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40 free Indian Republic Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
India already had an Independence Day when it picked 26 January for its republic. The date was a promise kept: Congress had been marking it as Independence Day since 1930, so the Constituent Assembly timed its Constitution to take effect on that morning in 1950. The day has since grown into a three-day pageant of camels, tableaux, flypasts and massed bands, watched by a foreign head of state chosen with a diplomat's care. These 40 questions cover the whole of it: why the date, who drafted and hand-lettered the Constitution, the first parade at a Delhi stadium, the move to Rajpath and its later renaming, the chief guests from Sukarno onwards, the Beating Retreat and the hymn it dropped, and the flag, emblem and anthem the republic adopted. Every stem carries a clue to reason from, and every answer comes with one fact the textbook skipped. Use it for a school Republic Day quiz, a family round on 26 January, or a printable set for a classroom or office.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Constitution took effect on 26 January 1950 to honour which anniversary, not its adoption date two months before?
1930 independence declaration
The 1930 independence declaration had been marked by Congress as Independence Day every 26 January since, so the Constituent Assembly timed the new republic to start on that date.
Q 02Which other country holds its national day on 26 January, there marking a British fleet's 1788 landing?
Australia
Australia shares the date by coincidence: its holiday marks Arthur Phillip raising the Union Flag at Sydney Cove in 1788, a day Aboriginal groups have marked as a Day of Mourning since 1938 and as Invasion Day since 1988.
Q 03Who unfurls the flag at the Republic Day parade, while the prime minister hoists it at the Red Fort on 15 August?
The head of state
The head of state, the President, unfurls it in New Delhi while governors and lieutenant governors do the same in every state and union territory; the Red Fort belongs to 15 August.
Q 04Which country's president was chief guest at the first Republic Day parade in 1950 and again at the 2025 parade?
Indonesia
Indonesia's Sukarno took the salute in 1950 and Prabowo Subianto did so 75 years later, the country's fourth invitation, a tally matched only by Bhutan and Russia.
Q 05Who was sworn in as India's first President on 26 January 1950, having presided over the Constituent Assembly?
Rajendra Prasad
Rajendra Prasad's sister Bhagwati Devi died on the night of 25 January 1950, and he went to the parade ground before arranging her cremation.
Q 06Who chaired the seven-member Drafting Committee that the Constituent Assembly appointed on 29 August 1947?
B. R. Ambedkar
B. R. Ambedkar's committee took the adviser's rough draft through three drafts and three readings, the clause-by-clause second reading alone lasting over a year.
Q 07What distinction does India's Constitution, at about 145,000 words, hold among those of sovereign states?
The longest
The longest national constitution anywhere is beaten among all constitutions only by Alabama's, and it opened with 22 parts and 8 schedules.
Q 08Which venue flanked by the North and South Blocks hosts the Beating Retreat that ends Republic Day week?
Vijay Chowk
Vijay Chowk's ceremony was conceived in the mid-1950s by two Indian Army officers, and since 2011 its massed bands have shed most foreign tunes in favour of Indian ones.
Q 09With 26 January and 15 August, which date completes India's list of only three national holidays?
2 October
2 October, Gandhi's birthday, is the third holiday binding nationwide on all states and union territories; every other day off is a central, optional or regional holiday.
Q 10Who in 2015 became the first United States president to attend the Republic Day parade as its chief guest?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama's was the first invitation ever sent to Washington, by which point Moscow had already been asked four times.
Q 11Which city's December 1929 Congress session, with Nehru presiding, adopted the Purna Swaraj resolution?
Lahore
Lahore's session saw 172 Indian members of central and provincial legislatures resign their seats in support of the pledge.
Q 12On which river's bank did Nehru raise the tricolour at midnight on 31 December 1929, sealing the Congress pledge?
Ravi
The Ravi's midnight flag-raising came with a pledge that included a readiness to withhold taxes, and the crowd was asked to raise hands in approval.
Q 13Which name did Rajpath, the Republic Day parade avenue once called Kingsway, receive in September 2022?
Kartavya Path
Kartavya Path, 'Path of Duty', replaced a name that itself translated Kingsway, chosen to honour George V's 1911 Durbar visit when the capital moved to Delhi.
Q 21Which Tagore song did the Constituent Assembly adopt as the national anthem on 24 January 1950?
Jana Gana Mana
Jana Gana Mana was first sung in public at the Congress session in Calcutta on 27 December 1911, and its full rendition runs about 52 seconds.
Q 22Which Indian Army branch fields the 'Dare Devils', the motorcycle stunt team that traditionally closes the parade?
Corps of Signals
Corps of Signals dispatch riders hold several Guinness records, and in 2020 the corps' marching contingent, led by Captain Tania Shergill, was judged the parade's best.
Q 23India's state emblem, adopted on 26 January 1950, copies a lion capital Ashoka raised at which site near Varanasi?
Sarnath
Q 14Which year saw the first Republic Day parade on Rajpath, after five editions at a stadium, the Red Fort and Ramlila?
1955
1955 also brought the first Beating Retreat, so the parade and its closing ceremony both take their present form from the same year.
Q 15Which Delhi venue, now the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, hosted the first Republic Day parade in 1950?
Irwin Amphitheatre
Irwin Amphitheatre was one of four sites the parade moved between before settling on Rajpath, the others being Kingsway, the Red Fort and Ramlila Maidan.
Q 16Which civilian honours, instituted in 1954 and ranked just below the Bharat Ratna, are announced every Republic Day?
Padma awards
Padma awards come in three grades, Vibhushan, Bhushan and Shri, and bring no cash, no travel concessions and no right to use the honour as a title.
Q 17Which wartime gallantry medal, first won by Major Somnath Sharma, is among those the President hands out at the parade?
Param Vir Chakra
Param Vir Chakra medals were designed by Savitri Khanolkar, an officer's wife, whose daughter's brother-in-law Somnath Sharma became the first recipient.
Q 18Which organisation parades the world's only camel-mounted military contingent down Rajpath each Republic Day?
Border Security Force
Border Security Force camelry descends from Bikaner's princely camel troops and keeps 1,200 camels and 800 riders to patrol the desert frontier.
Q 19How many spokes has the navy-blue Ashoka Chakra on India's flag, modelled on an Ashokan lion capital?
24
24 evenly spaced spokes fill the chakra Nehru proposed in July 1947 partly because, unlike the earlier emblem, it would look the same from both sides of the cloth.
Q 20Which Gandhian emblem on the Congress's Swaraj flag did the Constituent Assembly swap for the Ashoka Chakra in 1947?
Spinning wheel
The spinning wheel's removal displeased Gandhi at first, though Nehru argued the change was practical and Radhakrishnan called the new wheel a symbol of dharma and law.
Sarnath's capital lay buried until the Archaeological Survey dug it up in 1904–05, and it sits in the Sarnath Museum rather than on its broken pillar.
Q 24From which Upanishad comes 'Satyameva Jayate', the motto inscribed beneath India's state emblem since 1950?
Mundaka
Mundaka Upanishad's mantra 3.1.6 entered the national vocabulary through Madan Mohan Malaviya in 1918, in his second term as Congress president.
Q 25Which two animals flank the wheel on the abacus of India's state emblem, which omits the original's lotus base?
Horse and bull
Horse and bull stand for speed and steadfastness, and of the four lions on the capital only three show, the fourth hidden behind.
Q 26Who hand-lettered the English original of the Constitution in flowing italic script, asking no fee for six months' work?
Prem Behari Raizada
Prem Behari Raizada's one condition was to sign every page and add his grandfather's name on the last; the 251-page manuscript weighs 3.75 kg.
Q 27Which constitutional adviser, later an International Court of Justice judge, wrote the first draft of the Constitution?
B. N. Rau
B. N. Rau toured the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK in late 1947, where Justice Felix Frankfurter warned him against writing 'due process' into the text.
Q 28Who chaired the Constituent Assembly's first sitting on 9 December 1946 as its eldest member, following French practice?
Sachchidananda Sinha
Sachchidananda Sinha handed over to an elected president two days later and died in March 1950, weeks after the republic he helped open was born.
Q 29Since 2015, which date is marked as Samvidhan Divas, the day the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution in 1949?
26 November
26 November became Constitution Day by a gazette notification of 19 November 2015, and Parliament held a special session with the complex lit up for the first one.
Q 30How many articles did India's Constitution contain when it took effect, arranged in 22 parts and 8 schedules?
395
395 articles, with more than 100 amendments since, took the Assembly 165 sitting days across eleven sessions to settle.