Quiz on protests

On August 8, 1942, Mahatma Gandhi asked the British to quit India. A day later, the jails were full of arrested Congress leaders. Here's a chance to do your patriotic duty. Try and crack this quiz dedicated entirely to all manner of protests.

1 While on the Quit India movement: since most of the senior Congress leadership was already behind bars, which 33-year-old presided over the AICC Session on August 9 and hoisted the Indian flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan in the city of Bombay?

2 Which word in the English language derives from the name of the land agent of a certain Lord Erne, who took some extremely unpopular measures against Irish tenants after a poor harvest in 1880?

3 In which year did the losers of the Olympic men’s basketball final refuse to accept their medals in protest against the refereeing in the final minutes of the game?

4 The Velvet revolution was a series of non-violent protests that rocked which European country between 1989 and 1991?

5 In the play Lysistrata written by Aristophanes and originally performed in 411 BC, what unique method did Lysistrata advocate to try and end the Peloponnesian war?

6 A member of Parliament from Bihar between 1967 and 1979, he was also the chief minister of Bihar for 48 days in 1968. However, he is most remembered for a job he undertook in 1978 for the Morarji Desai government, although his recommendations came into effect much later. Identify this gentleman whose name the whole country got to know in the late ’80s.

7 Jayaprakash Narayan’s mammoth Boat Club rally in 1975, where he memorably quoted Dinkar, was one of the largest ever at the venue, attracting over one lakh protestors. What unusual, though unsuccessful, ploy did the ruling government try to lessen the attendance?

8 Which actress was famously photographed in Hanoi standing beside an anti-aircraft battery to protest US military action in Vietnam?

9 In 1976, most African nations boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics protesting the presence of which country in the games?

10 Which famous satire describes a huge political controversy after a significant number of citizens in a fictional island broke away to form a new nation, protesting a ruling about breaking eggs on the smaller end?

Answers

1. Aruna Asaf Ali; amazing lady, she would use public transport in Delhi well into her 80s.

2. Boycott — the man being Captain Charles Boycott.

3. 1972, Munich. The US team had won when the final whistle went off, but the Soviet Union protested and a fraction of a second was again added to the clock. The Russians scored in that time.

4. Czechoslovakia

5. She asked the Greek women to deny their menfolk sex till they stopped the war.

6. BP Mandal, the man who authored the Mandal Commission report.

7. They showed the super-hit film Bobby on Doordarshan. The ploy did not work.

8. Jane Fonda; she became known as Hanoi Jane and later claimed she had been manipulated into posing for that picture.

9. New Zealand, as its rugby team had just toured South Africa.

10. Gulliver’s Travels, written by Jonathan Swift. Lilliput and Blefuscu were the warring countries.

Joy Bhattacharjyais a quiz master, Director - Kolkata Knight Riders and author of Junior Premier League — The First XI

Follow Joy on Twitter >@joybhattacharj

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