Which animal has become extinct in India?

An animal is said to be “extinct in India” when its wild population within Indian territory has died out completely, even though the species may still survive in other countries. This is different from being merely “endangered” (still surviving in the wild but under threat) or being globally extinct (extinct everywhere on Earth).

Applying this to the given options: the Asiatic cheetah's last wild individuals in India were shot in the late 1940s, and the species was officially declared extinct in India in 1952. The tiger, the Asiatic lion, and the leopard, by contrast, all continued to survive in the wild in India — tigers across many tiger reserves, the Asiatic lion in Gujarat's Gir Forest, and the leopard across a wide range of habitats.

• Tiger: survives in the wild across numerous Indian tiger reserves; never wiped out nationally.

• Lion (Asiatic lion): survives in the wild in the Gir Forest of Gujarat; a limited but real wild population remained.

• Leopard: remains widespread in Indian forests and even near human settlements; never eliminated from the wild.

• Cheetah: no wild population survived in India after 1952 — the only one among these four animals to have actually gone extinct here.

This is confirmed by India's own wildlife records: cheetahs had to be reintroduced from Namibia and South Africa starting in 2022, precisely because none survived in the wild here before that. So among the options given, only the cheetah had become extinct in India.