Dalhousie (d) Lord Canning

Q5. The Revolt of 1857 began at Meerut, but which soldier's earlier action at Barrackpore is considered its first spark? (a) Kunwar Singh (b) Mangal Pande (c) Tantia Tope (d) Nana Sahib

Q6. Who was declared the symbolic leader of the 1857 revolt in Delhi? (a) Bahadur Shah Zafar (b) Bakht Khan (c) Nana Sahib (d) Wajid Ali Shah

Q7. The Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885 in which city? (a) Delhi (b) Calcutta (c) Bombay (d) Madras

Q8. Dadabhai Naoroji is best known in the Moderate phase for which contribution? (a) The Doctrine of Lapse (b) The Drain of Wealth theory (c) The Lahore Resolution (d) The Swadeshi Movement

Q9. The Partition of Bengal in 1905, which triggered the Swadeshi Movement, was carried out by: (a) Lord Curzon (b) Lord Dalhousie (c) Lord Mountbatten (d) Lord Wellesley

Q10. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre occurred in which city, on which date? (a) Lahore, 23 March 1931 (b) Amritsar, 13 April 1919 (c) Delhi, 10 May 1857 (d) Calcutta, 16 August 1946

Q11. Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922 following which incident? (a) Jallianwala Bagh massacre (b) Chauri Chaura incident (c) Champaran Satyagraha (d) Salt March

Q12. The Dandi March (1930) was undertaken to protest against: (a) The Rowlatt Act (b) The salt tax (c) The Partition of Bengal (d) The Doctrine of Lapse

Q13. The slogan "Do or Die" is associated with which movement? (a) Non-Cooperation Movement (b) Civil Disobedience Movement (c) Quit India Movement (d) Swadeshi Movement

Q14. The Indian National Army (INA) during World War II was led by: (a) Bhagat Singh (b) Subhas Chandra Bose (c) Chandrashekhar Azad (d) Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Q15. India became a republic, adopting its Constitution, on which date? (a) 15 August 1947 (b) 26 January 1950 (c) 26 November 1949 (d) 30 January 1948

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(b)	Vasco da Gama's 1498 landing at Calicut opened the first direct sea route between Europe and India.
2	(b)	Mir Jafar's secret betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah, not battlefield strength alone, decided Plassey's outcome.
3	(b)	Buxar's victory produced the Treaty of Allahabad and Diwani rights, formalising Company rule over revenue collection.
4	(c)	Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse annexed states lacking a natural heir, fuelling resentment before 1857.
5	(b)	Mangal Pande's attack at Barrackpore in March 1857 preceded and foreshadowed the wider Meerut mutiny in May.
6	(a)	Rebels declared the aging Bahadur Shah Zafar their symbolic leader in Delhi despite his lack of real power.
7	(c)	The Congress held its first session in Bombay in December 1885, with W.C. Bonnerjee presiding.
8	(b)	Naoroji's Drain of Wealth theory argued British policy systematically transferred Indian wealth to Britain.
9	(a)	Lord Curzon's 1905 partition of Bengal, meant to weaken unity, instead ignited the Swadeshi Movement.
10	(b)	General Dyer ordered firing on an unarmed Amritsar crowd on 13 April 1919, coinciding with Baisakhi.
11	(b)	The Chauri Chaura violence led Gandhi to halt the movement rather than compromise on non-violence.
12	(b)	The salt tax, affecting all Indians daily, was the deliberate symbolic target of the Dandi March.
13	(c)	Gandhi's "Do or Die" call in August 1942 launched the Quit India Movement demanding immediate British exit.
14	(b)	Subhas Chandra Bose led the INA with Japanese backing, separate from Gandhi's non-violent approach.
15	(b)	India adopted its Constitution and became a republic on 26 January 1950, over two years after independence.