Which among the following events happened earliest?

The correct answer is B. Neeldarpan was written by Dinabandhu Mitra in 1858-59 and published in 1860, during the indigo revolt in Bengal. It is the earliest of the four events.

• A is wrong: Swami Dayanand founded the Arya Samaj in Bombay in 1875.
• C is wrong: Bankim Chandra's Anandmath was serialised in 1880-81 and appeared as a book in 1882.
• D is wrong: Satyendranath Tagore, the first Indian to clear the ICS examination, was selected in 1863.

The core concept here is chronology of the 19th-century socio-religious and literary movements. For Mains, Neeldarpan is a useful anchor for peasant resistance and the role of literature in shaping colonial public opinion, while the Arya Samaj ties into the reform movements.

Trap: Candidates often pick A because the Arya Samaj is the most famous of these events, or they confuse the publication year of Anandmath with its composition. Anchor each event to a fixed year and compare the years, not your memory of how famous each one is.