Art & Culture Quiz: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of India

The correct answer is D, 2023. Garba, the ritual and devotional dance performed during Navaratri around an earthen lamp in honour of the goddess, was inscribed at the eighteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee held in Botswana in December 2023. Option A, 2017, is the year of the Kumbh Mela inscription, which is why it appears here. Option B, 2019, is wrong because India had no inscription that year, and students who guess a year in the middle of the decade fall into it. Option C, 2021, is the year of Durga Puja in Kolkata, the inscription immediately before Garba, and it is the strongest distractor in the set. The order at the end of the list is worth memorising as a chain: Kumbh Mela in 2017, Durga Puja in 2021, Garba in 2023 and Deepavali in 2025.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Kutiyattam is performed in temple theatres called kuttampalam, uses the Sanskrit drama repertoire, and is counted among the oldest living theatre traditions in the world; UNESCO recognised it as a Masterpiece in 2001 and it moved to the Representative List in 2008. Option A, Tamil Nadu, is wrong, though the state has its own classical form in Bharatanatyam, which is not on the list. Option C, Karnataka, is wrong; Yakshagana of that state is a famous theatre form but has not been inscribed. Option D, Andhra Pradesh, is wrong as well, and Kuchipudi of that state is often confused with Kutiyattam because the names begin alike. Kerala holds two Indian elements, Kutiyattam and Mudiyettu, and that is the fact to store.

The correct answer is B, Yoga. Yoga was inscribed in 2016, and in the same year India joined the multinational element Nawrouz, the spring new year celebrated across a belt of countries, so 2016 carries two entries for India. Option A, the Kumbh Mela, was inscribed in 2017, and its citation described it as the largest peaceful congregation of pilgrims in the world. Option C, Durga Puja in Kolkata, came in 2021 and was noted as the first element of its kind from Asia, an urban festival recognised for its public art and community organisation. Option D, Chhau dance, belongs to 2010 along with Kalbelia and Mudiyettu, which makes that year the busiest in India's list. Year questions are set from exactly these four, so keep them in a single chain.

The correct answer is B, Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Chhau is a masked dance built on martial movement and episodes from the epics, and it has three recognised styles: Seraikella in Jharkhand, Purulia in West Bengal and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, the last of which is danced without masks. Option A names north-eastern states, where Sankirtana of Manipur is the inscribed element, not Chhau. Option C is wrong; the Ramlila of northern India is on the list, but that is a theatrical performance of the Ramayana rather than a dance. Option D is wrong, and the western element on the list is the Garba of Gujarat, inscribed in 2023. The three Chhau styles and their states are the detail papers test, so learn the pairings rather than the dance alone.

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. The Kalbelia are a community of the Thar region traditionally associated with handling snakes, and their dance, performed by women in flowing black skirts, imitates the movement of a serpent while the men play the been and the khanjari. Option B, Haryana, has no element on the Representative List. Option C, Punjab, does have one, but it is the brass and copper utensil craft of the Thatheras of Jandiala Guru, inscribed in 2014, and not a dance. Option D, Gujarat, is represented by the Garba of 2023. Kalbelia was inscribed in 2010, the same year as the Chhau dance and Mudiyettu, so the three can be asked together in a single matching question. One more marker helps: Kalbelia was nominated in the domain of performing arts, and its songs are composed on the spot during a performance, which the citation singled out as the mark of a living oral tradition.

The correct answer is B, Uttarakhand. Ramman is celebrated in the twin villages of Saloor Dungra in Chamoli district, in the Garhwal Himalayas, in honour of the local deity Bhumiyal Devta, and it combines masked dances, recitation and episodes from the Ramayana over several days. It was inscribed in 2009 and is the only Indian element of that year. Option A, Himachal Pradesh, has no element on the Representative List, though its fairs are often offered as a plausible answer. Option C, Sikkim, is wrong as well. Option D is wrong, but the neighbouring Ladakh region does hold an element, the Buddhist chanting of Ladakh, inscribed in 2012, which is the distractor a careless reader picks. Remember Ramman with the year 2009 and the district Chamoli.

The correct answer is C, Punjab. Jandiala Guru is a town near Amritsar where the Thathera community beats sheets of brass and copper into utensils entirely by hand, heating and hammering the metal in a sequence that has been passed down within families; the craft was inscribed in 2014. Option A, Uttar Pradesh, is wrong, though the state is linked to the Ramlila and to the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. Option B, Rajasthan, is represented by Kalbelia songs and dances, not by a craft. Option D, Bihar, has no element on the list, and Madhubani painting, which students often think of here, has a geographical indication tag rather than a UNESCO inscription. This is the only traditional craft of India on the Representative List, which is why the question is so often set.

The correct answer is B, Manipur. Sankirtana is the Vaishnava practice of the Meitei people, performed in the temple courtyard, in which narrative singing is accompanied by the pung drum and cymbals and the performance moves from song into dance; it was inscribed in 2013. Option A, Assam, is wrong; the Sattriya dance and the Bihu festival of that state are not on the Representative List. Option C, Odisha, appears on the list only through its share of the Chhau dance, in the Mayurbhanj style. Option D, West Bengal, holds two connections, the Purulia style of Chhau and Durga Puja in Kolkata of 2021, which makes it a strong distractor for a Vaishnava singing tradition. Fix Sankirtana with Manipur, 2013 and the pung drum. A further detail is worth storing: Sankirtana was nominated in the domain of performing arts, and the citation described how the performance binds the congregation to the deity and to one another inside the temple hall.

The correct answer is B, 2003. The General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention in 2003; it entered into force in 2006 and India ratified it in 2005. Option A, 1972, is the single commonest trap in this topic, because that is the year of the World Heritage Convention, under which monuments and natural sites such as the Taj Mahal and Kaziranga are protected. Option C, 2006, is the year the Convention came into force rather than the year of adoption, and a careful reading of the stem is what separates the two. Option D, 2016, is the year Yoga was inscribed and has nothing to do with the treaty. Store the pair as 1972 for tangible heritage and 2003 for intangible heritage, with 2006 as the year of entry into force.

The correct answer is B, the Sangeet Natak Akademi. The national academy for music, dance and drama is the nodal office for intangible cultural heritage under the Ministry of Culture, prepares India's nominations and maintains the national inventory of intangible heritage. Option A, the Archaeological Survey of India, works on monuments and archaeological sites and handles World Heritage nominations of the tangible kind, which is why it is the obvious wrong answer. Option C, the Lalit Kala Akademi, is the national academy of fine arts and deals with painting, sculpture and graphic art. Option D, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, is a research and documentation body in the arts but is not the nodal agency for these nominations. Pair the Archaeological Survey with 1972 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi with 2003.