BharatNotes How to use this page
Every question here is built from the Resistance and Collaboration chapter. No question invents a fact, and no question cites a PYQ that does not exist.
This topic is failed differently from the four before it. The ancient chapters were lost on places and the dynasties chapter on people. This one is lost on assumptions — that submission was unconditional, that every allied house married into the imperial family, that long resistance was punished with harsh terms, that Pratap invented the guerrilla method. Each of those is false, and each is a question below.
Because the whole topic turns on terms, a large share of the questions ask what a settlement actually contained rather than when it was signed. Learn the clauses, not just the dates.
Every answer carries a "why not the others" line, because with negative marking the skill being tested is elimination, not recognition.
Work in this order: Sections A–F cold, then G and H, then the flashcards for anything you missed, then the one-liners as a final sweep.
Read the tag on each question
Each question is labelled with the kind of error it probes, using the taxonomy from section 8 of the chapter. Each history chapter classifies its own failures differently, so check the legend rather than assuming the labels carry over.
| Tag | What it tests | If you keep missing these |
|---|---|---|
| Type A · submission read as unconditional | Treating an alliance as a surrender | The big one here. Learn Surjan Hada's three conditions and the 1615 clauses as lists, and the assumption dissolves |
| Type B · two dates, one event | Ranthambore, Chittor, Man Singh's mansab | Learn which figure is settled and which is not, rather than picking a side |
| Type C · reversed chronology | Who came first — Chandrasen or Pratap, the tax or the seizure | Build one timeline for the whole topic, 1562 to 1734 |
| Type D · wrong instrument or actor | The right act credited to the wrong man or the wrong mechanism | Two Jai Singhs, four titles, and several men who all worked on Mewar |
| Recall / Concept / Attribution / Sequence | No trap — the fact, the idea, who did it, what order | Ordinary revision |
Section A — What an alliance consisted of (Q1–7)
1. A mansab was expressed in two components. They were — Recall
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(b) Zat and sawar. Zat fixed personal status and pay; sawar fixed the cavalry to be maintained. Together they made a Rajput ruler an imperial officer with a defined place in the hierarchy.
Why not the others: (a) and (c) each pair one real component with a term from a different part of the system — a jagir is an assignment of revenue, a watan an ancestral territory. Knowing which words belong to which instrument is most of this topic.
2. What did a watan jagir recognise? Concept
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(c) The ruler's ancestral territory, as a hereditary assignment. This is the load-bearing instrument of the whole settlement. Rajput rulers continued to govern their ancestral homelands, formally recognised by the empire as watan jagirs.
Why not the others: (a) describes an ordinary jagir, which was transferable and is precisely what a watan jagir was not. That distinction is the difference between an officer paid in land and a dynasty guaranteed its homeland.
3. Why was the watan jagir attractive to a Rajput ruler beyond mere security? Concept
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(d) It let him centralise authority locally against rival clan members. Imperial recognition of a hereditary claim strengthened the ruler against his own clan rivals, and so strengthened state formation at the regional level.
Why not the others: (c) is the opposite of the arrangement, since service was one of its four elements. The point that (d) makes is the one most answers miss: the alliance did not weaken the allied houses, it made them stronger internally, which is why it was worth having.
4. Which statement about matrimonial alliances is correct? Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(a) They were one instrument among several, and not universal. Rao Surjan Hada's terms of submission explicitly excluded a matrimonial alliance, and Mewar's treaty of 1615 excluded it in writing. Two houses, half a century apart, both inside the settlement and both without a marriage.
Why not the others: (b) and (c) are the assumption this chapter exists to correct; (d) inverts the truth, since Mewar is one of the houses that did not marry into the imperial family.
5. Which four elements made up a Mughal-Rajput settlement? Recall
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(b) Mansab, watan jagir, service and matrimonial alliance. A question about "Akbar's Rajput policy" is really a question about these four.
Why not the others: (c) lists revenue-assessment terms, which belong to the administrative chapter, not this one; (d) mixes Rajput-state revenue vocabulary. Every wrong option is real terminology from the wrong system.
6. The strongest single argument that alliance was a contract rather than a capitulation is — Concept
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(c) Rao Surjan Hada's negotiated conditions. A defeated ruler set conditions and had them accepted: no jizya, no matrimonial alliance, no service beyond the Indus.
Why not the others: (a) shows how far a Rajput could rise inside the system but says nothing about whether terms were negotiable; (b) and (d) measure imperial force, which is the opposite of the point.
7. Which of these was not part of what a Rajput ruler received on entering imperial service? Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(d) A hereditary claim to the imperial succession. The other three are the mansab, the watan jagir and the service element, and Rajputs governed Kabul, Bihar and Bengal under the last of them.
Why not the others: (d) is invented, and it is the kind of option that sounds plausible only if the settlement is imagined as a merger rather than as a contract of service.
Section B — Akbar's settlement and Surjan Hada's terms (Q8–17)
8. Which was the first Rajput house to accept Akbar's suzerainty, and when? Recall
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(a) Amber, in 1562. Raja Bharmal sent his son and grandson on 20 January 1562 and gave his daughter in marriage that March.
Why not the others: (b) Marwar, Bikaner and Jaisalmer submitted at Nagaur in 1570; (d) Bundi's Rao Surjan Hada submitted at Ranthambore; (c) Mewar's settlement is fifty-three years later and is the last, not the first.
9. Put Akbar's Rajasthan settlement in order. Sequence
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(b) Merta → Chittor → Ranthambore → Nagaur. Merta 1562, Chittor besieged 1567 and taken 1568, Ranthambore 1569, and the submissions of Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer at Nagaur in 1570.
Why not the others: The order carries the argument: the later submissions were made in the shadow of the earlier conquests, which is why 1570 produced three at once.
10. The siege of Ranthambore is dated — Type B · two dates, one event
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(c) 1569 in most accounts, with 1568 circulating. The 1569 dating is standard and is the exam answer. The 1568 dating comes with a specific siege of 8 February to 21 March.
Why not the others: Here is why 1568 should be distrusted, and it is a lesson in method: the same accounts giving those dates also say Akbar moved on Ranthambore after being emboldened by the fall of Chittor — which happened in late February 1568. Those dates put the siege before the event said to have caused it. A source whose own narrative contradicts its own dates cannot carry them.
11. Which was not among Rao Surjan Hada's conditions? Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(d) A guarantee of the Bundi succession. The three real conditions are (a), (b) and (c). They prove terms were negotiated rather than dictated.
Why not the others: (d) is invented and sounds like the kind of thing that ought to have been in such a treaty, which is what makes it a fair distractor. Learn the three actual clauses as a set.
12. What title did Rao Surjan Hada receive, and what office did he later hold? Recall
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(a) Rao Raja; governor of Benares and of Chunar fort. A ruler who submitted on terms and then governed a province is the clearest single illustration of what the settlement offered.
Why not the others: (b) Mirza Raja is Jai Singh I of Amber; (c) Mota Raja is Udai Singh of Marwar; (d) Rana is a Mewar title. All three are real titles belonging to other men.
13. Surjan Hada's exemption from jizya is significant partly because — Concept
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(b) It shows religious exemptions were available inside the settlement, long before Aurangzeb reimposed the tax. Granted at submission, and roughly a century before Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya in 1679.
Why not the others: (a) and (c) overstate a personal settlement into a general policy. The value of the clause is that it shows what an individual house could negotiate, not what the empire conceded generally.
14. Which three states accepted Akbar's suzerainty at Nagaur in 1570? Recall
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(c) Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer. By then Chittor and Ranthambore had both fallen, and the remaining houses submitted without further resistance.
Why not the others: (a) and (d) include Mewar, which did not submit for another forty-five years and is the standing exception to every generalisation in this section.
15. Chittor under Akbar was — Type C · reversed chronology
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(d) Besieged from 1567 and taken in 1568. The siege ended with jauhar and saka.
Why not the others: The one-year span matters because it is what makes the competing Ranthambore dating incoherent: a Ranthambore siege beginning in February 1568 could not have been prompted by a Chittor that fell later that same month.
16. After Chittor and Ranthambore fell, Akbar met little further Rajput resistance because — Concept
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(a) The successive falls demoralised the remaining rulers and his terms made submission acceptable. Force and terms worked together. Neither alone explains 1570.
Why not the others: (b), (c) and (d) describe a conquest-and-occupation model that is simply not what happened, and that the watan jagir directly contradicts.
17. Ranthambore before its fall was held by — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(b) Rao Surjan Hada, of the Bundi house. The Hadas are a branch of the Chauhans, holding Hadoti from Bundi.
Why not the others: (c) Udai Singh II held Chittor, which fell the year before, and the two sieges are constantly merged into one campaign.
Section C — Mewar to 1615 (Q18–26)
18. The Mughal-Mewar treaty was signed on — Recall
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(c) 5 February 1615. Between Amar Singh I and Jahangir, negotiated by Prince Khurram, the future Shah Jahan.
Why not the others: Each wrong option is another precisely dated event in this unit: Haldighati, the Treaty of Purandar and the Hurda conference. A question offering four exact dates is testing whether they are stored with their events.
19. Who negotiated the 1615 treaty on the Mughal side? Attribution
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(d) Prince Khurram. The future Shah Jahan. Jahangir had earlier sent expeditions under Mahabat Khan in 1608, Abdullah Khan in 1609 and Khurram in 1613.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are the commanders of those earlier, unsuccessful expeditions, which makes them proper distractors; (c) Parviz belongs to the 1606 battle of Dewair against Amar Singh.
20. Under the 1615 treaty, the Rana of Mewar was — Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(a) Excused personal attendance at the imperial court. A family member would represent him instead. No other major house had this concession.
Why not the others: (b), (c) and (d) all describe obligations that would have been ordinary for an allied house, which is exactly the point: Mewar's terms were not ordinary.
21. What rank did Karan Singh, Amar Singh's successor, receive under the treaty? Recall
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(b) 5,000. Integration at high rank, alongside an obligation to supply 1,500 horsemen.
Why not the others: (a) 7,000 is Man Singh I's zat, the highest Rajput mansab under Akbar; (c) 1,500 is the horsemen figure from the same treaty. Both wrong options are real numbers from this chapter attached to the wrong thing.
22. Which clause of the 1615 treaty cost Mewar something permanent? Recall
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(c) Chittor was restored but could never be repaired. A fort that cannot be refortified is a monument, not a stronghold, and that was the purpose of the clause.
Why not the others: (a), (b) and (d) are inventions, and the treaty in fact restored captured territory. The single lasting concession was the condition attached to the return.
23. Which two things did Mewar preserve in the 1615 treaty that it had been fighting about? Concept
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(d) No personal attendance at court, and no marriage into the imperial family. Which is why the eighty-year resistance did not end in an ordinary submission. It ended in better terms than anyone else received. Resistance was expensive and it worked as leverage.
Why not the others: (a) the jizya exemption is Surjan Hada's, not Mewar's; (c) inverts the treaty, which expressly barred repairing Chittor.
24. Put these Mewar events in order. Sequence
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(a) Udaipur founded → Chittor falls → Haldighati → Dewair → treaty. 1559, 1568, 1576, 1606, 1615.
Why not the others: (b) is the standard inversion: Udaipur was founded in 1559, nine years before Chittor fell, so the new capital was not a response to the loss of the old one.
25. Amar Singh I's victory at the second battle of Dewair in 1606 was against — Attribution
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(b) Prince Parviz and Asaf Khan. Under Jahangir. This is the second Dewair; the 1582 battle was Pratap's.
Why not the others: (a) Man Singh commanded at Haldighati in 1576 under Akbar. Three emperors, three commanders, three battles — and Dewair is the one that exists twice.
26. Which is true of Mewar's settlement relative to the other Rajput houses? Type C · reversed chronology
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(c) It came last, and on the best terms. Amber submitted in 1562 and Mewar in 1615, and Mewar's clauses are the most favourable on record.
Why not the others: (d) is the intuitive answer, because a house that resisted longest is assumed to have been punished hardest. The evidence runs the other way, and that is the chapter's central finding.
Section D — Marwar's two answers (Q27–34)
27. Rao Chandrasen is known by which epithets? Recall
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(d) "Maharana Pratap of Marwar" and "Marwar ka bhoola bisra nayak". The second means the forgotten hero of Marwar.
Why not the others: (a) Mota Raja is his own brother's title and Rao Raja is Surjan Hada's; (b) and (c) belong to Amber, Mewar and the Pratiharas. Every wrong option is a real title from elsewhere in this unit.
28. What did Chandrasen do at the Nagaur darbar of 1570? Type C · reversed chronology
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(a) Attended, then left without accepting suzerainty. He left when he saw the emperor favouring his brothers Ram Rai and Udai Singh.
Why not the others: (b) is the near-miss and is what most summaries say. He went, which matters: the break was a considered walk-out at the darbar itself, not an absence.
29. Who pioneered guerrilla warfare in the hills of Rajasthan? Type C · reversed chronology
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(b) Rao Chandrasen, whose method Pratap later adopted. Chandrasen refused at Nagaur in 1570 and was fighting from the hills before Haldighati in 1576, and died in 1581, five years before Pratap.
Why not the others: (a) is the standard inversion and the reason the epithet "forgotten hero" exists at all. Rajasthan remembers the second man to use the method and forgets the first.
30. After Bhadrajun fell in 1571, Chandrasen continued his resistance from — Recall
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(c) Siwana and the Sojat hills. He died in 1581 at Pali, after which Marwar came under direct Mughal administration.
Why not the others: (d) Chavand and Gogunda are Pratap's western Mewar bases, which is exactly the confusion this pairing invites.
31. Rao Chandrasen's reign ran from — Recall
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(d) 1562 to 1581. Named successor by Maldeo over his elder brothers Ram and Udai Singh.
Why not the others: (a) is Mota Raja Udai Singh's reign, the brother who took the opposite course; (c) is Rai Singh of Bikaner's. The brothers' reigns do not overlap, because Marwar was under direct Mughal administration between them.
32. Why is Marwar the better case study for this topic than Mewar? Concept
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(a) Because both strategies appear inside one generation of one family. Chandrasen resisted; his brother Mota Raja Udai Singh allied and became Shah Jahan's maternal grandfather. One father, two sons, both answers.
Why not the others: No moral framing survives that sentence, which is the point. (b) is contradicted by Chandrasen's eleven-year resistance.
33. Mota Raja Udai Singh ruled Marwar from — Recall
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(b) 1583 to 1595. With imperial backing, in the period after Chandrasen's death when Marwar had been under direct Mughal administration.
Why not the others: (c) is roughly Jaswant Singh's period and (d) is the span of the Rathore rebellion. All three wrong options are real Marwar date-ranges.
34. Mota Raja Udai Singh was the maternal grandfather of — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(c) Shah Jahan. The collaborating line produced a Mughal emperor's grandfather while the resisting line produced a folk hero.
Why not the others: (a) Jahangir's mother was Mariam-uz-Zamani, daughter of Bharmal of Amber. Two Rajasthan houses, two emperors, two generations, and the pair is worth learning together.
Section E — Rajputs inside the empire (Q35–40)
35. The highest mansab held by any Rajput under Akbar was — Recall
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(d) 7,000 zat, by Man Singh I. Granted towards the end of the reign. The 7,000 zat is not in dispute; the sawar component is given as 7,000 in some accounts and 6,000 in others.
Why not the others: (a) 5,000 is Bharmal's actual mansab, so it is a real figure for the wrong man; (b) Jai Singh I belongs to the following century.
36. Man Singh I served as governor of — Recall
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(a) Kabul, Bihar and Bengal. Kabul 1585-86, Bihar 1587-94, and Bengal for three terms 1595-1606. These are imperial careers, not provincial ones.
Why not the others: Any answer describing Rajput collaboration as passive is contradicted by this list: an Amber ruler governed the empire's north-western frontier and its richest eastern province.
37. The Treaty of Purandar of 1665 was negotiated for Aurangzeb by — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(b) Mirza Raja Jai Singh I. Signed on 11 June 1665. Shivaji surrendered 23 forts and retained 12.
Why not the others: (a) Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur in 1727, sixty-two years later. Two Jai Singhs of the same house, distinguished by the titles Mirza Raja and Sawai.
38. Under the Treaty of Purandar, Shivaji surrendered and retained — Recall
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(c) 23 forts surrendered, 12 retained. He also undertook to supply 5,000 troops for imperial service under his son Shambhaji.
Why not the others: (a) reverses the figures, which is the only wrong option worth worrying about, and it matters because the balance is what made the treaty a settlement rather than a capitulation.
39. What does the record of Rajput imperial office demonstrate? Concept
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(d) That Rajput houses ran large parts of the empire rather than merely submitting to it. An Amber ruler governed Kabul, Bihar and Bengal; another negotiated with the founder of the Maratha state.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are the passive picture the appointments contradict. Collaboration is usually taught as something that happened to Rajput houses; the offices show them running things.
40. Man Singh I's mansab is given as — Type B · two dates, one event
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(a) 7,000 zat, with the sawar figure unsettled at 7,000 or 6,000. The lower sawar figure is attached to a grant of 11 March 1605, the fiftieth year of Akbar's accession, following his success in Bengal.
Why not the others: (b) states as settled something that is not. Carry the 7,000 zat, which no source disputes, and treat the sawar component as an open question rather than picking a side.
Section F — Aurangzeb's rupture, and Hurda (Q41–51)
41. Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar died on — Recall
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(b) 28 December 1678, at Jamrud. Near Peshawar, leaving no living male heir, which is what triggered everything that followed.
Why not the others: (a) is Aurangzeb's death, (c) is Chandrasen's, and (d) is a refuted date for Rana Sanga, who in fact died at Kalpi on 30 January 1528.
42. Put the events of the rupture in order. Sequence
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(c) Jaswant Singh dies → Marwar taken into imperial management → Ajit Singh born → Marwar to be divided. 28 December 1678, then the seizure, then 19 February 1679, then 23 July 1679. The jizya was reimposed in 1679, in the same year as the Marwar measures.
Why not the others: (a) puts the tax first, which is the popular telling and gets the causation backwards: the succession seizure came first, and the war was a response to a broken hereditary settlement rather than to a tax alone.
43. Ajit Singh was born on — Recall
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(d) 19 February 1679, at Lahore. Two of Jaswant Singh's queens were pregnant; the other child died soon after birth, leaving Ajit as sole heir. Durgadas Rathore protected his claim.
Why not the others: Each wrong option is another real date from the same sequence: his father's death, the partition proposal, and the recapture of Jodhpur.
44. What did Aurangzeb propose on 23 July 1679? Concept
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(a) To divide Marwar between Inder Singh and Ajit Singh, with Ajit raised as a Muslim. Jodhpur was offered in return.
Why not the others: The analytical point is what is being violated: the watan jagir was a hereditary recognition of ancestral territory, and this converted it into imperial land and then offered it back conditionally on the heir's religion.
45. The best analytical description of Aurangzeb's rupture with the Rajputs is that — Concept
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(b) He broke the specific instrument the alliance was built on. The hereditary watan jagir was converted into imperial land on a ruler's death and offered back conditionally. A breach of contract, which is why the response lasted thirty years.
Why not the others: (a) may or may not be true and is in any case far weaker as history, because it explains no dates and predicts no specific grievance. Always prefer the explanation that names the mechanism.
46. The Rathore rebellion ran from — Recall
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(c) 1679 to 1707. Nearly thirty years, led by the Marwar nobles under Durgadas Rathore and supported by Mewar.
Why not the others: The end date is not a coincidence: Aurangzeb died on 3 March 1707 and the Rathores took Jodhpur on 12 March 1707, nine days later.
47. How did Mewar's war of 1679-81 end? Recall
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(d) Jai Singh ceded three parganas in lieu of paying jizya. With Marwar unresolved and the Deccan pulling him south, Aurangzeb negotiated with Raj Singh's son Jai Singh, and the Mughal army evacuated Mewar.
Why not the others: Notice the shape of the settlement: the tax was bought off with territory. Even at the point of rupture, the relationship was being settled by negotiated exchange, which is the chapter's argument surviving its own worst moment.
48. The Hurda conference was held on — Recall
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(a) 17 July 1734. At Hurda, in present Bhilwara district, to devise a common front against Maratha incursions.
Why not the others: Each wrong option is another dated settlement or proposal from this chapter. This one is different in kind: it is the only one where Rajput states negotiate with each other rather than with an empire.
49. The Hurda conference was presided over by — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(b) Maharana Jagat Singh II of Mewar. Sangram Singh II had been intended to head it but died before it met, and Sawai Jai Singh II was central to organising it.
Why not the others: (a) and (c) are both genuinely involved, which is what makes them the hard distractors: one organised it and the other was to have led it. Read whether a question asks who presided or who convened.
50. What was the outcome of the Hurda conference? Recall
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(c) It failed, through mutual distrust and internal politics. The failure is the examinable part. Rajasthan's houses could not combine even when every one of them faced the same threat.
Why not the others: (a) is the answer a candidate gives who has learned that the conference happened but not what came of it. The honest ending of this chapter is that a system which made each house locally strong left them collectively incapable of joint action.
51. Which rulers are confirmed as participants at Hurda? Recall
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(d) Jaipur, Jodhpur (Abhay Singh), Bundi (Dulel Singh) and Kota (Durjan Sal). Bikaner, Kishangarh and Nagaur also appear in one detailed account, which this site notes but did not independently confirm.
Why not the others: (b) and (c) misread the purpose entirely: the conference was convened against the Marathas, and by 1734 the Mughal empire was no longer the counterparty that mattered.
Section G — Assertion and Reason (Q52–61)
This format suits the topic, because the whole chapter is an argument about what follows from what. Several items pair a false assertion with a true reason, which is the shape that catches candidates checking only whether the statements sound familiar.
52. A: A Rajput ruler who entered Mughal service could impose conditions on his own submission. R: Rao Surjan Hada obtained exemption from jizya, a bar on matrimonial alliance, and freedom from service beyond the Indus. Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(a) R is the evidence for A, and it is the single most useful item in the chapter. Terms were negotiated, not dictated.
53. A: The watan jagir strengthened an allied Rajput ruler rather than weakening him. R: It gave imperial recognition to a hereditary claim over his ancestral territory, which he could use against rival clan members. Concept
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(a) R explains A. Any answer that treats the alliance purely as a loss of independence has missed half the transaction: it made the ruler stronger internally.
54. A: Maharana Pratap pioneered the guerrilla method in the hills of Rajasthan, which Chandrasen later adopted. R: Chandrasen left the Nagaur darbar without submitting in 1570 and fought on from Siwana and the Sojat hills. Type C · reversed chronology
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(d) R is true and makes A false. Chandrasen was in the hills six years before Haldighati and died five years before Pratap. The inversion is exactly why he is called the forgotten hero of Marwar.
55. A: Mewar's settlement of 1615 was harsher than the terms other Rajput houses received. R: Mewar held out for roughly eighty years after Amber's submission of 1562. Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(d) R is true and A is false. Mewar's terms were the best on record: no personal attendance at court, no marriage into the imperial family, and Chittor itself as watan jagir. Long resistance produced better terms, not worse.
56. A: The 1568 dating of the siege of Ranthambore should be treated with caution. R: The accounts giving that dating also say Akbar moved on Ranthambore only after being emboldened by the fall of Chittor, which occurred in late February 1568. Type B · two dates, one event
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(a) R is precisely why A holds. A source whose own narrative contradicts its own dates cannot carry those dates. This is a method question disguised as a fact question.
57. A: Haldighati cannot be described as a battle between Rajputs and Mughals. R: The Mughal army there was commanded by Raja Man Singh I of Amber. Concept
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(a) R makes A unavoidable. Two Rajputs on opposite sides is not an exception to the period's politics; it is the period's politics.
58. A: Aurangzeb's rupture with Marwar is better explained as a breach of contract than as religious policy alone. R: On Jaswant Singh's death the hereditary watan jagir was converted into imperially managed jagirs and then offered back conditional on the heir's religion. Concept
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(a) R names the mechanism, which is what makes A the stronger explanation. Prefer the account that explains the dates and predicts the specific grievance over the one that appeals to temperament.
59. A: The Rathore rebellion ended within days of Aurangzeb's death. R: Aurangzeb died on 3 March 1707 and the Rathores retook Jodhpur on 12 March 1707. Recall
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(a) R is the evidence for A: nine days. Nearly thirty years of war resolved almost immediately once the emperor who began it was gone, which says something about whose policy it was.
60. A: Even at the point of rupture, Mughal-Rajput relations were still being settled by negotiated exchange. R: Mewar's war of 1679-81 ended with Jai Singh ceding three parganas in lieu of paying jizya. Concept
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(a) R is the instance that supports A. The tax was bought off with territory, which is the same contractual logic visible in Surjan Hada's terms a century earlier.
61. A: The Hurda conference of 1734 shows that the Rajput states could combine against a common threat. R: Every major Rajput house faced Maratha incursions by the 1730s. Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(c) R is true; A is false, because the conference failed through mutual distrust and internal politics. That failure is the honest ending of the chapter: an arrangement that made each house locally strong left them collectively incapable of joint action.
Section H — Match the following (Q62–69)
Lock the one pair you are certain of, then eliminate. Every wrong code is a real swap, not a random shuffle.
62. Instrument with what it meant Concept
List I — A. Mansab · B. Watan jagir · C. Service · D. Matrimonial alliance
List II — 1. Duty anywhere in the empire, including provincial governorship · 2. Hereditary recognition of ancestral territory · 3. Not universal, and expressly excluded by some settlements · 4. Numerical rank in zat and sawar
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(a) B is the load-bearing one and D is the one most often assumed universal. Getting those two right is most of the topic.
63. Event with year Sequence
List I — A. Bharmal submits · B. Chittor falls · C. Nagaur submissions · D. Mewar treaty
List II — 1. 1570 · 2. 1615 · 3. 1562 · 4. 1568
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(a) Fifty-three years from the first submission to the last. The gap is the whole story of Mewar's resistance.
64. Title with the man who held it Type D · wrong instrument or actor
List I — A. Rao Raja · B. Mirza Raja · C. Mota Raja · D. Maharana
List II — 1. Udai Singh of Marwar · 2. Jai Singh I of Amber · 3. Amar Singh I · 4. Rao Surjan Hada
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(a) Four titles, four houses, and each was earned in a different relationship to the empire: submission on terms, imperial command, imperial backing, and negotiated independence.
65. Clause with the treaty or settlement it belongs to Recall
List I — A. No service beyond the Indus · B. Chittor never to be repaired · C. Three parganas ceded in lieu of jizya · D. 23 forts surrendered, 12 retained
List II — 1. Mewar, 1681 · 2. Purandar, 1665 · 3. Ranthambore, 1569 · 4. Mewar, 1615
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(a) Four negotiated settlements across 112 years, three of them involving Rajput houses and one a Maratha. Every one is an exchange, which is the chapter's argument in a single table.
66. Person with role Attribution
List I — A. Durgadas Rathore · B. Prince Khurram · C. Karan Singh · D. Inder Singh Rathore
List II — 1. Received a mansab of 5,000 under the 1615 treaty · 2. Rival claimant Aurangzeb proposed for part of Marwar · 3. Protected the infant Ajit Singh's claim · 4. Negotiated the 1615 treaty for Jahangir
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(a) B and C are the two sides of the same treaty, and A and D the two sides of the same succession dispute sixty-four years later.
67. Governorship with the years Man Singh I held it Recall
List I — A. Kabul · B. Bihar · C. Bengal · D. Amber
List II — 1. 1587 to 1594 · 2. His own watan · 3. 1585 to 1586 · 4. Three terms, 1595 to 1606
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(a) Note what D is doing: Amber was not a posting but his watan. The distinction between the territory a ruler held hereditarily and the provinces he governed as an officer is the whole architecture of the settlement.
68. The rupture, in order Sequence
List I — Arrange from earliest to latest:
A. Ajit Singh born · B. Jaswant Singh dies at Jamrud · C. Rathores retake Jodhpur · D. Marwar to be divided between two claimants
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(a) 28 December 1678, 19 February 1679, 23 July 1679, 12 March 1707. Three events in eight months, then twenty-eight years of war.
69. Resister with the base he fought from Type C · reversed chronology
List I — A. Rao Chandrasen · B. Maharana Pratap · C. Durgadas Rathore · D. Amar Singh I
List II — 1. Chavand · 2. Marwar, in the Rathore rebellion · 3. Siwana and the Sojat hills · 4. Dewair, 1606
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(a) A and B are the pair to keep straight, and the chronology runs A before B: Chandrasen was in the hills from 1570, Pratap from 1576.
Section I — The chronicle record, from Jalore to the last jizya (Q70–99)
The questions here are set on what the Persian chronicles, Jahangir's own memoir and the Rajputana gazetteer actually say. Where two authorities disagree, the answer names both rather than forcing a key. Several items carry a distractor that is the version in widest circulation, so read the option that looks most familiar twice.
70. Jalore's place in the Sultanate half of this topic rests on — Concept
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(a) Alauddin Khalji's capture of the fort from Kanhadadeva Chauhan, and the three-domed mosque there that the Rajputana gazetteer calls the earliest Muslim building in Rajputana. The mosque was still in daily use when that volume was compiled in 1908. Jalore is where the Sultanate's presence in this region first became architecture rather than an army.
Why not the others: (c) inverts what happened, since Udai Singh surrendered Jalore to Iltutmish about 1210 and had it restored to him at once. (b) and (d) are the kind of detail that circulates without a source behind it — the renamings, the exact years and the betrayal stories attached to these sieges come from later narrative sources, and the later Marwar jagir terms are equally unconfirmed. Neither belongs in an answer.
71. The Akbarnama fixes the siege of Ranthambore by two dates in the Hijri year 976. They convert to — Type B · two dates, one event
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(b) 11 March and 22 March 1569. The New Year fell while Akbar was still besieging the fort, on "the night of Friday the 22nd Ramzan 976, 11 March 1569"; Surjan came out on "the 12th Farwardin, Divine month, corresponding to Tuesday 3 Shawwal, 22nd March", handing over gifts and the keys of the fort, which were of gold and silver.
Why not the others: (c) is where the rival dating comes from — the same lunar date converted one year short. (a) is the precise 1568 siege that circulates in preparation material. Two Hijri dates in the same year, both converting to 1569, are what settle it: answer 1569, and you can now say why.
72. What does the Akbarnama say about how Rao Surjan came to hold Ranthambore? Concept
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(c) He bought it from Jajhar Khan, and held it as a servant of Rana Udai Singh of Mewar. Jajhar Khan was Salim Khan's slave, and, seeing he could not hold the fort and preferring that it not fall to the imperial army, sold it to Surjan, who then built in the fort, settled there and took the villages around it.
Why not the others: (a) is the assumption almost every summary carries, and it changes the meaning of 1569 completely. The fall of Ranthambore was the loss of a Mewar outwork, and the man who negotiated the terms was a Hada holding it for a Sisodia. The Rajputana gazetteer puts the same relationship generally: for two centuries before Surjan the Hada chiefs were to a considerable extent vassals of the Ranas of Udaipur.
73. What does the Rajputana gazetteer say Surjan received for Ranthambore? Recall
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(d) The government of fifty-two districts including Benares, and a command of 2,000. The same volume records that from 1569 the Hara chief bore the title Rao Raja. Note that even the gazetteer hedges the reward with "is said to have received".
Why not the others: (a) is the figure that circulates in preparation material and is not what the source says; (b) belongs to Rai Singh of Bikaner, whose fifty-two districts included Hansi and Hissar, and swapping the two lists is the commonest way this is got wrong; (c) is Man Singh I's rank.
74. What public work is the Nagaur halt of 1570 remembered for? Recall
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(a) The desilting of the Kukur Talao, renamed the Shukr Talao. Akbar left for Nagaur on 3 November 1570 and halted at the city a fortnight later. The nobles told him the town's prosperity depended on its tanks, that the largest had silted up, and that people had left their houses for want of water. The chronicle gives water supply, not famine, as the reason for the order.
Why not the others: (b) is real and adjacent — it is the Ajmer fort works Akbar left in order to go to Nagaur; (c) is the bank on which Mewar's settlement of 1681 was ratified; (d) is the 1708 treatment of Amber, not of Nagaur.
75. How did Jaisalmer enter the imperial system in 1570? Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(b) Rawal Har Rai did not attend; he asked that a courtier be deputed to fetch his daughter for the harem, and Raja Bhagwant Das was sent, completing the errand as Akbar returned from Nagaur. Jaisalmer's entry was contracted at a distance, by marriage, without its ruler ever appearing at court.
Why not the others: the word "submitted", applied to all three houses in one line, hides three different transactions — Chandrasen, named in the chronicle as received with royal favours; Kalyan Mal with his son Rai Singh, in person; and Jaisalmer in absentia. (c) is the Marwar tradition's account of Chandrasen, not Jaisalmer's, and (d) attaches an unverified cause to the wrong house.
76. On the Bikaner bride of 1570, the two sources say — Type B · two dates, one event
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(c) The Akbarnama says the daughter of Kalyan Mal's brother Kahan; the Rajputana gazetteer says Kalyan Mal's own daughter. Rai Kalyan Mal came to Nagaur with his son Rai Singh and asked, through intermediaries, that his brother's daughter be taken into the imperial harem; Akbar accepted. The gazetteer, following the Elliot translations, says instead that "the emperor married Kalyan Singh's daughter".
Why not the others: (d) reverses the two, which is the only wrong option worth worrying about. The contemporary chronicle says niece; the gazetteer says daughter. Both are in print, and knowing which source says which is the examinable part.
77. Where did Man Singh's meeting with Pratap take place in 1573? Attribution
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(d) At Gogunda, where the Rana brought him to his house as his guest. Both the Akbarnama and the Iqbalnama place the interview there. Man Singh came about June 1573, on his way back from Dungarpur and Salumbar; Pratap received him and refused to accompany him to court. Raja Bhagwan Das followed in October and Raja Todar Mal, then diwan of Gujarat, in December, and both were refused with the same courtesy.
Why not the others: (a) appears in almost every summary and rests on late Mewar manuscripts; G. N. Sharma, who worked through those manuscripts alongside the Persian chronicles, treats the insult scene as bardic invention. Use the meeting, not the insult. (b) Chavand is a later Mewar capital and (c) Kumbhalgarh is where Shahbaz Khan's campaign ended in 1578.
78. Mewar's service obligation under the settlement of 1615 is given as — Type B · two dates, one event
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(a) 1,000 horse in the clause list drawn from the Persian chronicles and Nainsi's khyat, and 1,500 in the version usually printed. The six-clause version built from the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, the Iqbalnama, Kambu's Amal-i-Salih, Lahauri's Badshahnama and Nainsi gives 1,000 horse. Both figures circulate. Give both and name the basis of each, exactly as with Man Singh's sawar rank.
Why not the others: (b) and (c) each pick a side on a figure that is not settled. (d) 5,000 is Karan Singh's mansab under the same settlement, received afterwards at court — the neighbouring number, and the easiest to attach to the wrong clause.
79. On Mewar and matrimonial alliance in 1615, the record supports — Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(b) That no marriage was demanded of Mewar, which is a concession. No prohibition on marriage appears in the fullest clause list drawn from the Persian chronicles. What that scholarship says is that the practice of matrimonial alliance, which the other Rajput houses had entered into, was not included in the terms and was not insisted on.
Why not the others: (a) is the version usually printed, and the difference decides a statement question — a concession is not the same thing as a written bar. What the clause list does contain is the exemption from personal attendance, and the restoration of Chitor on condition that it was not fortified or repaired.
80. How was the no-repair condition on Chitor enforced? Concept
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(c) Shah Jahan sent his wazir Sadullah Khan with 30,000 troops to demolish the repairs, and went to Ajmer himself to supervise, leaving on 29 September 1654. Rana Jagat Singh I had begun repairing the walls in defiance of the treaty, and his son Raj Singh, who succeeded on 10 October 1652, hurried the work to completion. The wazir's men pulled the walls and battlements down with picks and spades.
Why not the others: (d) is the assumption the episode destroys. The clause was a live obligation, enforced thirty-nine years later by a wazir with an army, and the price of testing it was land: the settlement of November 1654 bound the Rana to send his son to court, to stop repairing the fort, and to hand over border territory to Mughal officers. (b) borrows a real commander from Aurangzeb's later Mewar campaign.
81. What does the imperial chronicle say about Chandrasen and Jodhpur? Type C · reversed chronology
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(d) He had already lost the fort before the Nagaur darbar, and his elder brother Ram Rai joined the imperial army besieging him. The Akbarnama narrates the capture in the campaign that followed the crushing of Sharafuddin Husain Mirza's revolt in Ajmer and the fall of Merta, in the middle 1560s. Abul Fazl is explicit that it was the capital of Rai Maldeo, held after his death by "his younger son Candar Sen", and that Ram Rai came and joined the imperial army and was afterwards presented at court.
Why not the others: (a) is later — Bhadrajun fell in 1571, after the darbar. The order matters, because it means the split in the family was made before the darbar, on the walls of Jodhpur.
82. Rai Singh of Bikaner was rewarded with — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(a) A grant of fifty-two districts including Hansi and Hissar. He succeeded at Bikaner in 1571 and ruled forty years, was the first Raja of Bikaner, and served in the country round Attock, in Gujarat, the Deccan and Sind. The Rajputana gazetteer places him higher on the list of mansabdars than any other Hindu except the chief of Amber. In 1586 he gave his daughter in marriage to Salim; their son was Prince Parwez.
Why not the others: (b) is Surjan Hada's fifty-two districts, and the two grants are constantly swapped; (c) went to Ratan Singh of Bundi and (d) to his son Madho Singh. Four real rewards, four different men.
83. Which statement about Ram Singh I of Amber's Assam command is correct? Recall
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(b) He never took Gauhati, withdrew beaten to Rangamati in March 1671, and was allowed to leave only in 1676. Appointed on 27 December 1667 after the imperialists lost Gauhati, he took 4,000 troopers of his own, 1,500 ahadis and 500 imperial artillerymen, picked up Guru Tegh Bahadur at Patna on the way, and reached Rangamati in February 1669. The Ahoms held the water and were reinforced by the Nagas; the faujdar of Gauhati refused his orders; three severe defeats in the second half of 1670 ended it. Nine years from setting out to being let go.
Why not the others: (c) inverts the reason. Jadunath Sarkar's view is that there is ground for believing the posting was a punishment for having secretly helped Shivaji escape from Agra, Shivaji having been in Ram Singh's custody at court. The same house both delivered Shivaji to Aurangzeb and lost the emperor's Assam war for helping him get away.
84. What post did Jaswant Singh of Marwar hold when he died? Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(c) Thanadar of Jamrud, commanding the Mughal posts in the Khyber and the Peshawar district. Sarkar states this flatly against the looser descriptions in circulation, and it matters: a thanadari at a frontier post is not a great office; it is where a man is sent to be out of the way.
Why not the others: (a) and (b) are the descriptions usually attached to the 1678 posting and neither is correct. (d) is real but earlier: he was viceroy of Malwa in 1658, was beaten at Dharmat, turned on the imperial army as the battle opened at Khajwa and plundered its camp, was pardoned twice, and afterwards served as viceroy of Gujarat and of the Deccan. He was also the first ruler of Marwar to receive the title of Maharaja.
85. Kota became a separate state because — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(d) Madho Singh, son of Ratan Singh of Bundi, joined the imperial army at Burhanpur against the rebel Khurram and was given Kotah to hold direct from the crown. Ratan Singh had already given Kotah and its dependencies to his son in jagir; for the service, Ratan Singh received the government of Burhanpur and Madho Singh received Kotah for himself and his heirs. Kota is conventionally dated as a separate state from 1631.
Why not the others: (a) is the legend, and it is the opposite of the transaction. Read what the reward actually was: the permanent partition of a Rajput state, with the cadet branch lifted out from under its own chief and made to hold directly of the emperor. That is the alliance system doing to Bundi what the watan jagir did inside a single house, one level up.
86. Khusrau's mother, the queen titled Shah Begam, was — Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(a) Raja Bhagwan Das's daughter of Amber, Man Singh's sister. Jahangir sets the chain out himself, writing that he had "obtained alliances with this illustrious family, inasmuch as his aunt had been in my father's house, and I had married his sister, and Khusrau and his sister Sultan-un-nisa Begam were born of her". He adds that Man Singh's grandfather Bihari Mal was the first of the Kachhwaha Rajputs to enter Akbar's service.
Why not the others: (b) is the trap that catches even reference works — the 1908 Rajputana gazetteer collapses the two women, and Mota Raja Udai Singh's daughter was Shah Jahan's mother, of Marwar. (c) Bihari Mal's daughter married Akbar; (d) Rai Singh's daughter married Salim in 1586 and was Prince Parwez's mother. Keep the women, and the houses, apart.
87. Jaswant Singh's death at Jamrud is dated — Type B · two dates, one event
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(b) 10 December 1678 by Sarkar, with Irvine's 18 December 1678 as the alternative. Irvine works from the Hijri date 6 Zul Qada 1089. Neither of the two standard authorities on the reign gives 28 December, the figure that circulates most widely. Use December 1678, and if a date is demanded, 10 December on Sarkar's authority with Irvine's noted beside it. The news reached Aurangzeb at Delhi in the fourth week of the month.
Why not the others: (c) attaches Irvine's Hijri date to the wrong conversion, which is how the 28 December version keeps its footing. (d) is Aurangzeb's own death, twenty-nine years later.
88. What happened on 23 July 1679? Type D · wrong instrument or actor
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(c) Durgadas, having cut his way out of Delhi with seven surviving troopers, brought the infant Ajit Singh safely into Marwar.
Why not the others: (a) is the version in widest circulation, and there was no partition of Marwar. What is documented is (b), on a different day: Indra Singh Rathor, chief of Nagaur, grandson of Jaswant's disinherited elder brother Amar Singh, was invested as Raja of Jodhpur on 26 May 1679 in return for a succession fee of 36 lakh rupees, and lasted about two months before being dethroned for what Aurangzeb called manifest incapacity to rule "fifty thousand Rathor blades". (d) belongs to 2 April 1679. Three separate events, three separate dates.
89. What did the farman of 1659 give Rana Raj Singh? Type A · submission read as unconditional
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(d) The parganas of Gayaspur, Dungarpur and Banswara, and a rank of 6,000 zat and 6,000 sawar. The grant, yielding two crore of dams, was made by a newly crowned Aurangzeb. The house that had refused for a century held one of the highest mansabs in the empire, twenty years before the war.
Why not the others: (a) is the assumption the farman destroys; (b) is the command Jai Singh received under the settlement of 1681; (c) are the three parganas Mewar ceded in 1681, which is the same subject running in the opposite direction.
90. Who do Sarkar and Sharma conclude wrote the famous letter of protest against the jizya? Attribution
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(a) Shivaji. Three copies survive, at the Royal Asiatic Society in London, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and the Maharana's office at Udaipur. Jadunath Sarkar concluded on internal evidence that the writer was Shivaji, and Sharma, examining the Udaipur copy, judged it an abridgement of Shivaji's letter.
Why not the others: every wrong option is a real attribution in print — Orme to Jaswant Singh, the Bengal manuscript to Shambhuji, Tod and Shyamal Das to Raj Singh. The argument that settles it: no contemporary Rajput source from Raj Singh's own time mentions the jizya or any protest against it at all, though the local annalists record far smaller things. Do not put the letter in a Mewar answer.
91. Which parganas did Mewar cede in 1681 in lieu of the jizya? Recall
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(b) Mandal, Pur and Badnor. The other three clauses were Mughal withdrawal from Mewar, restoration of the country of the Rana's ancestors, and official recognition of his title with a command of 5,000 for Jai Singh. Ratification followed on 24 June 1681 on the bank of the Rajsamudra, the Rana coming in procession with a thousand horse to meet Prince Azam, and a confirming farman on 18 July 1681.
Why not the others: (a) is what the farman of 1659 granted the same house. Notice what (b) is doing: these are among the border districts Mewar had been made to hand over in 1654, after Sadullah Khan pulled down the Chitor repairs. The same ground is conceded twice, a generation apart, and both times as the price of an obligation Mewar had broken or refused. (c) and (d) are place-lists that circulate attached to settlements without a source behind them.
92. The history of the jizya between 1679 and 1719 runs — Sequence
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(c) Reimposed 2 April 1679, abolished by Farrukhsiyar in January 1713, reimposed about 1717, abolished again in 1719. Farrukhsiyar's abolition was at Agra, and the note that the tax had "been levied for thirty-four years" is itself a check on the 1679 date. The 1719 abolition came at the first audience of the boy emperor Rafi-ud-darjat, "on the prayer of Maharajah Ajit Singh, Rajah Bhim Singh of Kota, and Rajah Ratan Chand".
Why not the others: an option that credits the abolition to a single emperor and a single year is testing whether you know there were three moves, not one. And note who two of the three petitioners were: Rajasthan rulers, one of them the infant of 1679, whose religion had been made the price of his own throne.
93. A: The concession Mewar finally obtained in 1615 was already what it was bargaining over in 1573. R: Abul Fazl records that Pratap sent back a petition with his son Amar Singh asking to be excused from personal attendance at the Mughal court. Concept
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(a) R is what the chronicle records of the second of the three embassies of 1573, and exemption from personal attendance is precisely the clause Mewar won forty-two years later. G. N. Sharma doubts Abul Fazl here, reasoning that Akbar would have accepted a submission carried by the crown prince, and the point survives the doubt either way: the thing Mewar was bargaining over in 1573 is the thing it was still bargaining over in 1615, and it is the clause it finally won.
94. A: Aurangzeb's willingness to settle with Mewar in 1681 owed something to trouble inside his own family. R: On 11 January 1681 Prince Akbar crowned himself emperor at Nadol on the strength of the Sisodias and the Rathores. Concept
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(a) Terms with the prince were settled through Rao Kesari Singh, and Tahavvur Khan was made his Amir-ul-Umara. The rising collapsed within a fortnight and Akbar fled to the Marathas, but with Marwar unresolved, a son proclaimed against him and the Deccan pulling him south, Aurangzeb handed the Mewar command to Prince Azam and let terms be made. No other resistance in the empire attempted to raise a rival emperor.
95. A: Aurangzeb's Mewar war was caused by his anger at the Charumati marriage. R: Rana Raj Singh went to Kishangarh in 1660 and married Charumati, daughter of Rup Singh, after she wrote asking for help against a betrothal to the emperor arranged without her. Type C · reversed chronology
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(d) R is true and A is false. Aurangzeb demanded an explanation, the Rana replied through Udai Karan Chauhan that such marriages were ordinary and no slight was intended, and cordial relations continued afterwards; the war came nineteen years later, for other reasons. Note what the episode adds to the topic: the matrimonial alliance is usually discussed as something Rajput houses gave, and here it is refused in the other direction, to the emperor's face, by a bride and a neighbouring ruler acting together.
96. A: The Hurda compact failed at the conference itself. R: Article 3 bound the chiefs to assemble at Rampura after the rains, in person or by an heir. Type C · reversed chronology
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(d) R is true and it is what makes A false. The compact did not fail at Hurda; it failed at the muster article 3 required, which never took place. A question that asks what Hurda decided is asking about Rampura. Two other articles are worth carrying: no chief to countenance the traitor of another, and the Rana alone to correct an erring heir, which is why Mewar presided though Amber convened. The seals on Tod's copy are those of Mewar, Amber, the Hada prince of Bundi, and Abhai Singh of Marwar, and the engagement was a revival of the earlier alliance whose basis had been the abjuration of marriage with the imperial family.
97. Commander with when he was sent against Mewar Sequence
List I — A. Bhagwan Das and Man Singh retake the lost outposts · B. Shahbaz Khan leaves for Mewar · C. Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan given the Mewar command · D. Raja Jagannath despatched
List II — 1. 16 June 1580 · 2. 6 December 1584 · 3. July 1577 · 4. 15 October 1577
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(a) D is the last: after 1585 no further campaign was sent, and Pratap recovered thirty-six places from the Mughal outposts, Udaipur, Gogunda and Mandal among them. Shahbaz Khan took Kumbhalgarh in April 1578 after four repulses and garrisoned fifty places; the Khan-i-Khanan left his family at Sherpura, and when Amar Singh captured the Mirza's women Pratap ordered them sent back with honour. Read the names in order and three of the five commanders are Rajputs.
98. Date in 1679 with what happened on it Sequence
List I — A. 9 January · B. 1 March · C. 26 May · D. 23 July
List II — 1. Indra Singh of Nagaur invested as Raja of Jodhpur for 36 lakh rupees · 2. Aurangzeb sets out from Delhi for Ajmer · 3. Durgadas brings the infant Ajit Singh into Marwar · 4. A detachment enters Siwana and digs under the walls for the Rathore treasure
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(a) Two more dates complete the sequence: Khan-i-Jahan Bahadur was sent on 7 February to occupy the country and seize the dead Maharaja's property, and on 26 February Aurangzeb learned that two of Jaswant's widows had borne posthumous sons at Lahore, and did not alter course. On 2 April he returned from Ajmer to Delhi, and on that same day the jizya was reimposed. The seizure runs step by step before any question of religion enters the sequence.
99. The crisis of 1708 Type D · wrong instrument or actor
List I — A. Islamabad · B. Mirza Rajah · C. Mihrab Khan · D. The condition on which Mewar joined
List II — 1. Faujdar of Jodhpur, who capitulated in July 1708 through Durgadas's mediation · 2. The title given to Bijai Singh on 30 April 1708 · 3. The Mughal marriage renounced, and the son of the Udaipur princess to succeed before all elder sons · 4. The name ordered for Amber
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(a) Bijai Singh was Sawai Jai Singh's younger brother, put on the Amber throne by Bahadur Shah — not a renaming of Jai Singh himself, which is the usual garble. The pact was made by Amar Singh II of Mewar, Jai Singh of Amber and Ajit Singh of Marwar after the two escaped from the imperial camp near Mandsaur, and it worked: Jodhpur was surrounded by thirty thousand Rathore horse in July 1708, Amber was retaken by a night assault reported on 21 August 1708, Sayyid Husain Khan Barha was killed at Sambhar, ranks were restored on 6 October 1708, and peace was made in June 1710. The marriage condition had a long fuse: the son of that marriage, Madho Singh, was born in December 1738.
Flashcards — the facts most often missed
Tap to reveal. These are the ones that decide close questions.
The four instruments
Mansab (zat = status and pay, sawar = cavalry) · Watan jagir = hereditary recognition of ancestral territory · Service anywhere in the empire · Matrimonial alliance, which was not universal.
Why houses joined
The watan jagir let a ruler centralise authority locally against rival clan members, backed by imperial recognition of a hereditary claim. The alliance made allied houses stronger internally, not weaker.
Akbar's sequence
1562 Merta taken; Bharmal of Amber first to submit · 1567-68 Chittor besieged and falls · 1569 Ranthambore · 1570 Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer submit at Nagaur.
Surjan Hada's three terms
No jizya · no matrimonial alliance · no service beyond the Indus. Title Rao Raja; later governor of Benares and Chunar. The proof that terms were negotiated.
The Ranthambore dating
1569 is the answer. 1568 circulates with precise dates (8 Feb to 21 March), but the same accounts say Akbar moved there after Chittor fell — in late Feb 1568. The dates precede their own stated cause.
The 1615 Mewar treaty
5 February 1615, Amar Singh I and Jahangir, negotiated by Prince Khurram. Mewar with Chittor as watan jagir · no personal attendance at court · Karan Singh mansab 5,000 · 1,500 horsemen · territory restored · Chittor never repaired · no royal marriage.
Why 1615 matters
Mewar submitted last and on the best terms, keeping the two things it had fought about. Resistance worked as leverage. The price was Chittor, returned but permanently unrepairable.
The Jahangir expeditions
Mahabat Khan 1608 · Abdullah Khan 1609 · Khurram 1613. Then the treaty of 1615, negotiated by the same Khurram.
Chandrasen
r. 1562-1581, chosen by Maldeo over Ram and Udai Singh. Left the Nagaur darbar, 1570, without submitting. Bhadrajun fell 1571; fought on from Siwana and the Sojat hills. Pioneered guerrilla warfare, later adopted by Pratap. Died 1581 at Pali. "Maharana Pratap of Marwar", "Marwar ka bhoola bisra nayak".
Marwar's two answers
Chandrasen resisted. Mota Raja Udai Singh allied, ruled 1583-1595, and was Shah Jahan's maternal grandfather. One father, two sons, both strategies.
Man Singh I
Highest Rajput mansab under Akbar: 7,000 zat (the sawar figure is 7,000 or 6,000, unsettled). Governor of Kabul 1585-86, Bihar 1587-94, Bengal three terms 1595-1606.
Purandar
11 June 1665, Mirza Raja Jai Singh I for Aurangzeb, with Shivaji: 23 forts surrendered, 12 retained, 5,000 troops under Shambhaji.
The rupture, in dates
28 Dec 1678 Jaswant Singh dies at Jamrud · Marwar taken into imperial management · jizya reimposed 1679 · 19 Feb 1679 Ajit Singh born at Lahore · 23 July 1679 Marwar to be split between Inder Singh and Ajit, Ajit to be raised a Muslim.
The wars
Rathore rebellion 1679-1707, under Durgadas Rathore, supported by Mewar. Aurangzeb dies 3 March 1707; Jodhpur retaken 12 March 1707, nine days later. Mewar 1679-81, ended when Jai Singh ceded three parganas in lieu of jizya.
Hurda
17 July 1734, at Hurda, Bhilwara. Presided by Jagat Singh II of Mewar (Sangram Singh II had died); organised largely by Sawai Jai Singh II. Jodhpur (Abhay Singh), Bundi (Dulel Singh), Kota (Durjan Sal). It failed.
Rapid one-liners
Which instrument made the Mughal-Rajput settlement hold?
The watan jagir — hereditary imperial recognition of a ruler's ancestral territory.
Which house submitted first, and when?
Amber, under Bharmal, in 1562.
Which house submitted last, and on what terms?
Mewar, in 1615, on the best terms anyone received.
Name Surjan Hada's three conditions.
No jizya; no matrimonial alliance; no service beyond the Indus.
Was a matrimonial alliance part of every settlement?
No. Surjan Hada excluded it in 1569 and Mewar excluded it in writing in 1615.
What did Mewar permanently lose in 1615?
Nothing territorial — but Chittor could never be repaired. A fort that cannot be refortified is a monument.
Who is called the "forgotten hero of Marwar"?
Rao Chandrasen, also called the Maharana Pratap of Marwar.
Who used guerrilla warfare in Rajasthan first?
Chandrasen, from 1570 — six years before Haldighati.
Which provinces did Man Singh I govern?
Kabul, Bihar and Bengal.
What triggered Aurangzeb's break with Marwar?
Jaswant Singh's death at Jamrud, 28 December 1678, leaving no living heir — and the seizure of Marwar that followed.
Why is the rupture a breach of contract rather than simple intolerance?
Because the watan jagir was hereditary, and it was converted into imperial land and then offered back conditional on the heir's religion.
How long after Aurangzeb's death did the Rathores retake Jodhpur?
Nine days. He died 3 March 1707; Jodhpur fell to them 12 March 1707.
How did Mewar's war of 1679-81 end?
Jai Singh ceded three parganas in lieu of paying jizya, and the Mughal army withdrew.
Who presided at the Hurda conference?
Maharana Jagat Singh II of Mewar — not Sawai Jai Singh II, who organised it.
What was the outcome at Hurda?
Failure, through mutual distrust. The states could not combine even against a shared threat.
What to do with your mistakes
- Assumed a submission was unconditional? Learn Surjan Hada's three conditions and the seven clauses of 1615 as lists. Once you can recite them, the assumption cannot survive.
- Got the chronology backwards? Build one timeline for the whole topic and keep it in front of you: 1562, 1568, 1569, 1570, 1576, 1606, 1615, 1665, 1678, 1679, 1707, 1734. Two inversions cost the most marks — Chandrasen before Pratap, and the Marwar seizure before the jizya.
- Picked a side on a contested figure? Man Singh's sawar rank and the Ranthambore year are both unsettled. The examinable skill is knowing which part is settled: the 7,000 zat, and the 1569 dating.
- Confused two men? Two Jai Singhs, two Udai Singhs across houses, and four commanders who all worked on Mewar under Jahangir. Learn them by the relationship each had to the empire, not by name alone.
More in This Series
- Resistance to and Collaboration with Central Power — the chapter these questions come from
- Practice: Major Dynasties of Rajasthan — 72 questions on the houses and rulers behind this chapter
- Unit Revision Test: Ancient Rajasthan — 60 mixed questions across the three ancient chapters
- Caution for Readers — the claims that are genuinely unsettled
Sources & Verification
Every question is derived from the parent chapter, whose Sources & Verification section lists what was checked and what was deliberately not asserted.
No PYQ is cited anywhere on this page. Question numbers are our own, not RPSC's.
No question is set on a figure the chapter declines to verify. Troop and casualty totals for the Rathore rebellion and the Mewar war, the unconfirmed part of the Hurda participant list, the administrative label applied to Marwar's lands in 1679, and the year of Akbar's abolition of the jizya are all absent from the questions for that reason.
Two questions are set on genuinely unsettled facts, and say so in the answer rather than forcing a key: Q10 on the Ranthambore dating, where 1569 is given with the reason the 1568 account cannot be trusted, and Q40 on Man Singh I's mansab, where the 7,000 zat is settled and the sawar component is not.
