Indian Republic Day Trivia
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35 free Indian Republic Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 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 35 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 35 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which other country holds its national day on 26 January, there marking a British fleet's 1788 landing?
Australia
Australia shares the date by coincidence: it marks Arthur Phillip raising the Union Flag at Sydney Cove in 1788, and Aboriginal protesters held a Day of Mourning on it in 1938.
Q 02Who 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 03Which country's president was chief guest at the first Republic Day parade in 1950 and again at the 2025 parade?
Indonesia
Indonesia went on to host the 1955 Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations, which India co-sponsored.
Q 04Who was sworn in as India's first President on 26 January 1950, having presided over the Constituent Assembly?
Rajendra Prasad
Rajendra Prasad had given up his law practice in 1920 to join Gandhi's noncooperation movement.
Q 05Who chaired the seven-member Drafting Committee that the Constituent Assembly appointed on 29 August 1947?
B. R. Ambedkar
B. R. Ambedkar later resigned as law minister in 1951 after his Hindu Code Bill failed to pass.
Q 06What 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 07Which venue flanked by the North and South Blocks hosts the Beating Retreat that ends Republic Day week?
Vijay Chowk
Vijay Chowk's ceremony follows an old military custom in which drums beat retreat at sunset to call troops back for the night.
Q 08With 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 09Which city's December 1929 Congress session, with Nehru presiding, adopted the Purna Swaraj resolution?
Lahore
Lahore's session came after talks with Britain over dominion status broke down, so Congress demanded complete independence instead.
Q 10Which name did Rajpath, the Republic Day parade avenue once called Kingsway, receive in September 2022?
Kartavya Path
Kartavya Path replaced Rajpath in a renaming the government said would remove any trace of a colonial mindset.
Q 11Which prime minister called off his visit as Republic Day chief guest in January 2021, citing a COVID-19 surge at home?
Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson stayed home to deal with the pandemic, so the 2021 parade went ahead without a foreign chief guest.
Q 12Which 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 13Which civilian honours, instituted in 1954 and ranked just below the Bharat Ratna, are announced every Republic Day?
Padma awards
Q 21Which two animals flank the wheel on the abacus of India's state emblem?
Horse and bull
Horse and bull are part of an emblem that a 2005 law bars from use in any trade, business or trade mark except as the rules allow.
Q 22Who hand-lettered the English original of the Constitution in flowing italic script, asking no fee?
Prem Behari Raizada
Prem Behari Raizada's one condition was to sign every page and add his grandfather's name on the last.
Q 23Which constitutional adviser, later an International Court of Justice judge, wrote the first draft of the Constitution?
B. N. Rau
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 14Which wartime gallantry medal, instituted on 26 January 1950, was first awarded to Major Somnath Sharma?
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 15Which force's camel-mounted contingent marches in the Republic Day parade?
Border Security Force
Border Security Force camelry descends from Bikaner's princely camel troops and still patrols the desert frontier.
Q 16How many spokes has the navy-blue Ashoka Chakra on India's flag, modelled on an Ashokan lion capital?
24
24 spokes adorn a flag that private citizens could fly only on special occasions until an industrialist's court case led to the Flag Code of India, 2002.
Q 17Which emblem on the Congress's Swaraj flag did the Constituent Assembly swap for the Ashoka Chakra in 1947?
Spinning wheel
Spinning wheel was cut down to its wheel alone, Nehru told the Assembly, because the full charkha did not look the same on both sides of the flag.
Q 18Which Tagore song did the Constituent Assembly adopt as the national anthem on 24 January 1950?
Jana Gana Mana
Jana Gana Mana was declared the anthem by the Assembly president, who promised Vande Mataram equal honour for its part in the freedom struggle.
Q 19Which 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 20India's state emblem, adopted on 26 January 1950, copies a lion capital Ashoka raised at which site near Varanasi?
Sarnath
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.
B. N. Rau consulted jurists abroad, and US Justice Felix Frankfurter advised him against writing 'due process' into the text.
Q 24Who 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 25Which artist, with his students, decorated the pages of India's hand-written original Constitution?
Nandalal Bose
Nandalal Bose was also asked by Jawaharlal Nehru to sketch the emblems for the government's awards, including the Bharat Ratna.
Q 26Which two words did the 42nd Amendment add to the Preamble's description of India in 1976?
Socialist and secular
Socialist and secular came decades after the Assembly turned down a member's call to name India the 'Union of Indian Socialistic Republics'.
Q 27Which office, held by C. Rajagopalachari as its only Indian occupant, lapsed when India became a republic in 1950?
Governor-General
The Governor-General's last holder, C. Rajagopalachari, later helped found the Swatantra Party in 1959 to oppose Congress.
Q 28Malik Ghulam Muhammad, chief guest at the first parade held on Rajpath, led which neighbouring country?
Pakistan
Pakistan was invited once more, in 1965, months before the two countries went to war, and has not been invited since.
Q 29Which president, months after his country's first all-race election, was chief guest at the 1995 Republic Day parade?
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela's visit was South Africa's first invitation; Cyril Ramaphosa took the country's second in 2019.
Q 30Which Brazilian president was chief guest in 2020, the last foreign leader to take the honour before 2023?
Jair Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro's was Brazil's third invitation, after Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1996 and Lula in 2004; no chief guest came in 2021 or 2022.