The fisherman, ________ the flood victims owed their lives, were rewarded by the government. A. whom B. to which C. to whom D. that

GATE 2019 · General Aptitude · Pronouns · medium

Answer: C. to whom

1. Reconstruct the underlying idea: Base sentence: 'The flood victims owed their lives to the fisherman.' The relative clause replaces 'the fisherman' and must carry the preposition: '...to whom the flood victims owed their lives...'
2. Check person vs thing: The antecedent is 'the fisherman' (a person). For persons, use 'who/whom', not 'which'. This eliminates option B ('to which').
3. Choose subject vs object pronoun: In the relative clause, the fisherman is the object of the preposition 'to', so the object form 'whom' is required (not 'who'). Therefore 'to whom' is correct.