Indian Culture Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The key gives Gond (A).

I could not confirm this beyond a partial match. An older ethnographic account of the folk songs of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, as summarised in a search result, records Birha songs among the Gonds: sung in Mandla and Balaghat as part of the bride's ritual weeping and in Seoni at funerals. That fits the keyed answer, but it does not say the song belongs to Gond women alone, and I found no source tying Birha to Kol, Bhil or Sahariya women.

Birha is also a well-known Bhojpuri folk form of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, so the question rests on the state's tribal-culture handbooks. The key is kept as printed.

Answer: D

The key gives 1980 (D).

I could not confirm this. Vanya is the publishing house of the Madhya Pradesh Tribal Affairs Department; searches in English and Hindi found its radio and book work but no source giving its year of establishment. Nothing found points to another year, so the key is kept as printed.

The other options, 1965, 1970 and 1975, are the keyed answer's neighbours and should be treated as distractors only on the strength of the key.

Answer: D

Antaranga Sadhana includes Dharna (Dharana).

Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga are divided into two groups. The outer practices (Bahiranga) are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara. The inner practices (Antaranga) are Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi.

Pratyahara, Niyama and Pranayama are among the outer limbs, so only Dharana fits.

The inner limbs are called 'inner' because they work on the mind directly, while the outer limbs prepare the body and the senses.

Answer: D

The Maach singer is Om Prakash Sharma.

Maach is a folk theatre of the Malwa region, sung and performed on a raised stage. Om Prakash Sharma of Ujjain devoted his life to keeping the Maach tradition alive as a singer and director, and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2024 for it.

The other names are not associated with the Maach style as practitioners.

Maach developed in Ujjain and Malwa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; its plays are sung in Malvi to folk tunes, with dialogue in verse.

Answer: C

Shankar Rao Pandit is associated with Khayal singing.

Pandit Shankar Rao Pandit was a leading vocalist of the Gwalior gharana, the oldest gharana of khayal singing, and the father of Krishnarao Shankar Pandit.

He was a singer, not a sitar or mridang player or a Kathak dancer.

The Gwalior gharana is regarded as the mother of the khayal gharanas, and the Pandit family of Gwalior has carried its tradition for several generations.

Answer: C

The key gives Kudgarya (C).

I could not confirm this. Searches found no source naming the sutradhar (stage manager and narrator) of the Gammat folk theatre, and nothing that favours Ghughermal, Thothaya or Khamras instead, so the key is kept as printed.

In the Indian folk theatres, the sutradhar is the figure who opens the play, links the scenes and comments on them, and each form has its own local name for him; the question asks for that local name.

Answer: A

Kohbar is a marriage ritualistic wall painting.

A kohbar is the painting made on the wall of the nuptial chamber (kohbar ghar) for a wedding, especially in the Mithila and Bundelkhand-Baghelkhand traditions. It uses symbols of fertility and prosperity such as the lotus, bamboo and fish.

It is not a costume, a food or an item of jewellery, though all of these also feature in wedding rituals.

Answer: A

Ram Sahay Pandey is associated with the Rai folk dance.

Ram Sahay Pandey of Sagar district devoted his life to the Rai dance of Bundelkhand, a lively dance performed to the beat of the mridang by women dancers (bedni) with male accompanists, and helped take it to national and international stages. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2022.

Bihu (printed 'Beehu') is the dance of Assam, Lavani of Maharashtra, and Nautanki is a folk theatre of Uttar Pradesh; none is his art form.

Answer: A

Durga Bai Vyam is associated with the Gond Tradition.

Durga Bai Vyam, from Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh, is one of the best-known painters of the Gond (Pardhan Gond) tradition, which uses bright colours and patterns of dots and lines to depict myths, animals and trees. She illustrated the graphic biography of Ambedkar, Bhimayana, and received the Padma Shri in 2022.

Bhil painting is the art of Bhuri Bai and others, and Baiga and Saharia art are different tribal traditions, so they are not her tradition.

Answer: C

The name that is not a painter is Nana Saheb Panse.

Nana Saheb Panse is remembered as a master of the mridang or pakhawaj, titled Mridangsamrat, and a court musician at Indore. The Panse school of pakhawaj playing is named after him, and a memorial music festival at Bakayan in Damoh district bears his name. He is a musician, not a painter.

The other three names are given in the question as painters of the state. I did not check each of them separately; the answer follows from Panse being a musician.