Read the passage and answer the questions:
1857: Shah Mal
Shah Mal lived in a large village in Uttar Pradesh. He belonged to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des. The lands in the region were irrigated and fertile, with rich dark loam soil. Many of the villagers were prosperous and saw the British land revenue system as oppressive: the revenue demand was high and its collection inflexible. Consequently cultivators were losing land to outsiders, to traders and moneylenders who were coming into the area. Shah Mal mobilised the headmen and cultivators of chaurasee des, moving at night from village to village, urging people to rebel against the British. As in many other places, the revolt against the British turned into a general rebellion against all signs of oppression and injustice. Cultivators left their fields and plundered the houses of moneylenders and traders. Displaced proprietors took possession of the lands they had lost. Shah Mal’s men attacked government buildings, destroyed the bridge over the river, and dug up metalled roads – partly to prevent government forces from coming into the area, and partly because bridges and roads were seen as symbols of British rule. They sent supplies to the sepoys who had mutinied in Delhi and stopped all official communication between British headquarters and Meerut. Locally acknowledged as the Raja, Shah Mal took over the bungalow of an English officer, turned it into a “hall of justice”, settling disputes and dispensing judgments. He also set up an amazingly effective network of intelligence. For a period the people of the area felt that firangi raj was over, and their raj had come. Shah Mal was killed in battle in July 1857.
Shah Mal belonged to which pargana in Uttar Pradesh?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Barout
The passage says only that Shah Mal lived in a large village in Uttar Pradesh. The full sentence reads: Shah Mal lived in a large village in pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh. He belonged to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des (eighty-four villages). In 1857 he mobilised the villagers of pargana Barout against the British.
Note 1: This passage is taken from the NCERT chapter ‘Rebels and the Raj’, where Shah Mal’s story is told in a box of its own. NTA kept the box and cut out the name of the pargana, so only a student who had read the box could answer.
Note 2: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| 24-05 S1* 24-05 S2 | – | – | – | – |
* A similar question.
NCERT: Themes in Indian History Part III — Chapter 10: Rebels and the Raj (2025-26)
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