India: Border Ceremony

Military men march to the border during the ceremony.

 

Lining up and yelling.

Our other tourist stop near Amritsar was the India-Pakistan border-closing ceremony at Attari/Wagah. The two sides have a ceremonial border-closing ceremony every evening at sundown. The border gate is about a 40-minute drive from Amritsar, so we hired a taxi and headed out. Along the way we passed many military bases. (We also saw a number of these in our other travels via roads.) The border is quite impressive. We arrived and joined the other Indians and tourists.

On the Indian side of the border, they have a large gate and stadium seating. A number of sections are reserved for Indians. We were in the foreigners' section, of course, which also happened to be closer to the actual action than most of the Indian seats.

The border gate. The Pakistani gate is on the far side and is white.
You can see the white Pakistani stands (almost empty), though this
was taken before the event began.

We could see the Pakistan side, where they also had a large gate and huge stands. However, the Pakistani side was much emptier than the Indian side. The Indian stands were full before the ceremony began. On both sides, the stands were split between men and women (except the foreigner section, where men and women sat together). Before the ceremony, there was a pep rally (for lack of a better term). They had flag races, in which Indians carrying the national banner were pitted against each other and ran up and down the pathway. They had an emcee. And they had PLENTY of Bollywood music — with people dancing on the path and in the stands.

"Hindustan zindabad!"

The actual event is difficult to describe. Military men and women line up. There is growling/yelling that appears to be some sort of competition as to who can yell louder and longer. Then the men do a quick march toward the border gates, where they do a high kick or a salute or (in one case) a handshake. Then the cycle is repeated. In between, there is lots of cheering and shouts of "Hindustan zindabad!" (Long live India!) from the stands. At the end, both sides lower their flags and closer the border gates for the night.


The Indian men wore huge red hats that looked like fans. The Pakistanis also had fan hats, but their uniforms were black and included capes (a little frightening). The nationalism could definitely be felt. But I'm very amazed that this choreographed and peaceful event happens each day and is considered safe. (The guidebook recommended going and voiced no safety concerns.)

Pakistanis in black, Indians in green and red.

You can see a complete album with even more of the photos from the Delhi/Agra/Amritsar portion of my trip here.

The flag goes down.