Read the passage and answer the questions:
Revolt of 1857
In the meantime the British became increasingly interested in acquiring the territory of Awadh. They felt that the soil there was good for producing indigo and cotton and the region was ideally located to be developed into the principal market of Upper India. By the 1850s, moreover, all the major areas of India had been conquered: the Maratha lands, the Doab, the Carnatic, the Punjab and Bengal. The takeover in 1856 was expected to complete a process of territorial annexation that had begun with the conquest of Bengal almost a century earlier. Lord Dalhousie’s annexations created disaffection in all the areas and principalities that were annexed but nowhere more so than in the kingdom of Awadh in the heart of North India. Here, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was dethroned and exiled to Calcutta on the plea that the region being misgoverned. The British government also wrongly assumed that Wajid Ali Shah was an unpopular ruler. On the contrary, he was widely loved, and when he left his beloved Lucknow, there were many followed him all the way to Kanpur singing songs of lament. The widespread sense of grief and loss at the Nawab’s exile was recorded by many contemporary observers. One of them wrote: “The life was gone out of the body, and the body of this town had been left lifeless.....there was no street or market and house which did not wail out the cry of agony in separation of Jan-i-Alam.” One folk song bemoaned that “the honourable English came and took the country”.
Match the LIST-I with LIST-II:
| LIST-I Leaders | LIST-II Regions | ||
| A. | Nana Sahib | I. | Arrah |
| B. | Kunwar Singh | II. | Singhbhum |
| C. | Birjis Qadr | III. | Kanpur |
| D. | Gonoo | IV. | Lucknow |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → A - III, B - I, C - IV, D - II
(A) Nana Sahib — this matches (III) Kanpur. In Kanpur, the sepoys and the townspeople gave Nana Sahib, the successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II, no choice but to lead the revolt.
(B) Kunwar Singh — this matches (I) Arrah. Kunwar Singh was a local zamindar of Arrah in Bihar who was pushed by popular pressure into leading the uprising.
(C) Birjis Qadr — this matches (IV) Lucknow. In Lucknow the people celebrated the fall of British rule by hailing Birjis Qadr, the young son of the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, as their leader.
(D) Gonoo — this matches (II) Singhbhum. Gonoo, a tribal cultivator of Singhbhum in Chotanagpur, became a rebel leader of the Kol tribals of the region.
NCERT (2025-26): “1.3 Leaders and followers … In Kanpur, the sepoys and the people of the town gave Nana Sahib, the successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II, no choice save to join the revolt as their leader. In Jhansi, the rani was forced by the popular pressure around her to assume the leadership of the uprising. So was Kunwar Singh, a local zamindar in Arrah in Bihar.… 1.3 Leaders and followers … In Awadh, where the displacement of the popular Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and the annexation of the state were still very fresh in the memory of the people, the populace in Lucknow celebrated the fall of British rule by hailing Birjis Qadr, the young son of the Nawab, as their leader.… 1.3 Leaders and followers … Elsewhere, local leaders emerged, urging peasants, zamindars and tribals to revolt. Shah Mal mobilised the villagers of pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh; Gonoo, a tribal cultivator of Singhbhum in Chotanagpur, became a rebel leader of the Kol tribals of the region.” |