What is the capital of Nagaland?

The correct answer is A, 1 December 1963. Nagaland was created under the State of Nagaland Act 1962 out of the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area and became the sixteenth state of India on that day, the first of the north-eastern states to be formed after independence and well before the general reorganisation of the region. Option B is wrong for Nagaland but is the date on which Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura became full states under the North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act. Option C is wrong; 16 May 1975 is the day Sikkim became the twenty-second state, under the thirty-sixth amendment. Option D is wrong; 20 February 1987 is the day Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth states. The four dates 1963, 1972, 1975 and 1987 cover the whole making of the modern north-east and are worth learning together.

The correct answer is B, Nagaland. Article 371A, inserted by the thirteenth amendment when the state was created, lays down that no Act of Parliament about Naga religious or social practices, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice where decisions follow Naga customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land and its resources shall apply to Nagaland unless the Legislative Assembly so resolves; it also gives the Governor a special responsibility for law and order. Option A is wrong; Sikkim is covered by Article 371F, inserted in 1975. Option C is wrong; Mizoram has Article 371G, which was drafted on the pattern of 371A and is therefore the hardest distractor here. Option D is wrong; Tripura has no article of its own in this series, its tribal areas being protected instead by the Sixth Schedule through an autonomous district council.

The correct answer is A, Nagaland. The Hornbill Festival runs from the first to the tenth of December at the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama, a short distance from Kohima, and brings all the major tribes of the state together to present their dances, songs, crafts, food and games; it is called the festival of festivals because it gathers in one place what each tribe otherwise celebrates separately, and it takes its name from the bird whose feathers appear in Naga headgear. Option B is wrong; the festivals of Sikkim are Losoong, Saga Dawa, Pang Lhabsol and Bumchu, all tied to the Buddhist calendar. Option C is wrong; Tripura holds Garia Puja, Kharchi Puja of the fourteen gods and Ker Puja, and the orange festival of the Jampui hills. Option D is wrong; the great festivals of Assam are the three Bihus, of which Rongali Bihu in April is the best known.

The correct answer is B, Agartala. Agartala lies close to the Bangladesh border in the west of the state and holds the Ujjayanta Palace, built by Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya at the turn of the twentieth century and now the state museum; it is the second largest city of the north-east after Guwahati. Option A is wrong; Udaipur in Gomati district was an older capital of the Manikya kings and has the Tripura Sundari Temple, counted among the Shakti Peethas, which makes it a plausible choice for a candidate who remembers the temple. Option C is wrong; Kailashahar in the north of the state is the town nearest the rock carvings of Unakoti. Option D is wrong; Gangtok is the capital of Sikkim, offered here because the two states are studied in the same chapter. Note that Udaipur in Tripura is distinct from Udaipur in Rajasthan.

The correct answer is B, Tripura. Neermahal stands in the middle of Rudrasagar Lake at Melaghar, about fifty kilometres from Agartala, and was built in the nineteen thirties by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya as a summer palace; it mixes Hindu and Mughal elements with Islamic arches and is described as the only water palace in eastern India, the other in the country being the Jal Mahal at Jaipur. Option A is wrong; Nagaland has no palace of this kind, its historic architecture being the morung, the bachelors dormitory of a Naga village. Option C is wrong; Sikkim has the royal palace of the Chogyals at Gangtok and the Tsuklakhang monastery beside it. Option D is wrong; Manipur has the Kangla Fort at Imphal, the seat of the Meitei kings, which is the other royal site of the region and the usual distractor here.