Which is the National game of India?

Concept: A country's ‘national game’ is a popular title attached to one sport because of a long tradition of dominance in that sport and its consistent use in school curricula and general-knowledge material — it does not always rest on a single formal government notification.

Application: India's case is the standard textbook example. Hockey earned this title from India's historic run of Olympic gold medals through the first half of the 20th century, and every mainstream GK source — state-board (SCERT) textbooks, railway and other competitive-exam GK compilations, and school curricula — records hockey, not any other sport, as India's national game.

Cross-check — why each other option fails this specific designation:

• Basketball has a growing following in India, but no GK convention or textbook has ever assigned it the national-game title — its popularity is regional/contemporary, not the traditional designation being tested.

• Volleyball is played widely at school and state level across India, but it has never been recorded anywhere as India's national game — wide participation is not the same as this historical title.

• Badminton has produced many of India's best-known recent Olympic medallists, which can make it feel like today's ‘national’ sport, but the textbook national-game designation predates this era and was never given to badminton.

A 2012 Lok Sabha reply did clarify that no sport has ever been formally notified by the government as India's official national game — a fact worth knowing — but that does not change the standard GK convention this question tests. Among the four options offered, hockey is the one uniquely and consistently identified as India's national game, so it is the correct answer.