Rahul Bedi
Senior journalist

The federal government has decided to include the poignantly melancholic Christian hymn Abide with me as the penultimate score played at the grand Beating Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi on

January 29. A January 23 official notification by the Indian Army has refuted numerous media reports that Vande Mataram, a Sanskrit poem written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1870, would replace Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite hymn, which has been part of the Retreat ceremony since the 1950s.

The announcement, following widespread criticism of dropping the hymn, has declared that alongside Vande Mataram, which has acquired politically incendiary Hindutva overtones over the past five years under the BJP rule, the hymn will feature at next week’s dazzling Retreat.

Official sources claim the government’s earlier consideration to terminate Abide with me at the Retreat, emanated from its broader, but woefully feeble, Make in India, initiative. It was deemed to be part of its policy to progressively include more indigenous tunes for the three services’ splendidly attired buglers and trumpeters alongside pipe, fife and brass bands to stage at the Retreat ceremony with digital wizardry.

It is unlikely, given the level of scholarship amongst the BJP’s upper echelons, that the Hindu nationalists were conversant with the hymn’s moving lyrics, which are simply about life’s vulnerabilities, omnipotence and the magnanimity of a compassionate, merciful and forgiving God.

Written by Henry Francis Lyle, a curate from the county Wexford in Ireland in the early 19th century, who later became a vicar in England, the hymn’s haunting Eventide score was composed in 1861 by William Henry Monk, an English organist and church musician. Other than the Mahatma, the hymn was also a favourite of England’s King George V and is sung at the annual Anzac Day services in Australia and New Zealand and at assorted military Remembrance Day celebrations in Canada and the UK.

Its widespread acceptance springs from its simplicity, sensibility and grace. It talks profoundly of human loss, as it was composed after Lyle visited a dying friend, who continually and fearfully asked the priest to ‘abide with me’. Ironically, the hymn was first sung at Lyle’s own funeral in Nice, years later.

The sanguine hymn rejoices in God’s steadfastness: Even as earth’s joys grow dim and its glories pass away. It exhorts God’s presence — every passing hour through cloud and sunshine — to assist the helpless ‘shine through the gloom and point to the skies’.

The hymn’s tone is unquestioningly moral, decent and lofty, and despite being Christian in origin, its sentiments and tone remain universal and non-denominational. But for the BJP and its Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS minders, it has one fundamental flaw and one that both believe needs erasure in keeping with their enduring nationalism and chauvinism: it is Christian in origin. After all, it is no secret that the fundamental role of the RSS, founded in 1925 as a right wing paramilitary volunteer organisation based on the Italian fascist Black Shirts, is to defend Hinduism by keeping it ‘pure’ from outside influences like Islam and Christianity. This is a goal that the Sangh and BJP continue to avidly pursue.

More importantly, Abide with me is part of India’s post-colonial history, crafted largely by the rival Congress party, in which the RSS and fellow Hindu nationalists were not even a footnote, or, at best, were a disparaging fragment.

Hence, irrespective of the Mahatma’s partiality to the hymn, its rendering at the showcase Retreat ceremony had made the RSS uncomfortable since 2015, even as its rendition unfailingly demonstrated its stirring and pathos-laden potential at Vijay Chowk in twilight.

The stunning backdrop of the red sandstone Rashtrapati Bhawan, the motionless line of resplendent Border Security Force camels lining Raisina Hill and the equally dramatic and cleverly illuminated adjoining North and South Blocks were consummate props in the hymn’s rendition.

Its intense climax, however, peaks every January, with the purposeful pealing of bells from the nearby Cathedral Church of the Redemption, also known as the Viceroy Church, leaving in its wake few dry eyes in the audience and few throats without an emotional lump.

Meanwhile, like most things military, particularly those that are pageantry related, the choice of tunes at the Retreat follows a well-determined procedure directed by the Indian Army that manages the Republic Day parade and the follow-on Retreat.

The Army’s Adjutant-General shortlists the tunes for the Retreat ceremony, but only under the overarching supervision of the Defence Ministry that is the final arbiter in the matter. In 2016, for instance, the newly elected BJP government tried nativising the Retreat, by incorporating classical instruments like the sitar, santoor and tabla into some bands. Fortunately, this unprepossessing spectacle was subsequently discontinued, following widespread censure by the military officers.

Laughably, this misadventure prompted a former Army Vice-Chief to bluntly declare that bringing the sitar, tabla and violin was fine for shows or concerts, but not to a military parade. The Retreat, he fulminated, was a parade with dignity, sanctity and tradition and one that could not be reduced to a tamasha.

Meanwhile, the ‘Indianisation’ of tunes at the Retreat has progressed gradually over the decades. Last year, for instance, 19 of the 27 tunes, like Jai Janam Bhumi, Kumaoni Geet and Veerta Ki Misal, presented at the Retreat, were by local composers. The remaining eight, which included robust martial tunes like Fanfare by Buglers, Drummers Call and Post Horn Gallop, were English in origin.

Thankfully, Abide with me, that also featured in this list, has survived another year.