Socio-Religious Reform Movements MCQs for UPSC Prelims

Correct answer: B - Indian National Congress did not want to include social reforms in its deliberations and decided to form a separate body for such a purpose

Option (b) is correct. The early Indian National Congress deliberately confined itself to political questions, fearing that contentious social reform issues would divide its ranks, so social reformers founded the Indian National Social Conference in 1887 as a separate body; it met annually in the same venue immediately after the Congress session. Option (a) is wrong because it was a national platform, not a union of Bengal groups. Option (c) is misleading: the Conference was founded by M. G. Ranade and Raghunath Rao; Behramji Malabari was a reformer associated with the age of consent campaign but not the co-founder named here. Since (b) is correct, option (d) is eliminated.

Correct answer: B - 1 and 2 only

The Brahmo Samaj, founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, opposed idol worship and rejected the necessity of a priestly intermediary to interpret scripture, so statements 1 and 2 are correct. It did not uphold the infallibility of the Vedas; it was the Arya Samaj of Dayananda Saraswati that stressed Vedic infallibility, so statement 3 is wrong. The answer is 1 and 2 only.

Correct answer: D - 1, 2 and 3

All three pairs are correctly matched. Gandhi founded the All India Anti-Untouchability League in 1932, soon renamed the Harijan Sevak Sangh, as part of his campaign against untouchability after the Poona Pact. The All India Kisan Sabha was launched at Lucknow in 1936 with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as its first president. The Self-Respect Movement was started in 1925 in Tamil Nadu by E. V. Ramaswami Naicker, popularly known as Periyar, to fight caste hierarchy and Brahminical dominance. Since every pair holds, the answer is 1, 2 and 3.

Correct answer: A - 'Periyar' E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker

The Self-Respect Movement was founded in 1925 in Tamil Nadu by E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker, popularly known as Periyar, to fight Brahminical dominance and caste hierarchy and to instil dignity among non-Brahmins and the lower castes, so (a) is correct. Ambedkar led the depressed classes movement and efforts like the Mahad Satyagraha, but not this particular movement, so (b) is wrong. Bhaskarrao Jadhav and Dinkarrao Javalkar were figures of the non-Brahmin movement in Maharashtra, not founders of the Self-Respect Movement, making (c) and (d) incorrect.

Correct answer: B - Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Neeldarpan

Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Nil Darpan in 1860, which is earlier than the other events: Satyendranath Tagore cleared the ICS in 1863, Swami Dayanand founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, and Bankim Chandra wrote Anandamath in 1882. So the earliest event is (b). Sequencing these literary and reform milestones shows Nil Darpan predates them all, making (b) the correct choice.

Correct answer: B - 2 and 3 only

Rakhmabai had been married as a child and refused to live with her husband Dadaji Bhikaji when she came of age; he sued for restitution of conjugal rights, making that the central legal issue of the case. The litigation triggered a nationwide debate on child marriage and the age at which a girl could consent, contributing to the enactment of the Age of Consent Act, 1891, so the age of consent was also at the heart of the controversy. The case was not about women's access to education, even though Rakhmabai herself later became one of India's first practising women doctors. Hence points 2 and 3 are correct and point 1 is not.

Correct answer: B - 2 and 3 only

Statements 2 and 3 are correct. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party in 1936, which contested the 1937 Bombay provincial elections, and the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942 to represent Dalit interests; he later conceived the Republican Party of India. Statement 1 is wrong because the Peasants and Workers Party of India was founded in Maharashtra in 1947-48 by leaders such as Keshavrao Jedhe and Shankarrao More, not by Ambedkar. Hence (b).

Correct answer: A - Gopal Baba Walangkar

Gopal Baba Walangkar, an early Dalit activist from Maharashtra and a follower of Jyotiba Phule's ideas, started Vital-Vidhvansak in 1888, the first journal addressed specifically to the untouchable communities, attacking the caste system and Brahminical orthodoxy. Jyotiba Phule was Walangkar's inspiration and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, but Vital-Vidhvansak was not his publication. Gandhi's journals for the cause of untouchables, such as Harijan, came much later, in the 1930s. Ambedkar's publications like Mooknayak (1920) and Bahishkrit Bharat also belong to the twentieth century, decades after Walangkar's pioneering effort.