1. What did Babur call the decency cloth worn by ordinary men in India?
2. According to Ralph Fitch, at which city did the common people go about with only a small cloth bound around their middle?
3. Which European traveller observed that Deccan people generally went bare-footed?
4. According to the modern author Moreland, north of which river was a shoe not mentioned in contemporary accounts (Bengal excepted)?
5. What was the common name given by Pelsaert and De Laet to the mixture of rice, millet and pulses forming the staple diet of ordinary people?
6. Consider the following statements regarding food items in Mughal India:
(I) Ghee and oil were cheaper than foodgrains and formed a staple part of the poor man's diet.
(II) Salt and sugar were relatively more expensive items.
Which of the above is/are correct?
7. Peasants who owned the land they tilled and paid land revenue at customary rates were known as:
8. Tenant cultivators who generally paid land revenue at a higher rate than the landowning peasants were called:
9. What has been estimated as the population of India at the beginning of the seventeenth century?
10. Consider the following crops:
(I) Tobacco
(II) Maize
(III) Potato
Which of the above were added to Indian cultivation during the seventeenth century?
11. Loans and incentives given by the Mughal state to peasants for expansion and improvement of cultivation were called:
12. The lowest grade of servants, according to European travellers, earned a monthly salary of:
13. It was calculated that a man could feed his family on a monthly income of:
14. Consider the following statements regarding Moreland's assessment of real wages:
(I) He observed little change in real wages of workers between the Mughal period and the early twentieth century.
(II) He concluded that conditions of the Indian people had not worsened under British rule.
Which of the above is/are correct?
15. Which Rajput clan predominated among the Rajputs first recruited into Akbar's nobility?
16. What was the approximate proportion of Hindus in the Mughal nobility under Akbar in 1594?
17. Who held a position of great influence and honour in the sphere of revenue administration under Akbar?
18. Which Mughal emperor was the first to recognize the Marathas as "the hub of affairs" in the Deccan and tried to win them over?
19. Who was the Maratha sardar who served Shah Jahan and was the father of Shivaji?
20. During the second half of Aurangzeb's reign, Hindus accounted for what approximate share of the Mughal nobility?
21. Which noble under Aurangzeb owned a fleet of ships carrying on extensive commerce with Persia, Arabia and Southeast Asia?
22. Which official advised nobles "to invest a little in commercial speculation and engage in remunerative undertaking"?
23. Which French traveller described the Mughal nobility as consisting of "foreigners who enticed each other to the court"?
24. Fashion of men wearing costly jewels in pierced ears at the Mughal court was introduced by:
25. The hereditary right of a zamindar to collect land revenue from a number of villages was called his:
26. In some areas, the share of land revenue received by zamindars for collection could go up to:
27. Persian writers also referred to rajas who dominated larger tracts with internal autonomy by which common term, to emphasise their subordinate status?
28. According to the Ain, the combined forces of the zamindars during Akbar's reign included how many sawars?
29. Fortified residences of zamindars, rajas and chiefs, serving as both refuge and status symbol, were called:
30. Which of the following was NOT a regional name used for zamindars across the country?
31. In Mughal terminology, land grants made for the maintenance of scholars, religious divines and theologians were called:
32. What was the equivalent term for madad-i-maash grants used in Rajasthan?
33. The French traveller who claimed India had no "middle state" between the extremely rich and the miserably poor was:
34. Merchants specializing in long distance, inter-regional trade were known by terms such as seth, bohra or:
35. Traders engaged in local, retail trade were called beoparis or:
36. Which specialized class of traders moved bulk goods such as foodgrains and salt over long distances using thousands of oxen?
37. Agents who helped link wholesalers with merchants at regional and local levels were known as gumashtas and:
38. A hundi, used for transmission of money, was essentially:
39. Which class of specialists in changing money also dealt in hundis and functioned as private bankers?
40. Which Surat-based merchant dominated the region's trade for several decades and owned a large fleet of ships?
41. Abdul Ghafur Bohra left behind cash, goods and a fleet of how many sea-going ships at the time of his death in 1718?
42. Which local leader of a merchant community could intercede with local officials on behalf of the community?
43. Consider the following statements regarding safety of merchant property in Mughal India:
(I) Jahangir's ordinances provided that a deceased person's property, even without heirs, should be safeguarded by appointed inspectors.
(II) Local officials never abused their power to harass traders.
Which of the above is/are correct?
44. In 1606, the Dutch obtained a farman from the ruler of which kingdom to establish themselves at Masulipatam?
45. The Dutch obtained which port from a local ruler on the Coromandel coast, making it a base of their operations?
46. The English set up their first factory in India, at Surat, in the year:
47. The English factory at Surat was confirmed by a farman from Jahangir in 1618, obtained with the help of:
48. In 1622, with Persian assistance, the English captured which Portuguese base at the head of the Persian Gulf?
49. Which of the following pairs of European trading milestones and their years is correctly matched?
50. Which two centres in north India became the two nodal points of trade for Gujarat's export of fine textiles and silks (patola)?
51. According to Ralph Fitch, which two Mughal cities were larger than London, then one of the biggest towns in Europe?
52. Bernier, writing in the mid-seventeenth century, compared Delhi's size to which European city?
53. Which Jesuit priest at Akbar's court stated that Lahore was second to none of the cities in Europe or Asia?
54. In 1651, which Mughal emperor initiated a programme of building sea-going vessels for voyages to West Asia?
55. By the year 1640, the export of cloth from the Coromandel coast, compared to that from Gujarat, was:
56. By 1660, Coromandel's cloth exports compared to Gujarat's had reached:
57. Which two ports served as the chief centres for the English cloth export trade from the Coromandel coast?
58. By 1650, the English had established themselves at Hoogly and at which other port in Orissa, exporting raw silk and sugar?
59. Which item exported from Bihar supplemented European sources of gunpowder and also served as a ship's ballast?
60. In 1701, as a result of agitations in England, the import of which category of Indian goods was banned?
61. Consider the following statements regarding the export of white Indian calicoes:
(I) Exports stood at about 9.5 lakh pieces in 1701.
(II) Exports rose to about 20 lakh pieces by 1719.
Which of the above is/are correct?
62. What proportion of spices produced is estimated to have gone to Europe, with the largest part consumed in India and China?
63. A new item of Indian import trade during the seventeenth century, produced in Yemen (Southern Arabia), was:
64. Lahore and Multan served as the major centres for India's trade overland to which regions?
65. An Indian trading colony of about how many people is recorded as having lived in different parts of Iran?
66. Indian traders had established colonies at Baku and at Astrakhan, the latter located at the mouth of which river?
67. Overland Indian trade to Central Asia via Punjab and Kashmir and Ladakh reached China through Indian trading colonies at:
68. The overland trade to Central Asia declined following the break-up of the Safavid empire and the disintegration of which empire?
69. As a consequence of the influx of gold and silver, prices in India during the first half of the seventeenth century approximately:
70. Which European power succeeded in conquering Java and Sumatra as an alternative to exporting gold and silver to India?
