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Indian military bands

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In the Indian Army, the following commands maintain their own inspectorates for music: Eastern Command, Central Command, Northern Command, South Western Command, Southern Command, and the Western Command. The military bands in the Indian Armed Forces consist of a mix of instruments from the woodwind family, brass family, and percussion family and sometimes are simply either brass bands or wind bands. The Indian military also has dedicated pipe band bands that serves as independent units and are maintained by all infantry regiments. Most senior military bands can be configured from a marching band to a concert band and can also form smaller ensembles to jazz ensembles, traditional music bands, brass quintets, woodwind and drumlines. A general military band consists of a band master and 33 musicians while a pipe band consists of a band master and 17 musicians. Bandsmen in the Indian Army are soldiers first, having the primary role in battle of medical assistants.

History

Martial music has been a part of Indian culture since the era of the Maratha Empire in the 17th century. Organized military bands were brought to India by the British Army as military bands early as the 1700s. In 1813, within a letter to the Military Secretary of the Commander-in-chief of Fort St. George, an army Colonel urged the formation of military bands in the native regiments of the East India Company as a means "of improving the appreciation of European music amongst the Indian population". Prior to World War I each battalion-sized regiment of the Indian Army had its own military band.

There is no exact introduction year of pipe bands in the Indian military forces. When it was introduced it came into ethnically Sikh, Gorkha, and Pathan regiments in the late 19th century. The first fully Sikh pipe band was established circa 1856 when the 45th Rattray Regiment was established in Punjab. Since then, Sikh Pipe bands have been a part of the Sikh Regiments that were established under British rule. British Indian regiments with pipe bands included the Bombay Volunteer Rifles and the Calcutta Scottish. The Military Music Wing came into fruition on 23 October 1950 under the patronage and supervision of K. M. Cariappa, the then C-in-C of the Army. In the early-mid 50s, the Indianization of formerly British military bands took place, with Harold Joseph, the then music director of the Indian Army, leading the revitalization of Indigenous tunes in the Indian military.

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