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Class 10 History: Nationalism in India, 8 practice questions with answers

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These are 8 practice questions on Chapter 2, Nationalism in India, of the NCERT Class 10 History textbook, India and the Contemporary World II. Each has a worked answer and the textbook page it comes from. They ask you to check the chapter's numbers, put its events in order, work out which group of Indians is speaking, explain the choices the Congress made, sort the actions of the two great movements, read the two nationalist flags, rebuild the chain of events from 1928 to 1930, and prepare the map work. Try each one on paper before you open the answer.

These questions are our own, drafted with AI help. Every fact was checked against the textbook page it cites, but no practising teacher has reviewed them yet. If you find a mistake, please tell us.

How this chapter is examined

In CBSE's Social Science paper for 2026-27, History carries 20 of the 80 marks: 18 for questions and 2 for map work (curriculum, course structure, page 1). This is the chapter the History map work comes from (map work list, page 7). The paper has 1-mark multiple-choice questions (including assertion and reason), 2, 3 and 5-mark answers, and 4-mark case studies (page 10).

The 2026-27 History map list (curriculum, page 7) asks you to locate, label or identify:

Practise on a blank outline map of India. Question 8 below goes through each item.

What the chapter says you need

Facts from the NCERT textbook (India and the Contemporary World II, Class X, Chapter 2, printed pages 29 to 50):

The chapter's numbers

Question 1. (a) Prices doubled between 1913 and 1918. If a family spent Rs 6 a month on food in 1913, about how much would the same food cost in 1918? (b) Foreign cloth imports were worth Rs 102 crore in 1921 and Rs 57 crore in 1922. By how many crore did it fall, and by roughly what percentage? Is "halved" a fair description? (c) The Dandi march covered over 240 miles in 24 days. Check the chapter's figure of about 10 miles a day.

Answer: (a) about Rs 12; (b) Rs 45 crore, about 44 per cent: a little less than half, so "halved" is a rounded description; (c) 240 ÷ 24 = 10 miles a day. (a) Doubling Rs 6 gives Rs 12 (prices, page 30). (b) 102 − 57 = 45, and 45 ÷ 102 is about 0.44, or 44 per cent. The new value, 57, is a little more than half of 102 (which is 51), so "halved" (page 34) is a round figure, not an exact one. (c) Over 240 miles in 24 days is 10 miles a day, or a little more, matching "about 10 miles a day" (page 39). (The Rs 6 family budget is our own example.)

Putting events in order

Question 2. (a) Put these in order, with the date of each: the Gandhi-Irwin Pact; the Champaran satyagraha; the Simon Commission arrives in India; Gandhiji withdraws the Non-Cooperation Movement; the Lahore Congress demands Purna Swaraj; the hartal against the Rowlatt Act; the firing at Jallianwalla Bagh; the Nagpur Congress adopts the Non-Cooperation programme. (b) One event that is not on the list took place exactly eleven years to the day after the Rowlatt hartal began. What was it?

Answer: (a) Champaran, 1917; Rowlatt hartal, 6 April 1919; Jallianwalla Bagh, 13 April 1919; Nagpur session, December 1920; withdrawal, February 1922; Simon Commission, 1928; Lahore Congress, December 1929; Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 5 March 1931. (b) Gandhiji reaching Dandi and making salt on 6 April 1930. Champaran, page 31; the hartal on 6 April, page 31; Jallianwalla Bagh on 13 April, page 32; Nagpur, page 33; withdrawal after Chauri Chaura, page 38; the Simon Commission's arrival, page 38; Lahore, page 39; the pact, page 40. Gandhiji reached Dandi and broke the salt law on 6 April 1930 (page 39), eleven years to the day after the Rowlatt hartal began on 6 April 1919. (Part (b) is our own link between the two dates.)

Who is speaking?

Question 3. Each of these people is made up, but each speaks for a group in the chapter. Name the group, say whether they belong to the Non-Cooperation years (1920-22) or the Civil Disobedience years (1930-34), and give one fact from the chapter that explains what they want.

  1. "Our landlord makes us work his fields for nothing. Our panchayat has told the barber and the washerman not to serve him."
  2. "For years I have not been allowed to leave this tea garden. Now I am going back to my village."
  3. "We grow crops to sell. Prices have collapsed, and the government still will not lower the revenue."
  4. "I farm land I rent from a landlord. I cannot pay him this year, and I want the unpaid rent written off."
  5. "We want protection from foreign imports and an exchange rate that makes imports dearer."
  6. "We may no longer graze our cattle in the forest, and now we are made to build roads without pay."

Answer:

The Congress's hard choices

Question 4. For each case, say what the Congress did, and the reason the chapter gives.

  1. Small tenants in the depression wanted "no rent" campaigns against landlords.
  2. Industrial workers wanted their demands about wages and working conditions added to the Civil Disobedience programme.
  3. In the Gudem Hills, Alluri Sitaram Raju's followers fought a guerrilla war while praising Gandhiji.
  4. Women came out in large numbers during the salt march and wanted a larger part in the movement.

Answer:

The chapter's conclusion explains the pattern: the Congress kept trying to stop one group's demands from alienating another, and this is why unity often broke down (page 49).

Non-Cooperation or Civil Disobedience?

Question 5. Sort these actions into Non-Cooperation only, Civil Disobedience only, or both, using what the chapter describes for each movement.

  1. Giving up titles awarded by the government.
  2. Making salt in defiance of the law.
  3. Boycotting foreign cloth.
  4. Picketing liquor shops.
  5. Refusing to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes.
  6. Boycotting the elections to the councils.
  7. Forest dwellers going into Reserved Forests for wood and grazing.
  8. Students leaving government schools and lawyers giving up their practice.

Answer: Non-Cooperation only: 1, 6 and 8. Civil Disobedience only: 2, 5 and 7. Both: 3 and 4. Non-Cooperation began with surrendering titles and boycotting the civil services, courts, councils, schools and foreign goods (page 33); council elections were boycotted in most provinces and students, teachers and lawyers left government institutions (page 34). Civil Disobedience asked people to break colonial laws as well as refuse cooperation: salt was made, revenue and chaukidari taxes were refused, and forest laws were broken (pages 39 to 40). Foreign cloth was boycotted and liquor shops picketed in both movements (pages 34 and 40).

Reading the flags

Question 6. Two flags appear in the chapter. (a) For each, give when it was designed, its three colours and what its central symbols stood for. (b) What did carrying such a flag in a march come to mean?

Answer: (a) the Swadeshi movement flag in Bengal: red, green and yellow, with eight lotuses, one for each of British India's eight provinces, and a crescent moon standing for Hindus and Muslims; the Swaraj flag designed by Gandhiji by 1921: red, green and white, with a spinning wheel for the Gandhian ideal of self-help. (b) Holding the flag high in a march became a symbol of defiance. Both flags and their meanings are on page 48. (The comparison is our own task; the chapter describes them one after the other.)

From the Simon Commission to the salt march

Question 7. Put these steps in order, and fill in the missing reason at each arrow: the Lahore Congress demands Purna Swaraj; the Simon Commission arrives; Gandhiji writes to Irwin with eleven demands; Lord Irwin offers "dominion status" at some unspecified time and a Round Table Conference; the first Independence Day, 26 January 1930, attracts little attention; Gandhiji begins the march to Dandi.

Answer:

  1. The Simon Commission arrives (1928). It had no Indian member, so every party, the Congress and the Muslim League among them, joined demonstrations against it with "Go back Simon" (page 38).
  2. Irwin's offer (October 1929). It was meant to win them over, but its vague promise of dominion status did not satisfy the Congress, and the radicals led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose grew more assertive (pages 38 to 39).
  3. The Lahore Congress (December 1929) formalised the demand for Purna Swaraj and named 26 January 1930 as Independence Day (page 39).
  4. The first Independence Day drew very little attention, so Gandhiji needed to tie the abstract idea of freedom to everyday concerns (page 39).
  5. The letter to Irwin (31 January 1930) listed eleven demands for different classes, the most stirring being the abolition of the salt tax; it warned that civil disobedience would begin if they were not met by 11 March (page 39).
  6. The march to Dandi began when Irwin would not negotiate; Gandhiji and 78 volunteers reached Dandi on 6 April and made salt (page 39).

The map work

Question 8. For each item on the 2026-27 History map list, say where it is (the town or region and today's state), give the year, and say in one line what happened there, using the chapter where it describes the event.

Answer:

(Today's state names are our addition; the chapter names Champaran in Bihar, Kheda in Gujarat, Amritsar in Punjab and Dandi as a Gujarati coastal town.)

Practise more, and check your marks

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Sources

All opened and read on 3 November 2026. Page numbers are the printed page numbers of the textbook.

The facts, dates and figures are from the textbook pages above, and the map list is from the CBSE curriculum. The questions, worked answers and the sums in Question 1 are our own. This guide is general information; follow your teacher and the official CBSE notices.

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