Republic Day Parade History: Evolution of India’s Celebration

India became independent on 15 August 1947, but it did not become a republic until the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. Until then it was a dominion, still governed under a framework adapted from the Government of India Act, 1935. The date itself was chosen on purpose: the Congress had observed 26 January as Purna Swaraj Day since 1930, so bringing the Constitution into force on that day tied the new state to the freedom movement.

The day ran on a precise schedule. The Republic was proclaimed at 10:18 am in the Durbar Hall of Government House, and Rajendra Prasad was sworn in as the first President minutes later. A 31-gun salute announced the proclamation. At 2:30 pm Prasad left Government House in a 35-year-old coach, renovated for the occasion, bearing the new Ashoka emblem and drawn by six Australian horses. Crowds lined the route. He reached the Irwin Amphitheatre at about 3:45 pm.

The parade itself was held in the afternoon. The amphitheatre, built in 1933, held about 15,000 people, and roughly 3,000 officers and men of the three services and the police took part. The parade was commanded by Brigadier Moti Sagar, and President Sukarno of Indonesia, himself leader of a newly independent Asian country, was the chief guest. The flypast included Harvards, B-24 Liberators, Dakotas, Hawker Tempests, Spitfires and jets, more than 100 aircraft in all.

The parade did not move straight onto the ceremonial avenue. According to the Central Vista project’s own history, between 1950 and 1954 the celebrations were held at the National Stadium, Kingsway Camp, the Red Fort and Ramlila Ground. The 1951 celebration, the Republic’s first anniversary, was again held at the Irwin Stadium.

Sources disagree on one detail. The official Central Vista history lists Kingsway Camp, an area in north Delhi near the old Durbar grounds, as one of the early venues. Other accounts list Kingsway, the avenue between Government House and India Gate that later became Rajpath. What is not supported is the popular line that the parade “moved to Kingsway in 1951” and stayed: the 1951 celebration, with King Tribhuvan of Nepal as chief guest, was at the Irwin Stadium, and every source agrees that 1955 is the year the avenue became the parade’s permanent home.

That year’s chief guest was Pakistan’s Governor-General, Malik Ghulam Muhammad. From then on the route ran from Rashtrapati Bhavan down Raisina Hill through Vijay Chowk and along Rajpath to India Gate, and for much of the parade’s history on toward the Red Fort. The avenue gave the parade what a stadium could not: room for columns of troops, vehicles and floats, and kilometres of roadside for spectators.

Military parades on Republic Day were, in part, a legacy of the Raj’s ceremonial display of power. What made India’s version different was the cultural pageant. Jawaharlal Nehru argued that the parade should combine the military march-past with a pageant showing that the country valued cultural progress “no less than military strength”. His proposals were built into the parade of 1953, and folk dancers and state floats became a fixture.

The tableaux grew into the parade’s most watched segment. Today the Ministry of Defence invites proposals from states, Union Territories and central ministries, and an expert committee from the arts reviews them in two rounds: first sketches and designs, then three-dimensional models. Tableaux may not carry logos and are expected to include some animation and sound. Because only some can be chosen each year, a system introduced in 2024 gives every state and UT a slot at least once every three years.

Some older elements survived. The Border Security Force camel contingent, described as the only camel-mounted force of its kind in the world, marches in full regalia alongside tanks and missile carriers. Children who win National Bravery Awards once rode past on decorated elephants; they now ride in vehicles.

The December 1971 war with Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh changed the parade’s mood. On 26 January 1972, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the Amar Jawan Jyoti, an eternal flame beneath India Gate for soldiers killed in the war. For almost five decades, laying a wreath there was the Prime Minister’s first act on Republic Day morning.

In 2019 the National War Memorial opened nearby, and in January 2022 the Amar Jawan flame was merged with the memorial’s flame. The Prime Minister now pays homage at the National War Memorial before the parade. Gallantry awards, including living Param Vir Chakra and Ashoka Chakra recipients, have long been a centrepiece of the ceremony.

For more on the war itself, see our Vijay Diwas 1971 war timeline.

For its first three decades the parade was mostly experienced by people who could get to Delhi, and by radio listeners through All India Radio. Doordarshan’s colour service began on 15 August 1982 with the Independence Day broadcast, and the Asian Games in Delhi that November pushed colour sets into more homes. On 26 January 1983 Doordarshan carried the Republic Day parade live in colour for the first time.

That changed what the parade had to be. Uniforms, tableaux and the flypast now had to work on a screen as well as on the road, and camera positions became part of the plan. By the 2000s the broadcast used many camera angles, aerial shots and commentary, and by the 2010s clips and photographs spread online within minutes. Background on the broadcaster is in our Doordarshan history.

Inviting a foreign leader as chief guest began with the first parade, and the choice is read every year as a signal of India’s diplomatic priorities. The guest list has included neighbours, former colonial powers, Cold War partners and, in recent years, groupings rather than single countries.

In September 2022 the redeveloped Central Vista avenue was renamed Kartavya Path and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government presented the renaming as a step away from colonial-era symbolism, turning “the path of the ruler” into “the path of duty”. The redevelopment added new lawns, walkways, seating, canals and public amenities along the route.

The 74th parade, on 26 January 2023, was the first held under the new name, with Egypt’s President el-Sisi as chief guest and an Egyptian military contingent marching. It was also the first time the 21-gun salute was fired from indigenous 105-mm Indian Field Guns instead of 25-pounders. The avenue remained the same ceremonial axis, now with its third name: Kingsway, Rajpath, Kartavya Path.

2021. The pandemic shrank the parade and there was no chief guest. The Air Force’s Rafale made its Republic Day flypast debut, and the shortened route ended at the National Stadium, where the first parade had been held in 1950.

2024. The 75th parade was explicitly women-centric. For the first time it opened with 100 women artists playing Indian instruments such as the shankh, nadaswaram and nagada. An all-women tri-service contingent marched, and the Ministry of Culture’s installation Anant Sutra displayed about 1,900 sarees and drapes on wooden frames.

2025. For the first time a single tri-services tableau represented the Army, Navy and Air Force together, reflecting the push for jointness. About 5,000 artists performed more than 45 dance forms along Kartavya Path.

2026. The 77th parade was built around 150 years of Vande Mataram. Tableaux rolled under two themes, “Swatantrata ka Mantra – Vande Mataram” and “Samriddhi ka Mantra – Atmanirbhar Bharat”: 30 in all, 17 from states and UTs and 13 from ministries, departments and services, including an Air Force veterans’ tableau. The Army showed a Battle Array Formation for the first time, arranging tanks, missile systems, drones and armoured platforms as they would be deployed rather than as a line of separate exhibits. Paintings by Tejendra Kumar Mitra from the 1923 Bande Mataram Album lined the route, and around 10,000 special guests, from natural farmers and self-help-group women to ISRO scientists and start-up founders, were seated at Kartavya Path.

The 1950 flypast was a snapshot of an air force built from wartime aircraft: Harvard trainers, B-24 Liberators, Dakotas, Hawker Tempests and Spitfires, with a few early jets, more than 100 aircraft in total. By 2019 the flypast included the Su-30MKI, Jaguar, MiG-29, C-17 Globemaster and HAL Rudra. The 2026 flypast listed the Rafale, Su-30, P-8I, C-295, MiG-29, Apache, Light Combat Helicopter, ALH and Mi-17.

On the ground the change is just as clear. The 2026 mechanised columns included the T-90 and Arjun tanks, BrahMos, Akash and MRSAM missile systems, ATAGS and Dhanush guns, drones, unmanned ground vehicles and robotic mules, alongside a mounted column of the 61st Cavalry and an animal contingent of Zanskar ponies, Bactrian camels and dogs.

The Republic Day celebrations formally end three days later, on the evening of 29 January, with Beating Retreat at Vijay Chowk, between North and South Block. The ceremony draws on the old military custom of troops sounding the retreat at sunset and returning to camp. In India it dates to the 1950s. Massed bands of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and in recent years other forces, play marches and Indian compositions before the President. In 2022 the ceremony added a show of about 1,000 drones over Raisina Hill.