Which one among the following cities was included as the 'City of Music' in the year 2023 in the UNESCO's Creative Cities Network?

Q: What is the answer to CAPF 2024 Paper I Q125?

D. Correct — D, Gwalior. UNESCO announced the 2023 additions to its Creative Cities Network on 31 October 2023, World Cities Day, and two Indian cities joined: Gwalior as a City of Music and Kozhikode as a City of Literature. Gwalior's claim rests on a long musical lineage — Tansen, one of the nine jewels of Akbar's court, is buried there, the Gwalior gharana is among the oldest of the khyal traditions, and the Tansen Samaroh has been held in the city each winter for decades. Varanasi and Chennai are genuine Cities of Music in the same network, but they were designated in 2015 and 2017 respectively, not in 2023. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)Kozhikode
(b)Chennai
(c)Varanasi
(d)Gwalior

Answer

Why

Correct — D, Gwalior. UNESCO announced the 2023 additions to its Creative Cities Network on 31 October 2023, World Cities Day, and two Indian cities joined: Gwalior as a City of Music and Kozhikode as a City of Literature. Gwalior's claim rests on a long musical lineage — Tansen, one of the nine jewels of Akbar's court, is buried there, the Gwalior gharana is among the oldest of the khyal traditions, and the Tansen Samaroh has been held in the city each winter for decades. Varanasi and Chennai are genuine Cities of Music in the same network, but they were designated in 2015 and 2017 respectively, not in 2023.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Kozhikode — Kozhikode did join the network in 2023, which makes this the sharpest distractor, but it joined as a City of Literature rather than as a City of Music — India's first city of literature.
(b)Chennai — Chennai is a City of Music in the network, and Carnatic music is the reason, but its designation dates from 2017.
(c)Varanasi — Varanasi is also a City of Music in the network, designated in 2015 along with Jaipur as a City of Crafts and Folk Art.

Concept

The Creative Cities Network was set up by UNESCO in 2004 to link cities that treat creativity as a driver of urban development. Members are designated in one of seven fields — crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts and music — and commit to sharing practice and to reporting periodically on what they have done. Designation is by field, so the same network contains several Indian cities under different labels.

The item tests the field as much as the year, and both distractors work in different ways. Kozhikode is right for the year and wrong for the field; Varanasi and Chennai are right for the field and wrong for the year. Carrying the Indian list with both attributes attached is the only reliable defence — Jaipur and Varanasi from 2015, Chennai from 2017, Mumbai and Hyderabad from 2019, Srinagar from 2021, and Gwalior and Kozhikode from 2023.

Key facts

Gwalior was designated a City of Music in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2023.
Kozhikode was designated a City of Literature in the same announcement, on 31 October 2023.
Varanasi joined as a City of Music in 2015, along with Jaipur for crafts and folk art.
Chennai joined as a City of Music in 2017; Mumbai for film and Hyderabad for gastronomy in 2019; Srinagar for crafts and folk art in 2021.
The network has seven creative fields and was established in 2004.

The tomb of Tansen at Gwalior: a low open pavilion of carved sandstone pillars with pierced stone screens, standing on a paved plinth beside a tamarind tree — The tomb of the musician Tansen at Gwalior, the city named a UNESCO City of Music in 2023 and the home of the Gwalior gharana.Image: Varun Shiv Kapur · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Study next

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network and its seven fieldsIndian entries on the World Heritage List and the Intangible Cultural Heritage listGharanas of Hindustani classical music and their seatsTansen, Akbar's court and the growth of khyalUNESCO's Memory of the World Register and Indian inscriptions

Common traps

Choosing the other Indian city designated the same year without checking its field.
Assuming a city famous for music must be the newest musical designation.
Confusing the Creative Cities Network with the World Heritage List or the intangible heritage list.

A single-city recall with two kinds of distractor — right year and wrong field, or right field and wrong year.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2024_GS1_Q602024Open & attempt →

Which one of the following was the latest inclusion in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List of UNESCO?

(a) Chhau dance
(b) Durga puja
(c) Garba dance
(d) Kumbh mela

Answer(c) Garba dance

The same examiner habit on a different UNESCO list. Both items give four genuine entries and separate them by the year of inscription, so the defence in each case is to carry the dates rather than the names alone.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Kozhikode was designated in 2023 as a UNESCO Creative City of
- (a)Music
- (b)Literature
- (c)Gastronomy
- (d)Film
Answer(b) Literature — India's first city of literature in the network.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which Indian city was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy?
- (a)Lucknow
- (b)Hyderabad
- (c)Amritsar
- (d)Kolkata
Answer(b) Hyderabad — designated in 2019, the same year Mumbai joined for film.