MPPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 100 of 100

Correct — A, Siddheshwar Sen. Maach is the traditional folk theatre of the Malwa region, with Ujjain as its home, and it is transmitted through an ustad-shagird lineage in which each generation is named. In accounts of that lineage the form is traced back to Guru Gopalji as its early founder-figure, while the shaping of Maach into the performance style seen on stage today — its stagecraft, its sung verse and the ordering of a full night's play — is credited to Siddheshwar Sen. That is the attribution the official key marks, and it is what the phrase 'into the present day performing art' in the question is pointing at.

• (b)Kaushal Singh — Not the name carried in accounts of how Maach acquired its present form; the credit there goes to Siddheshwar Sen. The option works only as a plausible-sounding regional name.
• (c)Kesari Singh — A near-twin of the previous option — the paper places two similar-sounding 'Singh' names side by side so that a candidate who half-remembers a name cannot recover it. Neither carries the Maach attribution.
• (d)Rewaram Kuliwala — Does not hold the credit for reshaping Maach. If a modern name is wanted for Maach, the one MPPSC itself has tested is Om Prakash Sharma, asked in the 2024 paper as the person associated with traditional Maach singing.

Maach is Malwa's folk theatre, and its name comes from the raised open-air stage — the manch or machan — on which it is played. A Maach is an all-night performance: the stage is consecrated first, and then the story runs through dialogue that is sung in verse rather than spoken, carried by percussion and a small ensemble, with the actors' company held together by an ustad who trains his shagirds. The repertoire draws on puranic tales, legend and historical romance. Because the form is taught mouth-to-mouth rather than from a script, its history is written as a chain of named ustads, which is exactly why MPPSC can ask 'who is credited with' a stage of its development.

Two different credits attach to any living folk form: who began it, and who gave it the shape it now has. This question asks the second, and the wording 'transforming... into the present day performing art' is the signal. Do not answer it with the founder-figure of the tradition. Beyond this one name, the reliable way to bank marks in this area is the map of folk theatre to region — Maach to Malwa, Nautanki to the Braj-Awadh belt, Tamasha to Maharashtra, Bhavai to Gujarat, Ankia Nat to Assam, Jatra to Bengal — because both MPPSC and UPSC ask that pairing far more often than they ask for individual names.

• Maach: the traditional folk theatre of the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, with Ujjain as its principal centre
• The name derives from the raised platform — manch/machan — on which the play is staged in the open
• An all-night form: dialogue is sung in verse to percussion accompaniment, and the troupe is trained by an ustad in the ustad-shagird line
• Siddheshwar Sen is credited with giving Maach its present performance form (MPPSC 2026 official key)
• Om Prakash Sharma is the modern Maach name MPPSC has already tested, in the 2024 Paper-I

• Confusing the person who founded a folk form with the person who gave it its modern shape — this question wants the second
• Treating Maach as a dance; it is a theatre form with sung dialogue, staged through a whole night
• Mixing Maach with Nautanki because both are verse-sung north Indian folk theatre — Maach is Malwa's, Nautanki belongs to the Uttar Pradesh belt

MPPSC asks folk theatre three ways: the region a form belongs to, the name of a person associated with it, and the special vocabulary of the form (for example, what its sutradhar is called). UPSC stays with 'form : state' pairing. Learn each form with its region first, then hang one or two names on it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Maach, the traditional folk theatre form, belongs to which region?

  • (a)Malwa
  • (b)Bundelkhand
  • (c)Baghelkhand
  • (d)Chhattisgarh

  Answer(a) Malwa — the form is centred on Ujjain and the surrounding Malwa region.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs of folk theatre and state is correctly matched?

  • (a)Tamasha — Odisha
  • (b)Ankia Nat — Assam
  • (c)Bhavai — Punjab
  • (d)Jatra — Kerala

  Answer(b) Ankia Nat — Assam; Tamasha is Maharashtra's, Bhavai Gujarat's and Jatra Bengal's.