The Mounted President's Body Guard at Beating Retreat ceremony

WildFilmsIndia 2014-08-12

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President's Bodyguards, also known as the Household Cavalry regiment in front of the
Rashtrapati Bhawan during the Beating the retreat ceremony in New Delhi.

The President's Bodyguard is an elite household cavalry regiment of the Indian Army. It is senior-most in the order of precedence of the units of the Indian Army. The primary role of the President's Bodyguard is to escort and protect the President of India which is why the regiment is based in the Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi, India. It is equipped as a mounted unit, with horses for ceremonies at the presidential palace and BTR-60 vehicles for use in combat. The personnel of the regiment are also trained as paratroopers and nominally are expected to lead in airborne assaults in the role of pathfinders.The first bodyguard to be raised in India was in 1773 when European troops, already recruited into the East India Company's service as infantry, were earmarked for the role. Since the army of the East India Company had no cavalry of any kind at that point of time, two troops of dragoons and one troop of hussars were raised - the latter becoming the personal bodyguard of the Governor. These were however disbanded in the reorganisation of the army by Robert Clive after his return to India in 1765. By 1772, the Company did not have a single cavalryman in service.

President's Body Guard (PBG) is the oldest surviving mounted unit and the senior most regiment of the Indian Army. PBG was raised by Governor Warren Hastings in Sep 1773. Hastings handpicked 50 troopers from the 'Moghal Horse', which was raised in 1760 by local sirdars, Sirdars Mirza Shahbaz Khan & Sirdar Khan Tar Beg. In the same year, Raja Cheyt Singh of Benaras provided another 50 troopers that took the strength of the unit to 100. The first commander of the unit was Capt. Sweeny Toone, an officer of the Honourable East Indian Company(HEIC), who had Lt. Samuel Black as his subaltern.

Beating Retreat ceremony near Presidential House in New Delhi. Vijay Chowk (Victory Square) at Rajpath, with Secretariat Buildings in the background which is the venue of the Beat Retreat ceremony. In India Beating Retreat, officially denotes the end of Republic Day festivities. It is conducted on the evening of 29 January, the third day after the Republic Day. It is performed by the bands of the three wings of the military, the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force. The venue is Raisina Hills and an adjacent square, Vijay Chowk, flanked by the north and south block of the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's Palace) towards the end of Rajpath.

source - Wikipedia

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at rupindang @ gmail . com and [email protected].

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