Indian Constitution Trivia
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49 free Indian Constitution trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
India's Constitution is the longest any sovereign state has ever written, and it was produced by hand: an assembly of indirectly elected members argued for the best part of a thousand days, then had the result lettered, illustrated and photolithographed before it could become law. Its makers borrowed openly from a dozen other countries and still built something that has been amended more than a hundred times without being replaced. These 49 questions go past the headline dates. They cover how the Constituent Assembly was formed and who stayed away, the features taken from other constitutions, the fundamental rights and the one that was demoted, the schedules and what each protects, amendments by number, the 3 kinds of emergency, the offices the text creates, and the Supreme Court rulings that redrew the limits of Parliament's power. Each answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds something the textbook leaves out. It suits UPSC and state-exam aspirants checking their polity, civics teachers setting a classroom round, and anyone who has wondered what the Preamble actually commits the country to.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which name does Article 1 place beside India in the phrase declaring that it 'shall be a Union of States'?
Bharat
Bharat stands beside India in the very first article, a Sanskrit name the Constituent Assembly adopted in 1949 while passing over Hindustan.
Q 02How long did the Constituent Assembly take to finish the Constitution, at a total cost of about 6.4 million rupees?
2 years 11 months
2 years 11 months ran from the first sitting on 9 December 1946 to adoption on 26 November 1949; the Philadelphia convention of 1787 had written the American constitution in under four months.
Q 03Which British statute, drafted mainly by Samuel Hoare, provided the basis for the Constitution adopted in 1949?
Government of India Act
The Government of India Act of 1935 was condemned by the Congress, which vowed to wreck it, yet the party fought the 1937 elections held under it and took office in the provinces.
Q 04Which of the emergencies the President may proclaim, the one provided for by Article 360, has never once been declared?
Financial emergency
Financial emergency would let the President order pay cuts for everyone in government service, Supreme Court and High Court judges included.
Q 05Article 343 names Hindi in which script as the Union's official language, a choice that split the Constituent Assembly?
Devanagari
Devanagari Hindi came with a compromise that kept English for official work for fifteen years; when that clock ran out in 1965, alarm in non-Hindi states led Parliament to keep English on.
Q 06Which fundamental right did the 44th Amendment strip from Part III in 1978, leaving it a legal right under Article 300A?
Property
Property had been guaranteed by Articles 19 and 31 until the Janata government demoted it, so an owner can no longer go straight to the Supreme Court claiming a breach of fundamental rights.
Q 07Which numbered Penal Code section on 'unnatural offences' did Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India read down in 2018?
377
Section 377 dated from 1860, and the unanimous bench left it standing only for sex with minors, non-consensual acts and bestiality.
Q 08Which country's attack across the Himalayas in 1962 prompted India's first national emergency under Article 352?
China
China's attack brought the first proclamation, on the ground of external aggression; the third, in 1975, cited 'internal disturbance' instead.
Q 09Which state's elected Communist government was dismissed under Article 356 in 1959, an early use of President's rule?
Kerala
Kerala had voted in a Communist state ministry only two years earlier, and the central government removed it after months of street protests.
Q 10The 103rd Amendment of 2019 reserved what share of seats and posts for 'economically weaker sections'?
10%
The 10% carve-out reserves places by family income rather than caste, and it cleared the Lok Sabha by 323 votes to 3.
Q 11Which amendment, passed in December 1988, lowered the voting age for Lok Sabha and assembly elections from 21 to 18?
61st
The 61st Amendment was introduced as the Sixty-second Amendment Bill in December 1988 and took its final number only when it became an Act in March 1989.
Q 12Which writ against unlawful imprisonment did the Supreme Court let the Emergency suspend in the 1976 ADM Jabalpur case?
Habeas corpus
Habeas corpus lost four to one in 1976, and the lone dissenter, H. R. Khanna, was passed over for Chief Justice the following year in retaliation.
Q 13How many Rajya Sabha members may the President nominate for distinction in art, literature, science or social service?
12
The 12 nominees sit and vote like any member, except in presidential elections, where Article 54 limits the electoral college to elected members.
Q 21Which body, set up by the 99th Amendment to replace the collegium, was struck down in 2015?
National Judicial Appointments Commission
The National Judicial Appointments Commission lasted six months: in force from April 2015, it was voided in October by a 4–1 bench that revived the judges-pick-judges collegium.
Q 22From which country's constitution did India borrow residuary powers for the centre and a strong central government?
Canada
Canada also supplied the idea that the centre appoints state governors, which is why an Indian governor serves at the President's pleasure rather than by election.
Q 23From which country's constitution did India copy the suspension of fundamental rights during a declared emergency?
Q 14Within how many days must the Rajya Sabha return a money bill certified by the Speaker, or see it deemed passed?
14
14 days is all the upper house gets, and it may only recommend changes, which critics say is why the 2016 Aadhaar law was pushed through as a money bill.
Q 15Which 1992 amendment gave panchayats constitutional status, adding Part IX and reserving a third of seats for women?
73rd
The 73rd Amendment took effect on 24 April 1993 and handed village councils 29 subjects listed in a new Eleventh Schedule, from drinking water to libraries.
Q 16Which party, demanding a separate state, boycotted the Constituent Assembly's first sitting on 9 December 1946?
Muslim League
The Muslim League had won 73 of the 296 provincial seats and stayed away until partition; 28 of its members then joined India's Assembly while the rest sat in Pakistan's.
Q 17Who moved the First Amendment in Parliament in 1951, adding 'reasonable restrictions' to free speech?
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru amended the Constitution barely sixteen months after it took effect, irritated that courts had struck down press censorship and a Madras caste quota.
Q 18Which numbered article abolishes 'untouchability' and makes practising it in any form an offence punishable by law?
17
Article 17 is one of the few fundamental rights enforceable against private citizens, not just the state, and Parliament backed it with the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1955.
Q 19Which numbered article, now read to cover privacy, livelihood and a clean environment, protects life and liberty?
21
Article 21 is a single 18-word sentence, yet the Supreme Court has stretched 'procedure established by law' into a due-process guarantee since 1978.
Q 20Which numbered article asks the state to 'endeavour to secure' a uniform civil code, as Uttarakhand did in 2024?
44
Article 44 went unused by any state for 74 years, leaving Goa's Portuguese-era family code as the only working example until Uttarakhand passed its own.
Germany
Germany's Weimar constitution was the model, the same emergency clause Hitler used in 1933, and India's version was invoked in full between 1975 and 1977.
Q 24From which country's constitution did India take 'procedure established by law', rejecting American 'due process'?
Japan
Japan's 1947 constitution supplied the wording, which B. N. Rau urged on the Assembly because an American-style 'due process' clause could hamper social legislation.
Q 25From which country's constitution did India borrow the Fundamental Duties added as Article 51A in 1976?
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was the model for duties ranging from respecting the flag to developing 'scientific temper', inserted on the advice of the Swaran Singh Committee during the Emergency.
Q 26From which country's constitution did India borrow its procedure for amending the Constitution under Article 368?
South Africa
South Africa also lent the method of electing Rajya Sabha members, and the amendment procedure it inspired has been used more than a hundred times since 1950.
Q 27Which schedule, added by the First Amendment in 1951 to protect land reforms, puts statutes beyond judicial review?
Ninth
The Ninth Schedule began with 13 zamindari-abolition acts, and the Supreme Court later held that laws added after its 1973 basic-structure ruling can still be tested against it.
Q 28Which subject did the 42nd Amendment move from the State List to the Concurrent List in 1976, during the Emergency?
Education
Education moved along with forests and wildlife, which is why a central Right to Education Act could bind every state in 2009.
Q 29Which 1967 ruling by eleven judges barred Parliament from curtailing Fundamental Rights, until the 24th Amendment?
Golaknath
Golaknath turned on a Punjab family's farmland, and the bench that decided it was the largest the Supreme Court had assembled until the 13 judges of 1973.
Q 30Which 1997 case, filed after social worker Bhanwari Devi was gang-raped, set India's workplace harassment guidelines?
Vishaka
Vishaka filled a gap no statute covered, and the guidelines stood in for a law for sixteen years until Parliament finally passed one in 2013.