Music: Abide With Me

Abide With Me" was written in 1847 by Scottish Anglican poet and hymnologist Henry Francis Lytethe. It was a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi and it used to be played regularly by an instrumental Band of the Indian Army since 1950 at the beating the retreat ceremony marking the official winding up of Republic Day celebrations in India. The hymn was dropped under the Narendra Modi Government on grounds that only Indian-origin tunes are to be played at the ceremony on January 29, 2022