UGC NET History Practice Question

In Bengal, sharecroppers who cultivated land owned by Jotedars and surrendered half the produce were locally termed:

Adhiars or Bargadars ✓

Raiyats

Pattadars

Zamindars

Adhiars (or Bargadars) were Bengal sharecroppers who worked Jotedar-owned land in exchange for half the produce — their subordinate position and demand for a better (two-thirds) share directly fed the later Tebhaga movement.

The wealthy class of intermediate rich peasants who emerged in Bengal countryside under the Permanent Settlement were known as:

Jotedars ✓

Ryots

Lathials

Gomastahs

Jotedars emerged as a powerful intermediate class of substantial landholding peasants under the Permanent Settlement's evolving agrarian structure — often themselves employing sharecroppers (Adhiars/Bargadars), forming a distinct rural power layer between Zamindars and the landless.

What was the purpose of the Assam Labour and Emigration Act passed by the colonial administration?

To regulate indentured labor recruitment and prevent tea plantation laborers from deserting estates ✓

To guarantee minimum wages for tea garden workers

To promote free movement of industrial labor

To grant land rights to tribal workers

The Assam Labour and Emigration Act regulated indentured recruitment specifically to bind tea plantation laborers to their estates and criminalize desertion — legislation that served plantation owners' interests far more than workers', part of the broader coercive colonial labor regime.

The Workmen's Breach of Contract Act (1859) was enacted by the British state to:

Criminalize breach of contract by workers and penalize desertion in plantations and factories ✓

Provide health insurance to laborers

Protect workers against wrongful dismissal

Limit working hours to eight hours daily

The Workmen's Breach of Contract Act criminalized workers leaving employment before their contract term ended — effectively giving planters and factory owners a legal tool to coerce labor discipline, reflecting the generally employer-favoring character of early colonial labor law.

The first Indian Factory Act regulating child labor and working hours in modern industrial units was enacted in which year?

1881 (under Lord Ripon) ✓

1891

1911

1922

The first Indian Factory Act, regulating child labor specifically, was passed in 1881 under Lord Ripon — a modest first step in factory regulation, later followed by successive Acts (1891, 1911, 1922) progressively expanding worker protections, though still limited by colonial-era standards.

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This question is part of our free Unit-Wise mock test series, drawn from the same real question bank used across every UGC NET History mock test on this site. For structured, chapter-by-chapter notes covering everything these questions test, see our UGC NET History Notes, or try the History Glossary Flashcard Quiz for daily term-by-term practice.