Janki Bai and Gauhar Jaan performed for Emperor George V at the Delhi Durbar in which year?

Explanation

The Delhi Durbar of 1911 was held in December 1911 to celebrate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India. Two of the most famous singers of the time, Gauhar Jaan of Kolkata and Janki Bai of Allahabad, were invited to sing at the Durbar, and they performed a song of welcome together.

Gauhar Jaan (1873-1930) was one of the most famous singers of Hindustani music of her time. She was born in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, as Angelina Yeoward, to an Armenian father and an Indian mother. She learnt music and dance in Kolkata and became a celebrated singer of khayal, thumri, dadra and other forms. She is remembered especially as the first Indian singer to record songs on a gramophone, in 1902, for the Gramophone Company, and she went on to record hundreds of songs in many languages. Her records made her famous across India. Janki Bai (1880-1934), known as "Chhappan Chhuri" (56 knives) because of the many knife wounds she survived in an attack as a young girl, was a famous singer from Allahabad. She was known for her powerful voice and her ghazals, thumris and folk songs, and she too became famous through her gramophone recordings.

The Delhi Durbars were grand ceremonies held by the British to mark the accession of a British monarch as Emperor of India. There were three Delhi Durbars: in 1877 (to proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India), in 1903 (for the coronation of Edward VII) and in 1911 (for George V). At the 1911 Durbar, George V announced that the capital of India would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi and that the partition of Bengal of 1905 would be annulled. He was the only British monarch to attend a Delhi Durbar in person.

Why not the other options?

• ✗1877 is the year of the first Delhi Durbar, for Queen Victoria.
• ✗1903 is the year of the second Delhi Durbar, for Edward VII.
• ✗1947 is the year of India's independence.