The military march past is the cynosure of all eyes at the Republic Day Parade every year on January 26. It constitutes the forepart of the parade on Kartavya Path and builds up the narrative by evoking a sense of pride in national defence. Though tableaux, dances and performances by school pupils add value to the event, the Armed Forces clearly take the cake when it comes to the applause. The Republic Day event, inclusive of the Beating Retreat (January 29) is organised ab initio by the Ministry of Defence.
Republic Day is celebrated in honour of the Constitution of India, incidentally the world’s longest, which came into force on January 26, 1950. The Constitution was framed by the Constituent Assembly (1946-1949) through its various committees and passed in the plenary sessions, before being adopted as a whole on November 26, 1949. The entire thing was a political exercise, without any military involvement. It was the culmination of a purely civilian pursuit of constitutionalism, with its history going back to the 1830s.
The President of India takes a salute from the marching contingents. Under Article 53 (2), the supreme command of the Defence Forces of the Union is vested in the president and the exercise thereof is regulated by law. It is this very aspect that is most emphasised at the Republic Day parade. The predominance of the military side was noticeable from the very first year (1950) when the march past was held at Irwin stadium (now Dhyan Chand stadium) outside India Gate Hexagon. More than 3,000 men from three branches of the Armed Forces participated in the march past (vide PIB Release January 24, 1950- Irwin Stadium Parade: Traffic Arrangements). Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst, Commander-in-Chief, Royal Indian Air Force set a precedent by permitting the fly past by a loose formation of heavy metal bombers, notwithstanding the blanket ban that existed on formation flying of aircraft over towns and cities of India (PIB Release January 21, 1950- Republic Day Celebrations, RIAF Liberators Fly Past). The precedent has been followed up since then at every Republic Day celebration.
On January 25, 1951, the venue of the Republic Day parade shifted permanently to the Kingsway (later Raj Path), recently named Kartavya Path. Its military characteristics became more pronounced. The defence minister received the president on his arrival at the venue and presented the three service chiefs to him. This convention might have continued for a period before the protocol was changed to the prime minister receiving the president. The PIB Press Release date January 22, 1951, (Republic Day Programme) gives an elaborate description of the “gigantic march past of the Armed Forces.” Awarding of the Param Vir Chakra at the venue also underscores the military importance of Republic Day. It might be remembered that the Indian Republic (notwithstanding allegations of a pacifist policy under the Nehru government) instituted three gallantry awards viz. Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra on January 26, 1950 (with retrospective effect from August 15, 1947) much sooner than it instituted the civilian awards viz. Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan in 1954, and Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri in 1955.
There were definite reasons to celebrate the Armed Forces in the wake of India’s independence. First, the Indian Army was becoming a truly national army, with the departure of the European regiments and termination of its overseas engagements in service of the Empire. Second, it acted responsibly and capably during the anarchy let loose by the partition. Third, it acted with exceptional valour and patriotism in fighting off the Pakistan-sponsored invasion in the Kashmir valley. This, however, did not give additional leverage to the Armed Forces in the government.
Apart from this display on Republic Day, the Indian Republic did not overtly emphasise its military side. The Constitution of India does not treat the Armed Forces as a separate organ of the state. References to it are scanty like placing Defence of India and all branches of the Armed Forces viz. naval, military and air forces under the Union List (under Seventh Schedule) etc and recognising the President of India as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Before September 1946, when the interim government assumed power, the commander-in-chief was at once the head of all three branches, as well as the defence minister. In status, he was only next to the governor-general. The Government of India Act, 1935 (vide Sections 232 to 239) had a special chapter on defence services. While the commander-in-chief’s position was retained after September 1946, it was the defence minister who attended the Cabinet meeting. After August 15, 1947, the three branches of the defence services were placed on three separate chiefs.
The British were the first to espouse the principle of subordination to the military to civilian control. Lord Clive, who won Bengal for the British in the fields of Plassey (1757), sounded fearful of military predominance while writing to the Court of Directors of the East India Company on September 30, 1765- “The evil I mean to apprise you of is the encroachment of the military upon the civil jurisdiction, and an attempt to be independent of their authority….I have been at some pains to inculcate a total subjection of the army to the government, and I doubt not, you will ever maintain that principle (Akshoy Kumar Ghosal, Civil Service in India Under the East India Company, 1944, P.20)”
This was indeed a novel concept in India, which previously had the experience of overtly militaristic governments like the Mughal Empire, Maratha Confederacy and Sikh Kingdoms. In a letter dated November 11, 1768, the London-based directors articled the great precaution they had taken to “establish the entire dependency of the military on the civil power.” However, in practice, many governors-general, ranging from Warren Hastings to Lord Dalhousie, were warmongers. Even after the Queen’s Proclamation (1858) put an end to the policy of annexation, the British relied on a strong army for the defence of the empire. The excessive expenditure on the military, more than home charges, was criticised by the Indian leadership in the early 20th century. While speaking on General Budget, 1902 in the erstwhile imperial legislative council, G.K. Gokhale stated- “As things stand at present, Indian finance is virtually at the mercy of military considerations, and no well-sustained or vigorous effort by the State on an adequate scale for the material advancement or the moral progress of the people is possible while our revenues are liable to be appropriated in an ever-increasing proportion of military purposes.”
The Indian soldiers, in the colonial era, were liable to serve outside India as during World I and War II. The India Gate immortalises on red stone, the memory of 84,00 Indian soldiers who perished in Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia and East Africa etc during World War I. This obligation was terminated with the independence of India. However, India’s attainment of independence coincided with two developments at the sub-continental and global levels. First, was the recurrence of invasion, from which India had enjoyed respite during nearly two centuries of British rule. The Pakistan-supported tribal invasion in Jammu and Kashmir came on the heels of independence in 1947. The second was the beginning of the Cold War that reignited military preparations by opposing blocs viz. Western and Soviet.
India did not join the politics of the Cold War, which divided the world into two militarised rival camps. Its attitude was one of neutrality, emphasising on de-colonisation, which was a more important issue in Asia and Africa. Though India’s stance of the “Non Aligned Movement” has been criticised as a Nehruvian fad–by the nationalists in the 21st century–they tend to overlook the political contours of the world in the mid-20th century. The friendship that India forged with the erstwhile USSR, still serves India in form of ties with Russia.
On balance, India stood for peace in the world and opposed militarism. The values espoused by the Indian Republic and the display of military might on Republic Day might appear contradictory. Whether the Pakistan-sponsored invasion in 1947-48 provoked India to publicly display its military might is difficult to say. Or was it merely optics? The act of Constitution making was purely cerebral exercise, not easily reducible to any tangible expression for public display. It is a legal document that does not appeal to innate patriotism–which had inspired Indians to fight invaders from Alexander in 326 BC to the Chinese in 2020. The government is not unaware of this either.
Republic Day is marked in honour of the enforcement of the Constitution. It is, however, deplorable that the occasion is little used to popularise the Constitution itself amongst “We, the People of India.” It would have been a good idea to project different themes from the Constitution on every Republic Day. However, by merely upholding the Constitution as a ‘holy book’, every successive government appear to stymie any public discussion or debate on the issue.
The writer is author of the book “The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India” (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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