What was the impact of the last great war on Indian literature ?

Concept. In a passage-based question the answer is whatever the passage itself predicates of the exact subject named in the stem. Reading comprehension of this kind is an attachment task: locate the clause in which the stem’s subject and the stem’s relation stand together, then read the qualifier that clause carries. A passage frequently reuses its most striking vocabulary elsewhere, about a different subject, so shared wording between an option and the passage never settles the option on its own — the grammatical attachment does.

Application. The stem pairs “the last great war” with “Indian literature”. The passage’s opening sentence pairs exactly those two: “The last great war, which nearly shook the foundations of the modern world, had little impact on Indian literature beyond aggravating the popular revulsion against violence and adding to the growing disillusionment with the ‘humane pretensions’ of the Western World.” Parse it in order:

1. Relative clause “which nearly shook the foundations of the modern world” — this describes the war, and the thing shaken is the modern world.

2. Main clause “had little impact on Indian literature” — the effect on Indian literature is quantified as little, a small residue rather than a total absence.

3. The preposition “beyond” then introduces the exceptions to that smallness, i.e. the effects the sentence does record on Indian literature: (i) “aggravating the popular revulsion against violence”, and (ii) “adding to the growing disillusionment with the ‘humane pretensions’ of the Western World”.

4. Of those two recorded effects, the first is stated in the question’s own terms. So the impact the passage records is that the war aggravated the popular revulsion against violence.

Answer. It aggravated popular revulsion against violence.

Cross-check against the other values. Each remaining value borrows real vocabulary from the passage but attaches it elsewhere:

• “It had no impact.” — the passage’s quantifier is “little impact … beyond”. “Beyond” would have nothing to introduce if the impact were nil, so the sentence records a residue rather than zero.

• “It shook the foundations of literature.” — “nearly shook the foundations” belongs to the relative clause about the war, and its object there is “the modern world”, a different noun from literature.

• “It offered eloquent support to the Western World.” — “eloquently voiced” in the passage belongs to Tagore’s later poems and Crisis in Civilisation, and what they voice is “the growing disillusionment with the ‘humane pretensions’ of the Western World”, which runs opposite to support.

Result. Among the four values, the effect the passage attributes to Indian literature is the aggravated popular revulsion against violence.