Indian Army Trivia
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50 free Indian Army trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Indian Army is one of the world's largest fighting forces, but its story is as much about institutions as battles: a medal designed by a European-born convert, an academy part-funded by an African government's thank-you gift, regiments that still recruit from a neighbouring kingdom's hills, and a quick march first written for a very different army. These 50 questions cover the Army's founding dates and its two field marshals, the academies at Dehradun and Khadakwasla, the wartime and peacetime gallantry ladders and the people who earned the top award, the ranks inherited from the Raj, the regiments and their war cries, the glacier posts and frontier lines, and the named operations abroad, from a Sri Lankan peninsula to an Indian Ocean airstrip. Roughly half are pitched for anyone who follows Indian news or films, the rest for people who know their regimental histories. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a quiz night, a cadet corps session or a classroom.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Swiss-born woman, who married an Indian Army officer in 1932, designed the Param Vir Chakra medal?
Savitri Khanolkar
Savitri Khanolkar, born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros in Neuchâtel, also designed the Ashok Chakra and Kirti Chakra, and the very first PVC went to her daughter's brother-in-law.
Q 02Which African country's £100,000 gift, thanking Indian troops for its liberation, helped fund the NDA at Khadakwasla?
Sudan
Sudan's gift reached Viceroy Linlithgow in 1941, which is why the academy's headquarters at Khadakwasla is called the Sudan Block, opened by Sudan's ambassador in 1959.
Q 03Which cricketer, an honorary lieutenant colonel in the Territorial Army's 106 Para, qualified as a paratrooper in 2015?
M. S. Dhoni
M. S. Dhoni was given the honorary rank in 2011 and completed five jumps at Agra; he has said that as a child he wanted to be a soldier, not a cricketer.
Q 04Which Mahabharata archer gives his name to India's home-built main battle tank, which entered service in 2004?
Arjun
Arjun tanks first went to the 43rd Armoured Regiment, and in 2010 desert trials the Arjun reportedly out-shot the Army's Russian-designed T-90s.
Q 05Which two rivers are fused in the name of the supersonic cruise missile India builds jointly with Russia?
Brahmaputra and Moskva
Brahmaputra and Moskva merge in 'BrahMos', the missile built by an Indian–Russian joint venture; it arms Indian Army regiments, and the Philippines has since bought it for its marines.
Q 06Which 1997 J. P. Dutta film, starring Sunny Deol, dramatised 120 Punjab Regiment soldiers holding Longewala in 1971?
Border
Border cast Sunny Deol as Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri of 23 Punjab; the Army and Air Force lent real vehicles, weapons and uniforms to the production.
Q 07On which date does India mark Army Day, the anniversary of Cariappa replacing Roy Bucher as commander-in-chief in 1949?
15 January
15 January 1949 gave the Army its first Indian commander-in-chief; in 2023 the parade left Delhi's Cariappa Parade Ground for Bengaluru for the first time.
Q 08Which 1972 pact, signed by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, turned the ceasefire line into the Line of Control?
Simla Agreement
The Simla Agreement bound both sides not to alter the line unilaterally; though dated 2 July 1972, it was actually signed at 00:40 on the morning of 3 July.
Q 09Which 18 Grenadiers soldier, decorated for Tiger Hill at 19, is the youngest recipient of the Param Vir Chakra?
Yogendra Singh Yadav
Yogendra Singh Yadav led the climb up Tiger Hill's cliff, fixing ropes and fighting on with multiple bullet wounds; his award was first announced as posthumous, until he turned out to be alive in hospital.
Q 10Which 2021 film, titled after Captain Vikram Batra's wireless code name, casts Sidharth Malhotra as Batra and his twin?
Shershaah
Shershaah means 'Lion King'; Batra is also remembered for the advertising slogan he adopted, 'Yeh Dil Maange More!', and the peak he died capturing, Point 4875, is now Batra Top.
Q 11In which country did Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria earn the only Param Vir Chakra given for UN peacekeeping, in 1961?
Congo
Congo's breakaway Katanga province had blocked a road in Elisabethville; Salaria led a small party of Gurkhas in a bayonet and khukri charge that broke the position, and died of his wounds.
Q 12In which war did the 60th Parachute Field Ambulance serve from 1950, earning the name 'Angels in Brown Berets'?
Korean War
The Korean War was answered by India with a medical unit rather than troops; the 60th PFA also treated North Korean prisoners and won citations from US and South Korean chiefs.
Q 13In which Soviet city did Shastri and Ayub Khan sign the 1966 pact ending the 1965 war, hours before Shastri died?
Tashkent
Q 21Which major of 4 Kumaon became the first recipient of the Param Vir Chakra, for Badgam near Srinagar on 3 November 1947?
Somnath Sharma
Somnath Sharma's award was gazetted only in June 1950, and his body was identified by his pistol holster and pages of the Bhagavad Gita in his chest pocket.
Q 22Four replicas of which mythological weapon surround the state emblem on the Param Vir Chakra's bronze face?
Vajra
The vajra, Indra's thunderbolt, was chosen for the sage Dadhichi, who in legend gave up his body so the gods could forge the weapon from his bones: a symbol of sacrifice.
Q 23Which 4 Grenadiers soldier won a posthumous PVC at Asal Uttar in 1965 for wrecking Pakistani tanks from a gun-mounted jeep?
Abdul Hamid
Tashkent's talks, moderated by Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin, had both armies agree to pull back to their pre-August lines; Shastri's sudden death there bred decades of conspiracy theories.
Q 14Which slogan did Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri give India in 1965, the year of the war with Pakistan?
Jai Jawan Jai Kisan
'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' hails the soldier and the farmer together, pairing the war effort with Shastri's food-security push that created the Food Corporation of India.
Q 15Which lieutenant general, India's eastern commander, took the surrender of some 90,000 Pakistani troops at Dhaka?
Jagjit Singh Aurora
Jagjit Singh Aurora attended with his wife Bhagwant Kaur, and the photograph of A. A. K. Niazi bowed over his signature became one of the war's best-known images.
Q 16On which date do India and Bangladesh both mark Vijay Diwas, the anniversary of the 1971 surrender at Dhaka?
16 December
16 December 1971 closed a war of under two weeks and is Bangladesh's Victory Day as well; the surrender spot in Dhaka is now the Swadhinata Stambha monument.
Q 17On which date does India mark Kargil Vijay Diwas, the day fighting ceased once the Dras sub-sector was cleared in 1999?
26 July
26 July 1999 ended India's Operation Vijay, fought to retake heights from which intruders could fire on the Srinagar–Leh highway, the road that supplies Ladakh.
Q 18In which mountain range does the Siachen Glacier lie, where Indian troops have held posts since April 1984?
Karakoram
Karakoram's Siachen, 76 km long, lies beyond NJ9842, where the mapped ceasefire line stopped; with the ice left undrawn, both armies claimed it and raced to occupy it.
Q 19Which operation, launched on 13 April 1984, put Indian troops on Siachen four days ahead of a planned Pakistani move?
Meghdoot
Meghdoot pre-empted Pakistan's Operation Ababeel, expected by 17 April; planners chose 13 April, the Vaisakhi festival, as the day an Indian move would be least expected.
Q 20Which naib subedar of 8 JAK LI earned the Param Vir Chakra on the Siachen Glacier in June 1987?
Bana Singh
Bana Singh's objective, which Pakistan had named for Jinnah, was renamed Bana Top in his honour; he retired as a subedar major and honorary captain.
Abdul Hamid's recoilless-gun crew held fire until the tanks were close; so many Pattons were wrecked or captured around Asal Uttar that the battlefield became known as Patton Nagar.
Q 24Which major's 13 Kumaon company held Rezang La in Ladakh on 18 November 1962, bringing him a posthumous PVC?
Shaitan Singh
Shaitan Singh, badly wounded, ordered the men carrying him to leave him behind a boulder and get away; his body was later found at the same spot and cremated in Jodhpur with military honours.
Q 25Which Poona Horse officer, commissioned in June 1971, won a posthumous PVC six months later in his tank 'Famagusta'?
Arun Khetarpal
Arun Khetarpal's tank was captured by Pakistan and eventually returned to India, and the Indian Military Academy's auditorium now bears his name.
Q 26Which president made sure Sam Manekshaw got his field marshal's pay, over 30 years late?
Abdul Kalam
Abdul Kalam visited the ailing Manekshaw at Wellington and had the arrears cleared; the 1971 war's Army chief had been promoted in January 1973 but denied a field marshal's full allowances.
Q 27In which regiment, whose colonel Manekshaw became in 1955, did an orderly famously name the Army chief 'Sam Bahadur'?
8 Gorkha Rifles
8 Gorkha Rifles supplied the story: visiting a battalion in 1969, Manekshaw asked an orderly the name of the Army chief and was told 'Sam Bahadur', a name that became the title of Vicky Kaushal's 2023 biopic.
Q 28Which British decoration did Major General Cowan award Manekshaw on the spot after seeing him wounded in Burma in 1942?
Military Cross
The Military Cross was awarded by David Tennant Cowan of the 17th Infantry Division while watching the battle; Manekshaw recovered to command the Army three decades later.
Q 29Which British general opened the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun in 1932 with the speech that became its credo?
Philip Chetwode
Philip Chetwode's line 'the safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time' is carved in oak at the hall that bears his name.
Q 30What is the Indian Military Academy's first batch called, having produced army chiefs of India, Pakistan and Burma?
The Pioneers
The Pioneers, 40 cadets who began on 1 October 1932, trained for one army; Partition and Burma's independence later put classmates Manekshaw, Muhammad Musa and Smith Dun at the head of three.