WBBSE Madhyamik History cheat sheet

Battle of Plassey (1757): Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah with the help of Mir Jafar's betrayal; it gave the East India Company political control over Bengal.

Battle of Buxar (1764): Company forces under Hector Munro defeated the combined armies of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daulah and Shah Alam II; the Treaty of Allahabad followed in 1765.

Permanent Settlement (1793): introduced by Lord Cornwallis in Bengal, fixed land revenue permanently with zamindars, who became hereditary owners but lost rights if revenue was unpaid.

Ryotwari system (Thomas Munro, Madras; Alexander Read) settled revenue directly with cultivators; Mahalwari (Holt Mackenzie, North-Western Provinces) settled with village or estate bodies.

Doctrine of Lapse (Lord Dalhousie, 1848-1856): states without a natural heir were annexed, e.g. Satara (1848), Jhansi and Nagpur (1854); Awadh was annexed in 1856 on grounds of misgovernment.

Revolt of 1857: began at Barrackpore (29 March 1857, Mangal Pandey) and Meerut (10 May 1857); key leaders include Bahadur Shah II, Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope, Rani Lakshmibai, Kunwar Singh and Begum Hazrat Mahal.

Government of India Act 1858 abolished Company rule, transferred power to the Crown, created the office of Secretary of State for India and ended the Mughal dynasty; Queen Victoria's Proclamation followed in November 1858.

Indian National Congress founded 1885 in Bombay (Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College); W.C. Bonnerjee was first president and A.O. Hume the key organiser; the first session had 72 delegates.

Partition of Bengal announced 1905 by Lord Curzon, effective 16 October 1905; annulled in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar; the Swadeshi Movement and boycott of foreign goods grew in protest.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre: 13 April 1919 in Amritsar; General Dyer ordered firing on an unarmed gathering; Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest.

Non-Cooperation Movement launched 1920; withdrawn by Gandhi in February 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident (5 February 1922, Gorakhpur district).

Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Dandi March (12 March to 6 April 1930); Gandhi walked about 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi to make salt.

Quit India Movement: launched 8 August 1942 at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay; Gandhi gave the slogan 'Do or Die'; the movement was largely leaderless after mass arrests.

Indian National Army: Subhas Chandra Bose took command in 1943, formed the Azad Hind Government (21 October 1943) and gave the slogans 'Give me blood, I will give you freedom' and 'Delhi Chalo'.

Cabinet Mission (1946): Pethick-Lawrence, Stafford Cripps and A.V. Alexander proposed a three-tier federal structure; the Muslim League observed 16 August 1946 as Direct Action Day.

Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947) provided for partition; the Indian Independence Act 1947 created India and Pakistan as dominions; Radcliffe Line drew the Punjab and Bengal boundaries.

Indian National Congress presidents worth remembering: Dadabhai Naoroji (1893, 1906, 1917), Gokhale (1905), Tilak (1907), Annie Besant (1917), Motilal Nehru (1919, 1928), Jawaharlal Nehru (1929, 1936, 1937, 1946).

Press and education acts: Vernacular Press Act 1878 (Lytton), Ilbert Bill controversy 1883, Indian Universities Act 1904 (Curzon), Rowlatt Act 1919, Press Act 1910.

Socio-religious reform: Brahmo Samaj (Rammohan Roy, 1828), Prarthana Samaj (Atmaram Pandurang, 1867), Arya Samaj (Dayanand Saraswati, 1875), Ramakrishna Mission (Vivekananda, 1897), Aligarh Movement (Syed Ahmed Khan).