Republic Day Parade camel contingent - Fusion - WeRIndia

The BSF camel contingent is an iconic event in the Republic Day celebrations. However, for the first time in history of the Republic Day celebrations, the camel contingent will not be seen down the Rajpath in New Delhi.

According to officials, due to lack of official direction, the 90-member Border Security Force camel-mounted troops and band contingent has not been practising during the dress rehearsals of the event.

Even though the contingent was in Delhi since the last few months, it was not included in rehearsals. This is because there were no official orders regarding the contingent.

The camels in the contingent belonging to the border guarding force are dressed well for the parade. They have been part of the celebration of Republic Day parade since 1976. Before them, there was a similar squad in the army participating in the Republic Day parade since the first event in 1950.

A senior official in the camel squad said that the BSF camel contingent has been an iconic event in the Rajpath parade every year on Republic Day. He said that there are two teams which take part in the event usually. One is the 54-member mounted contingent and the other is the 36-member band.

The first team will have primly dressed BSF border guards with weapons. They will be riding camels and the second team will follow with bandsmen dressed in beautiful multi-color dresses on back of camels while playing martial music.

According to officials, the parade on this year’s Republic Day will be seeing a number of changes like not including paramilitary forces like ITBP, CISF and SSB. There will also be new features in the parade like the dogs squad contingent of the army and a team of French soldiers. They further stated that the camel contingent may not also take part in the Beating the Retreat Ceremony held on January 29.

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