Quiz: India’s freedom struggle

On May 5, 1911, Indian revolutionary Pritilata Waddedar was born in Chittagong. In her honour, this quiz is on the Indian freedom struggle.

1 She was born in Varanasi to Bhagirathi Bai and Moropant Tambe and named Manikarnika after one of the city’s most famous ghats. She died in the battlefield at Kotah-Ki-Sarai in Gwalior in 1858. Name this woman, one of the leading figures of the 1857 freedom struggle?

2 For an article defending which specific act in April 1908 was Lokmanya Tilak charged with sedition and sentenced to six years in prison in Mandalay?

3 On August 9, 1925, which station was the No. 8 Down Train from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow approaching when it was stopped by members of the Hindustan Republican Army to loot ₹8,000 of government funds from the guard’s cabin?

4 Which Indian revolutionary managed to evade British capture for almost a year after a famous raid before finally being betrayed by a man named Netra Sen in 1933?

5 Which Indian student, who went to Britain to study mechanical engineering, represented himself in the Old Bailey in July 1909 on charges of murder, and stated that he did not regret killing his target Curzon Wyllie as it was part of the struggle to set India free?

6 Who first made a green, yellow and red flag with a crescent and a sun and eight lotuses as the symbol of independent India at the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart in August 1907?

7 The Emperor vs Aurobindo Ghosh and others of 1908, also referred to as the Alipore bomb case, was one of the most celebrated cases of the freedom struggle. It was an attempt to crack down on an organisation that the British suspected of being the hub of nationalistic activities in Bengal. Name the outfit.

8 The Orchha forest in Jhansi was the base of a famous revolutionary in the 1920s, who set up an establishment there using the alias Pandit Harishankar Brahmachari? He also had a target range for training marksmen. Name him.

9 In 1943, probably the only ever civilian submarine-to-submarine transfer between the vessels of two different navies happened near the island of Madagascar. Who was the civilian involved?

10 The Pacific Coast Hindustan Association was formed in 1913, with a significant number of its leaders from the University of California at Berkeley. By which other name did this organisation become better known?

Answers

1. Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi

2. He defended the actions of Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, who threw a bomb at chief magistrate Douglas Kingsford’s carriage

3. Kakori; the Kakori conspiracy case involved the likes of Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and Chandrashekhar Azad

4. Surya Sen, the mastermind behind the Chittagong armoury raid; it is said that revolutionaries executed Netra before he could claim his reward

5. Madan Lal Dhingra

6. Bhikhaji Cama; the green, yellow and red fields represented Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism and the eight lotuses, the major provinces of British India

7. The legendary Anushilan Samiti

8. Chandrashekhar Azad

9. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who was on board the German U-boat U-180 and was transferred to the Japanese I-29 on his way to Tokyo

10. The Ghadar Party, founded by Lala Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna as its first president

Joy Bhattacharjya

Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster ; @joybhattacharj

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