A teacher in a school in North India is explaining to her class why rumours spread so fast in 1857. She asks them to set aside, for a moment, the question of whether the rumours were true. Instead she puts before them the events of the decades before the revolt: new schools and new laws, missionaries at work, and the loss of several kingdoms to the British, after which new systems of administration, law and land revenue were brought in.
Several kingdoms the class reads about had been annexed by the British. On which pleas were Awadh, Jhansi and Satara annexed?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption
Option (1) Misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption — Correct. The British annexed Awadh, Jhansi and Satara on pleas like misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption. They then brought in their own administration, laws and methods of land revenue collection.
Option (2) Failure to pay the subsidy and secret ties with the Mughal court — Incorrect. The pleas given for these annexations were misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption.
Option (3) Refusal to abolish sati and to permit the remarriage of widows — Incorrect. The ban on sati (1829) and the law permitting widow remarriage were British social reforms, made by law.
Option (4) Unpaid revenue arrears and attacks on British traders — Incorrect. The British pointed to misgovernment and to adoption, which they refused to recognise.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.5 Why did people believe in the rumours? … |