Q. Name the Principal of M.A.O. College, Aligarh, who encouraged Muslim Communalism in the last decades of the 19th Century?

Correct Answer: d) Theodore Beck

Explanation:
– Theodore Beck was the British Principal of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (M.A.O.) College, Aligarh, in the 1880s–1890s.
– He supported Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s loyalist stance and urged Muslims to keep away from the Indian National Congress, thereby fostering a separate political identity among Muslims in that period.
– He was associated with initiatives like the United Indian Patriotic Association (1888), which opposed the Congress and promoted loyalism.

Why others are incorrect:
– William Morris: A British writer and socialist; no link to Aligarh politics.
– Minto: Viceroy of India (1905–1910), associated later with separate electorates, not Principal of M.A.O. College.
– Dunlop Smith: A British official (private secretary to Lord Minto), not connected as Principal of M.A.O. College.