RAS question
The Hindu Mahasabha was founded in:
Correct answer: (A) 1915.
The Hindu Mahasabha was founded in 1915 as an organisation meant to bring together diverse local Hindu movements.
Explanation
The Hindu Mahasabha was founded in 1915 at Haridwar. Banglapedia supports 1915 as the founding year and explains that the organisation aimed to bring together diverse local Hindu movements rooted in North Indian public life. It was later remodelled on lines similar to the Congress in the early 1920s by founders including Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. This makes 1915 the precise date to remember for RAS. Later milestones, such as V.D. Savarkar becoming president in 1937 and the organisation's positions on Pakistan and Congress secular politics, help place the Mahasabha within the wider communal and nationalist politics of late colonial India, but they do not change the founding year.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) 1925 refers to the founding of the RSS by a group under K. Hedgewar that broke away from the Hindu Mahasabha, not to the Mahasabha's foundation.
- (C) 1906 is associated in the question data with the Muslim League, so it does not match the Hindu Mahasabha's 1915 founding.
- (D) 1920 is linked in the question data to the Non-Cooperation Movement, whereas the Hindu Mahasabha had already been founded in 1915.
Concept
This tests the chronology of organisations in modern Indian history. RAS often repeats such dates because they separate the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Muslim League and mass Congress movements in late colonial politics.