Rabindranath Tagore was awarded a knighthood by the British government, which he later renounced in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in:

Rabindranath Tagore was awarded a knighthood by the British government in June 1915, in the Birthday Honours of King George V; he renounced it in May 1919 in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The knighthood:

• It was given in recognition of his great literary achievements.
• Tagore had become famous across the world after his collection of poems "Gitanjali" was published in English, and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature two years before the knighthood.
• He was the first Asian to receive a Nobel Prize.

Renunciation of the knighthood:

• On 13 April 1919, General Dyer ordered his troops to fire on a peaceful crowd at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar; hundreds of people were killed.
• The government imposed martial law in Punjab, and news of the massacre was suppressed for some time.
• Tagore was deeply hurt.
• On 30 May 1919 (some sources say 31 May), he wrote a letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, giving up his knighthood.
• In the letter, he wrote that "the time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation".
• He said he wished to stand, "shorn of all special distinctions", by the side of his countrymen.

Other responses to the massacre:

• Gandhi gave up the Kaiser-i-Hind medal in 1920, during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• The Congress set up its own inquiry committee.
• The British government set up the Hunter Committee.

About Tagore:

• He was given the title "Gurudev".
• He founded the school at Santiniketan and the Visva-Bharati University.
• He composed "Jana Gana Mana" and "Amar Sonar Bangla".
• He was also a painter, and took up painting in his late sixties.
• He died on 7 August 1941 in Calcutta.

Why not the other options?

• ✗1905 was the year of the partition of Bengal; 1911 was the year of the Delhi Durbar; 1919 was the year he renounced the knighthood.