[News]Republic Day: How India's military parade became a spectacle

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-60111564

 

India's annual Republic Day parade is a colourful display of its military strength

 

 

A day before India was set to celebrate its 73rd Republic Day, government officials issued an unusual clarification: this year's parade would not feature a song from Bollywood.

The parade has in fact never included a Bollywood track but the government felt compelled to explain because of a recent controversy. An official handle had tweeted a video that appeared to be a curtain-raiser to the grand annual parade that marks the day: in it, a Navy band played a po[CENSORED]r Bollywood hit while others kept the beat by stamping their feet and tapping their rifles.

A social media storm ensued - opposition politicians accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of diluting the dignity of the armed forces while others said the video made a mockery of the iconic celebration.

The department that had tweeted the video finally said it just wanted to show how the personnel took a break during their "gruelling" rehearsals for the parade.

The controversy, just one of many this year, is unlikely to dampen the excitement of the millions of Indians who watch the event - it's held in the heart of the national capital Delhi, and telecast live across the country.

Every year, India celebrates 26 January - the day its constitution came into effect, making it a sovereign republic - with a spectacle where it shows off its military strength, technological advances and cultural diversity.

In 1950, that day marked the end of India's ties to the British empire (although it decided to be a part of the Commonwealth of nations after much debate) - and its first president, Rajendra Prasad, was sworn in.

 

In its initial years, the parade showcased India's emergence as a new republic

 

"Three thousand men of the armed forces marched before the president. The artillery fired a thirty-one gun salute while Liberator planes of the Indian air force flew overhead," historian Ramachandra Guha writes of the first parade in his book India After Gandhi.

 

The parade became a symbol of a diverse but united country

 

 

"It was a period of tension when linguistic and regional assertions were making their presence felt," Ms Balasubrahmanyan writes.

She adds that the parade became an even more vital symbol of presenting an image of a diverse but united country - "a viable, cohesive national identity".

Language was a particular flashpoint in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the federal government tried to make Hindi the sole official language. This was met with fierce protests in southern states, whose languages and scripts differed completely from Hindi. The resistance was strongest in Tamil Nadu, where the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party led huge protests, burning Hindi books and blackening signs written in Hindi.