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RAS question

Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated which British official in London in 1909?

Correct answer: (A) Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie.

Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie in London on 1 July 1909.

  1. (A)

    Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie

  2. (B)

    J.P. Saunders

  3. (C)

    Lord Curzon

  4. (D)

    General Dyer

Explanation

Madan Lal Dhingra's 1909 assassination targeted Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, not a viceroy or a later Punjab-linked official. Wyllie was the political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State, and the New India Samachar account places Dhingra in the London revolutionary circle around India House and Veer Savarkar. Wyllie was gathering information on Savarkar and other revolutionaries, and revolutionaries in London were agitated after Ganesh Damodar Savarkar's deportation. On 1 July 1909, Dhingra attended a meeting at the Imperial Institute and killed Wyllie. He was then sentenced to death and hanged in London's Pentonville Prison on 17 August 1909.

Why the other options are wrong

  • (B) J.P. Saunders belongs to the Bhagat Singh episode, whereas this 1909 London assassination was by Madan Lal Dhingra against Curzon Wyllie.
  • (C) Lord Curzon was the Viceroy, while Dhingra's victim was Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie.
  • (D) General Dyer is tied to a different 1940 Udham Singh context, not to Dhingra's 1909 London assassination.

Concept

Revolutionary nationalism in the early twentieth-century freedom struggle included India House and expatriate anti-colonial activity in London. RAS frequently separates names like Dhingra, Savarkar, Wyllie, Saunders and Dyer across distinct revolutionary episodes.

Source

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