Read the following statements and choose the correct option: Assertion (A): As…

An Assertion-Reason item is resolved in two independent steps: first verify whether the Assertion (A) is historically accurate on its own, then verify whether the Reason (R) is historically accurate on its own; only if both hold does the question turn to whether R is the specific cause of A, or merely a separate true fact about the same period.

Assertion (A) is accurate: as indigo cultivation expanded through the early-to-mid nineteenth century, commercial agents and salaried officials of the East India Company increasingly put their own capital into indigo production rather than staying purely administrators or traders. Reason (R) is also accurate: the same period saw a wave of Scotsmen and Englishmen arrive in Bengal and Bihar specifically because indigo planting promised very high returns, and many of them settled down as planters. Crucially, R explains A: it is this same prospect of high profit that drew outsiders into planting that also pulled Company agents and officials, who were already positioned inside the trade, into investing their own money in production, so the Reason is not a separate coincidence but the direct motive behind the Assertion.

Checking each near-miss reading against these two facts:

• “(A) is true, but (R) is false.” fails because the arrival of profit-seeking Scotsmen and Englishmen as planters is itself well documented for this period, so (R) cannot be dismissed as false.

• “Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).” fails because the profit motive named in (R) is the very reason Company agents and officials moved into indigo investment, so (R) does explain (A) rather than sitting beside it as an unrelated fact.

• “(A) is false, but (R) is true.” fails because Company agents and officials investing in indigo production as the trade grew is itself a documented development, so (A) cannot be dismissed as false.

Result: Since both statements hold and (R) supplies the direct motive behind (A), the pair is correctly classified as "Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)".