Bogus Military Traditions

Let me start with the Parade of 2025, euphemistically called Trooping the Colour. 2025 was the 167th annual Founders Day.

here is the YouTube Link

As an Old Lawrencian who actually participated in this type of farce for over a decade, here is my comment:

Let’s be clear: Lawrence School’s parade isn’t a ‘tradition’—it’s a cult-like spectacle of wasted time, warped priorities, and colonial cringe. For weeks, children—literal urchins, their bodies still soft with youth—are drilled like sepoys in a Victorian fever dream, their education sacrificed at the altar of shiny shoes and polished buttons. Why? To mimic the ‘glory’ of Brigadier General Henry Lawrence, a man so militarily inept he became his own final casualty. The school doesn’t just venerate failure; it forces children to re-enact it with straight faces.

And oh, how the farce grows! Now we have horses (because nothing says ‘modern education’ like child lancers), staff goose-stepping behind their headmaster (a sycophantic tableau masquerading as ‘discipline’), and a bellowing loudspeaker commentary—proof that this ‘tradition’ is as authentic as a three-rupee Victoria Memorial snow globe. The cherry on this rancid cake? The public isn’t even allowed to witness the humiliation. Why? Because even Lawrence School knows the sight of children playing toy soldier for an audience of brainwashed alumni and a baffled chief guest would draw nothing but pity or laughter.

Even the horses in the parade have more intellectual curiosity—at least they have the good sense to shit on this ‘tradition.’

Here’s the truth: This parade is psychological vandalism. It takes boys and girls who should be learning, questioning, thriving, and turns them into wind-up automatons, marching to the rhythm of a dead empire’s drum. The only thing more tragic than its existence is that it’s lasted 167 years without a single grown-up standing up to say: Enough. Stop the music. Burn the stupid plumes. Let these kids live. Headmaster Lahiri did try and condense the farce but was hounded out of office for this.

The Lawrence School parade is not merely an absurdity—it is institutionalized child abuse wrapped in the tattered rags of colonial sycophancy. For over a decade, I was forced to participate in this grotesque pantomime, wasting hundreds of hours that could have been spent learning, growing, or simply being human. Instead, I—like generations of children before and after me—was drilled into mindless obedience, made to march in ridiculous British-era costumes, waving toy weapons in honour of a man who fought to enslave my ancestors. What kind of sick, masochistic farce forces Indian children to celebrate their own oppressor? What kind of deranged nostalgia turns education into a boot camp for imperial nostalgia?

And let us be clear: this is not some harmless tradition. It is theft—theft of time, theft of potential, theft of dignity. My parents poured their hard-earned money into this charade, believing it was an investment in my future. Instead, they paid for the privilege of watching their child be brainwashed into performing colonial kabuki for the amusement of a handful of deluded alumni and a chief guest who probably pities the lot of us. That parents still pay fees for this bogus spectacle is nothing short of nauseating. That the school still forces children to participate is criminal.

The parade grows gaudier every year—more pomp, more pageantry, more lies. The fake brick wall the band bursts through is the perfect metaphor for the entire enterprise: a flimsy, painted facade, desperately trying to disguise the rot beneath. This is not education. This is Ceaușescu’s Romania with better uniforms—a hollow spectacle designed to convince onlookers that the emperor isn’t naked. But the truth is undeniable: Lawrence School is a factory of fools, churning out children who can shine their shoes and march in formation but have no idea how to think for themselves.

‘Never Give In’? The only thing this motto inculcates is a refusal to admit that the school has been wrong for 167 years. The parade is a monument to stupidity, the motto a battle cry for the intellectually bankrupt. Burn it all down.

Please read Post Headmaster Lahiri Parades and Bullying.

Extract from letter written by Honoria Lawrence to Alex, the Lawrences’ eldest son, May 30 1849 about Lawrence School, Sanawar:

‘Both boys and girls are divided into companies, and the elder ones in charge are called Corporal, Sergeant, and Sergeant Major. These are responsible for the behaviour of their divisions, for reporting anything wrong to the superintendent, for clean hands, faces, and hair. If they hear an improper word spoken to say it must be reported, and various other matters of discipline. Thus perfect order is kept up.

At night when they turn into the dormitory each Sergeant Major stands before his division, each boy standing at the front of his bed. The word is given ‘jackets off’; off go all the jackets: ‘fold up jackets’; in a moment all are folded and and laid smoothly at the foot of the bed; ‘shoes off’; then a rattle as all the great strong shoes come off and are placed under the beds: ‘kneel down’, all kneel down by the side of his bed, and there is perfect silence for three or four minutes. Then they finish undressing and get into bed. Nearly the same goes on with the girls upstairs. We hope on June 28 to have a feast at the school , that the children may have pleasant thoughts of dear Papa’s birthday.’

As far as my own experience is concerned, the practices right from class 1 to literally the last day at school would have been classified as slapstick comedy were it not for the sheer waste of time and resources. Boys entered, generally between the ages of 4 and 6. I entered as a 6 year old. Straightaway boys were required to wear a military style uniform with the jacket, made out of cheap wool in olive green exactly the sort you would find army personnel wearing, actually called a ‘battle jacket’, with one military style pocket. Going with this would be khaki shorts and khaki shirt. From Junior School on, a military style olive green tie would be added. Regulation black shoes and socks completed the uniform, referred to as ‘Day Kit’. In the afternoon we were required to change to sports kit. On Sunday, we were were required to wear ‘Sunday Kit’, a close collar suit with red collar and a red stripe running at the side of the long trouser and with several brass buttons. This was the sort of uniform that British soldiers wore to say a formal dinner where an orchestra was playing, prizes were being presented and or dignitaries were being welcomed. Berets were also provided! An outsider looking at this would be fully justified in thinking that 4 to 6 year olds were being humoured to think they were policemen, for let us face it, not a single 4 year old would even know what the military did or what ‘battle’ meant when referring to the jacket they were wearing! This set of bogus military uniforms carried on for the 11 years I was there!

Nobody ever considered the fact that most boys were never going to join the military in later life. Neither they, nor their parents had any plans that a military career would be an option. Some were of course going to pursue that career but for that there was enough training through the NCC (National Cadet Corps) route. What absolutely nobody considered was that most boys would fail the recruitment test for the military because they wouldn’t meet the minimal requirements in terms of height and weight. I was bigger than most but by no means all my classmates and yet when I left school, I weighed around 95 pounds and was 5 feet 8 inches tall. Not much height, weight and muscle can be put on by consuming a diet that consisted mainly of rice! There were a few, but not many who even reached the height of 5 ft 10 inches! Sadly, I now weigh 182 pounds but that is a whole new blog.

Months were spent preparing for a military style parade to honour the founder, Sir Henry Lawrence. Buttons had to be ‘Brassoed’, waist belts of the bands needed to be ‘Blancoed’, shoes had to be polished using the ‘spit and polish’ method such that one could see one’s face on the shiny leather! Elaborate full dress rehearsals were held on a frequent basis until the ‘day of reckoning’; the parade! So imagine the time and effort a 12 year old in the 3rd ‘guard’ spends preparing for such a parade. He spends most of the time standing while other little boys carry out such rubbishy ceremonies as escorting the colour!. When the final march past the chief guest takes place after an hour or so of preliminary ceremonies, the 12 year old will look right as ordered by the ‘guard commander’ and that will be the end for him until the following year’s rehearsals begin. Nobody, but nobody will have noticed the extent to which his shoes are shining or his buttons ‘Brassoed’. Ironically, not a single member of the public would watch this parade! The ‘audience’ would be a few parents, Old Lawrencians who invariably would criticise the participants as being sloppy, a few teachers, the Headmaster and the Chief Guest. In other words, a complete, utter and absolute waste of time and effort on a pointless exercise.

Here is an interesting photo, taken many years after I left school. In it you will see visiting Old Lawrencian, the stunningly beautiful Gul Panag, herself the daughter of an Army General, standing with a little ‘mascot’. Just as horses were introduced many decades after I left school to embellish a bogus military practice mascots were also introduced. The little fellow will have spent hours polishing his shoes! Look at them in the photo! Imagine hundreds of boys polishing, ‘brassoing’, ‘blancoing’ and then having practice parades for weeks on end and doing that every year! What a complete absolute and utter waste of time! That is the time I should have been learning Maths, Physics, Biology etc.

In the year 1965, I recall extremely well the rehearsal after rehearsal, Brasso, Blanco etc taking on a new ardour such that between breakfast and lunch, sandwiches were provided to give that extra energy and enthusiasm to the bogus ceremony! This was the first time I heard the word ‘brunch’ (combination of breakfast and lunch). The Headmaster, K.I. Thomas was into his 15th year at the school, was 50 years old, at the peak of his career and his pride at the achievement of such a parade would have known no bounds. 40 year old Mac, would also have been salivating at the prospect of all this falling into his lap as soon as K.I. Thomas left on retirement!

It is appropriate here to set out Honoria Lawrence’s quote: The native troops wear a uniform like the English and very ugly it looks on them.

What a great irony that we Indians continue to wear a uniform like the English! What a great irony that such a uniform is worn to honour the founder, Honoria’s husband Sir Henry Lawrence!

Pomp and Circumstance: Lawrence School Lovedale Parade and Beating the Retreat.

The annual Founder’s day celebrations centres around the Parade and Beating the Retreat. These are ceremonies paying homage to the founder Sir Henry Lawrence and are an extension of the ceremonies of Indian Princes paying homage to the King Emperor of Britain. Whereas the practice of paying homage to the British Monarch ceased long before Independence, the school continues to pay homage to the founder, Sir Henry Lawrence who wasn’t even a British soldier on the payroll of the British Government but was an employee of the East India Company!

Pomp and Circumstance can be defined as an ostentatious display of ceremonial grandeur. There is absolutely no need for such a display! It is a colonial legacy! The man behind the legacy celebrated as the founder was on the side of the colonial power and against Indians! Here is how such display occurred in Colonial times:

Here is a video showing the Delhi Darbar of 1911

Here is the Gaikwad of Baroda at the Delhi Darbar

Here is the link to Beating the Retreat 2018

Here is the Founder’s Parade 2018. I am in the Old Lawrencians

Shakespeare’s Othello Act 3, Scene 3; The General, mourning what he sees as the loss of his glorious military occupation says:

Extract from my Post: Ashok Malik ‘s Review of Lahiri’s Book : In a school proud of its martial traditions, the biggest challenge was bullying, which was particularly vicious at Lawrence. This was the first battle Lahiri fought, and largely won. It was when he sought to taper the elaborate founder’s day events and parade, preparations for which took several months and clearly affected examination results, that Lahiri ran into the school’s equivalent of a religious orthodoxy: the powerful alumni body, which had romanticised the past and Lawrence School’s supposedly “manly” rigour.

CONCLUSION

More than a quarter century ago, then headmaster Lahiri questioned the need for a farcical parade. I am stating categorically that a notorious colonial tax extorter, Sir Henry Lawrence who didn’t want anybody other than pure EUROPEAN CHRISTIANS to enter the institutions he founded is being honoured by the very people he decreed should be excluded! Legendary Headmaster K.I. Thomas just continued the colonial tradition he inherited. I have set out the History of Sir Henry Lawrence demonstrating beyond peradventure that he deserves no honour in Independent India. It is time people had the courage to do away with this farce!

Sadly, though the farce continues: I STARTED THIS PAGE WITH the celebration of the 167th anniversary of the founder, marked by a grotesque parade held on 3 May 2025. The time wasted on this bogus ceremony—with its prancing horses, gaudy pennons, ill-fitting uniforms, and shin guards strapped like relics of a long-dead empire—reveals a delusion as pitiable as it is revealing.

Not even the British, in their heyday, felt the need to honor this exclusionary institution with such garish theatrics. 1923 photographs shows a subdued affair, devoid of the borrowed pomp now paraded as ‘tradition.’ The irony is crushing: Indians today outdo their colonizers in glorifying a man who deemed them unfit to walk its halls, while Lady Honoria herself sneered in her journals at the ‘hideous’ sight of Indians in British uniforms.

ven the British, in their heyday, felt the need to honor this exclusionary institution with such garish theatrics. 1923 photographs shows a subdued affair, devoid of the borrowed pomp now paraded as ‘tradition.’ The irony is crushing: Indians today outdo their colonizers in glorifying a man who deemed them unfit to walk its halls, while Lady Honoria herself sneered in her journals at the ‘hideous’ sight of Indians in British uniforms.

Reno Omokri was right: there is no pride in borrowed clothes, only a clown’s vanity. The louder the loudspeakers blare, the clearer the truth becomes—this is not heritage, but humiliation masquerading as honour.

Below are photographs from 1923. You will notice that the all White British didn’t indulge in what can best be described as pantomime that the 167th Founders Parade amounted to.

Farce of the Investiture Ceremony

Compared to the ceremonies indulged in now (see clip above of the 2014 investiture ceremony), in my time was much more ‘down-market’. There was never a horse-guard to receive the Chief Guest, there was never a band, there was never a formal march on to the stage and there weren’t that many prefects to be sworn in. The stage was never used, it used to be curtained off. I witnessed 7 ceremonies and none were as elaborate and well performed as the one shown here. Whether or not the smart pupils shown here kept to their oaths is for others to judge! In my time the large hall would be rearranged with a table in the centre over which there was a flood-light. See photo below. The rest of the hall was darkened. Both sides of the table had chairs at which sat the ‘important’ officers to be sworn in. The Headmaster and Chief Guest would be at the head of the table. All the officers would be smartly dressed and mere plebeians such as myself would fill the rest of the hall. All the words are sworn and accepted by the the Headmaster who then proceeds to confer the status. The words are exactly the same as those uttered by the Headmistress in the clip of the 2014 ceremony.

Note the actual oath taken:

At 6.15 the Headmistress states ‘Do you promise to maintain discipline, lead in the right way and uphold the honour and good name of our school?

The Head Boy and Head Girl then swear ‘I solemnly promise to maintain discipline, lead in the right way and uphold the good name of our school. They also go on ‘I also promise to discharge my duties honestly and impartially’.

I am sure all the appointed boys and girls in the clip above were good boys and girls. I have used this clip to illustrate how solemn the ceremony appeared and the actualite of what was in practice in my time.

In July 1966, the Vice Head boy, Kali Jacob, who had taken the exact same oath, and his perpetual sidekick, the evil, slimy little runt Vinod Rao, broke into the trunks of each and every junior and stole every item they could lay their hands on. They did this surreptitiously while the juniors were doing prep work in a classroom. Why they bothered doing so surreptitiously, I still haven’t worked out; all they had to do was order the juniors to surrender everything they had! Broken locks were not easy to replace and in any case all the juniors knew who the perpetrators were! So much for leading in the right way and upholding the ‘Honour’ of the school. Mac the Housemaster was always anxious at such ceremonies as his departure for Ooty would be delayed! Still he would reach The Lawley Institute to get in what remained of the gambling time!

Here is a photo of the investiture ceremony with Kalli Jacob. Mac is in the background only pretending to blend in with the occasion. He left for the Lawley Institute immediately thereafter.

Was Kalli Jacob who had taken the oath, maintaining discipline, discharging his duties honestly, leading in the right way and upholding the ‘good’ name of the school? The answer is simple and best summed up by Lawrence School slang; B A L L S! He was not an ‘officer and gentleman’, which attribute is described as: ‘An officer is, from his position, a leader of men. He must show in himself such qualities as he desires to bring out in those under his leadership. A gentleman is exactly what the word signifies, a gentleman.’ I have mentioned this evil character only for illustrative purposes; actualite was that a number of those taking the oath were thugs! Muralidhar from the same era, for example broke into the tuck-shop and virtually wiped out all the stock, besides helping himself to soft furnishings such as curtains and counterpanes!

It follows that the investiture ceremony is just as bogus as the parade commemorating the founder!

NCC Parade – vastly superior to any Lovedale or Sanawar Parade

Below are images of NCC ceremonies. Far better, far less time consuming and in keeping with modern Independent India