UPSC Prelims 2014 · Question 21 of 100
UPSC Prelims 2014 question on Partition of Bengal Annulment
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2014
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectModern History
- TopicIndian National Movement
- DifficultyEasy
- TypeDirect
The Partition of Bengal made by Lord Curzon in 1905 lasted until
Show answer
Answer: B. King George V abrogated Curzon's Act as the Royal Durbar in Delhi in 1911.
Verdict
The answer is that King George V annulled the partition at the Delhi Durbar in 1911. Curzon's 1905 partition of Bengal survived just six years.
Analysis
The partition was announced in 1905, provoked the Swadeshi and Boycott movement, and was revoked in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar, when the capital was also shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. Bengal was reunited on linguistic lines and Bihar and Orissa were carved out separately. The First World War option is wrong by four years and reverses cause and effect. The Civil Disobedience option is wrong by two decades. The 1947 option confuses Curzon's administrative partition with the later communal partition that created East Pakistan.
Source
Modern India, old NCERT Class XII by Bipan Chandra.
How to crack it
This sits in the Swadeshi movement chapter of the standard modern history text, and that chapter yields a tight cluster: 1905 partition, Swadeshi and Boycott, the 1906 Muslim League founding, the 1907 Surat split and the 1911 annulment plus capital shift. Learn 1905 and 1911 as a bracketed pair with the Durbar in the middle and every option except the correct one collapses on dates alone.