Festivals, heritage and intangible culture — UPSC Prelims PYQs

6 questions in this bank come from Festivals, heritage and intangible culture, spanning UPSC Prelims papers from 2014 to 2026. Every question here carries all four options, the correct answer and a full explanation.

It has appeared in 6 of the last 16 papers, most heavily in 2026 with 1 question. That makes it an occasional area rather than a fixture.

The themes examined most often within it are Cultural festivals and community associations (3), International Year designations by the UN (1), Moidams as army fortresses (1), Moidams as burial grounds (1) and Moidams as recreation centres (1). Those counts are of questions in which the theme is examined, not merely mentioned.

Questions here are spread across History (4), General Studies (Uncategorized) (1) and Polity & Governance (1). Between them they draw on 9 distinct themes, so this is a broader area than a single revision note can cover. That is 0.4% of the 1433 questions in the bank — useful for deciding how much revision time it deserves.

It has come up more often lately — roughly 0.6 questions a year across the last five papers, against 0.4 before that.

It was not examined in 10 of those papers. Each question below links to its full explanation and to related questions on the same theme from other years, so a weak area can be worked through in one pass rather than hunted for paper by paper.