Two weeks ago, a message appeared on one of the WhatsApp groups of which I am a member, saying,
" Good afternoon all, it's an open invitation for all officers to
witness the Change of Guard Ceremony at
Forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan every Saturday.
It comprises of ceremonial drill of guards, Horse spectacle and Band show. Its a treat to watch."
That last line - its a treat to watch -played on my mind and the follow-up, sealed it.
So this morning, filled with my usual enthusiasm, I found myself on the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan thanks to Lt.Colonel Shri. Harshavardhan Dhekane.
The Change of Guard ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of those things that Delhi residents know about but rarely make time for. It happens on Saturday mornings at 7.30 a.m in the great forecourt of the President's House on Raisina Hill. If you have not seen it, you should. Not as a tourist attraction but as a lesson.
It was indeed a treat to watch and I came back thinking about something that we talk about in governance all the time but rarely see unfold so beautifully. It was actually observing what it looks like when a group of human beings choose, completely and without reservation, to move as one.
The ceremony-
The Anchors presenting the show gave information about the President's Bodyguard , the oldest regiment of the Indian Army, raised in 1773 , which rides out in full ceremonial dress. The horses, the riders, the lances, the gleaming brass, immaculate and composed into something that is more than military display. It is living institution. It is the State presenting itself, with care and dignity, to its citizens.
The outgoing guard and the incoming guard face each other across that magnificent courtyard. The band plays martial tunes, patriotic melodies, and occasionally something that surprises you. The handover happens with a precision that has clearly been rehearsed hundreds of times displays sincerity.
What strikes most is the silence within the sound. The band fills the air, the commands ring out, and yet each soldier moves with a complete perfection. No shuffling. No looking around. No gestures. Every person entirely present to the single thing they are doing at this particular moment, yet part of the whole. In a world that has largely forgotten how to be in one place at a time, this is remarkable to witness.
What discipline actually is-
Often, the word discipline is used as a synonym for strictness, for punishment, for the suppression of individual will. But what I watched this morning was the opposite of suppression.
These soldiers have trained with such perfection that the formations become second nature. The drill doe not look mechanical but expression of precision which is internalised and not imposed from outside. That is what real discipline looks like. Not the gritting of teeth. The freeing of the mind to do its best work, because the body already knows what to do.
Watching the musicians was a feast for the ears as well as eyes. A military band at full ceremonial play is a fascinating study in simultaneous individuality and unity. Each musician carries his instruments ignoring its weight, reading his own part, playing his own notes with responsibility so that the sound that emerges is seamless, powerful and one. Nobody is drowning anyone else out. Nobody is rushing ahead or lagging behind. They are listening to each other even while they are performing. That listening is the discipline.
Discipline is not the silencing of the self. It is the alignment of the self with something larger and discovering that in that alignment, the self is not diminished but amplified.
The unison in walking together -
There is a specific moment in the ceremony that keeps returning to in my mind. The guards march which is something too precise to be human. Every boot lands at the same instant. Every arm swings to the same angle. Every head is held at the same height. Forty individuals moving as a whole.
How does this happen? Not through coercion, you certainly cannot force forty people into that kind of synchrony. It happens through shared purpose. Through hundreds of hours of practice together. Through each person trusting that the person next to them will do their part, which frees them to do their own. Above all through, a common understanding of what they are doing and why it matters.
This is the crux about marching in step: it requires you to give up the right to your own pace. Your natural stride may be slightly longer, slightly faster, slightly different from the person beside you. To march together, you must surrender that. And the paradox is that the surrendering does not make you less. It makes you part of something you could never be on your own. A column moving in perfect unison is more powerful, more dignified, more beautiful than any single soldier marching alone, however perfectly.
I have spent over five years working with Self-Help Groups across Maharashtra, women in villages who have learned exactly this lesson, not on a parade ground but in a circle of seats, pooling their savings, sharing their credit, building enterprises together. The principle is identical. You give up the right to spend your money alone, and in return you gain access to a fund that none of you could have built by yourself. You march in step. And the column moves forward.
Rashtrapati Bhavan: the backdrop that earns its name-
A word about the setting, because to write about this ceremony without writing about the building is to miss half the experience.
Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of those rare buildings that does not merely house power but embodies it. Edwin Lutyens designed it as a statement of empire, but independent India did something interesting by inheriting it's grandeur and changing the meaning. The building that was built to overawe colonial subjects is now the residence of the citizen's representative the constitutional head of a republic of 1.4 billion people.
Watching the ceremony against that backdrop this morning, the dome rising behind the courtyard, the symmetry of the colonnades, the Jaipur Column with its Star of India at the very top , I felt the weight of what this country has attempted. The ambition of it. The extraordinary, improbable, ongoing project of democratic governance on this scale, in this diversity, against these odds.
What I carried away -
What I carried away was not a lesson but more of a reminder. That discipline, practiced faithfully and internalised completely, does not diminish you. That moving in step with others, surrendering your individual pace to a shared rhythm, is not a compromise but a multiplication. That institutions even large, old, sometimes creaking institutions are capable of moments of extraordinary grace when the people within them are fully committed to what they are doing.
The ceremony-
The Anchors presenting the show gave information about the President's Bodyguard , the oldest regiment of the Indian Army, raised in 1773 , which rides out in full ceremonial dress. The horses, the riders, the lances, the gleaming brass, immaculate and composed into something that is more than military display. It is living institution. It is the State presenting itself, with care and dignity, to its citizens.
The outgoing guard and the incoming guard face each other across that magnificent courtyard. The band plays martial tunes, patriotic melodies, and occasionally something that surprises you. The handover happens with a precision that has clearly been rehearsed hundreds of times displays sincerity.
What strikes most is the silence within the sound. The band fills the air, the commands ring out, and yet each soldier moves with a complete perfection. No shuffling. No looking around. No gestures. Every person entirely present to the single thing they are doing at this particular moment, yet part of the whole. In a world that has largely forgotten how to be in one place at a time, this is remarkable to witness.
What discipline actually is-
Often, the word discipline is used as a synonym for strictness, for punishment, for the suppression of individual will. But what I watched this morning was the opposite of suppression.
These soldiers have trained with such perfection that the formations become second nature. The drill doe not look mechanical but expression of precision which is internalised and not imposed from outside. That is what real discipline looks like. Not the gritting of teeth. The freeing of the mind to do its best work, because the body already knows what to do.
Watching the musicians was a feast for the ears as well as eyes. A military band at full ceremonial play is a fascinating study in simultaneous individuality and unity. Each musician carries his instruments ignoring its weight, reading his own part, playing his own notes with responsibility so that the sound that emerges is seamless, powerful and one. Nobody is drowning anyone else out. Nobody is rushing ahead or lagging behind. They are listening to each other even while they are performing. That listening is the discipline.
Discipline is not the silencing of the self. It is the alignment of the self with something larger and discovering that in that alignment, the self is not diminished but amplified.
The unison in walking together -
There is a specific moment in the ceremony that keeps returning to in my mind. The guards march which is something too precise to be human. Every boot lands at the same instant. Every arm swings to the same angle. Every head is held at the same height. Forty individuals moving as a whole.
How does this happen? Not through coercion, you certainly cannot force forty people into that kind of synchrony. It happens through shared purpose. Through hundreds of hours of practice together. Through each person trusting that the person next to them will do their part, which frees them to do their own. Above all through, a common understanding of what they are doing and why it matters.
This is the crux about marching in step: it requires you to give up the right to your own pace. Your natural stride may be slightly longer, slightly faster, slightly different from the person beside you. To march together, you must surrender that. And the paradox is that the surrendering does not make you less. It makes you part of something you could never be on your own. A column moving in perfect unison is more powerful, more dignified, more beautiful than any single soldier marching alone, however perfectly.
I have spent over five years working with Self-Help Groups across Maharashtra, women in villages who have learned exactly this lesson, not on a parade ground but in a circle of seats, pooling their savings, sharing their credit, building enterprises together. The principle is identical. You give up the right to spend your money alone, and in return you gain access to a fund that none of you could have built by yourself. You march in step. And the column moves forward.
Rashtrapati Bhavan: the backdrop that earns its name-
A word about the setting, because to write about this ceremony without writing about the building is to miss half the experience.
Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of those rare buildings that does not merely house power but embodies it. Edwin Lutyens designed it as a statement of empire, but independent India did something interesting by inheriting it's grandeur and changing the meaning. The building that was built to overawe colonial subjects is now the residence of the citizen's representative the constitutional head of a republic of 1.4 billion people.
Watching the ceremony against that backdrop this morning, the dome rising behind the courtyard, the symmetry of the colonnades, the Jaipur Column with its Star of India at the very top , I felt the weight of what this country has attempted. The ambition of it. The extraordinary, improbable, ongoing project of democratic governance on this scale, in this diversity, against these odds.
What I carried away -
What I carried away was not a lesson but more of a reminder. That discipline, practiced faithfully and internalised completely, does not diminish you. That moving in step with others, surrendering your individual pace to a shared rhythm, is not a compromise but a multiplication. That institutions even large, old, sometimes creaking institutions are capable of moments of extraordinary grace when the people within them are fully committed to what they are doing.
And that beauty, real beauty, the kind that stops you mid-step and makes the day's agenda suddenly seem very small is still findable on an ordinary Saturday morning in Delhi, if you know where to look.
The band played on. The guard was changed. The horses turned and walked back through the great gates. And I stood there for a moment after the crowd had thinned, in looked at the dome with a sense of gratitude.
It was a privilege to be a part of the lineage of our country because truly, सारे जहाँ से अच्छा हिन्दुस्तान हमारा and that is what the band was playing as it went back into the President House.
R. Vimala, IAS
Resident Commissioner, Maharashtra
& Secretary, Maharashtra Sadan &
PhD Scholar at IIT Bombay
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