For three years after independence, India’s head of state was still King George VI. When the nation finally became a republic in 1950, an empire's worth of royal tradition had to be erased.
The most immediate change was the purge of royal symbology. The office of the Governor-General was abolished. The British crown was scrubbed from military uniforms, official seals, postal stamps, and coinage, replaced almost uniformly by the Lion Capital of Ashoka. The armed forces dropped their royal prefixes—the Royal Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Force became simply the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force. The oaths of allegiance taken by government officials, soldiers, and judges were rewritten to pledge loyalty to the Constitution of India rather than the reigning monarch.
The physical spaces of power were also repurposed. The Viceroy's House in New Delhi, built to project imperial dominance, was renamed Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace). Its central Durbar Hall, which once housed the viceregal throne under a canopy of crimson velvet, was stripped of its imperial statues and used for the swearing-in of Dr. Rajendra Prasad as India's first President. Rather than occupying the opulent Viceroy's apartments, Prasad chose to live in the guest wing, a tradition of modesty maintained by his successors.
The ceremonial calendar shifted to reflect the new republic. "God Save the King" was officially replaced by "Jana Gana Mana" as the national anthem. The British honors system, including knighthoods and peerages, was abolished; four years later, the government introduced civilian awards like the Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan. Even the military's Beating Retreat ceremony, a 16th-century English tradition, was gradually Indianized as bands introduced Indian classical ragas alongside Western martial music. The President's Bodyguard, an elite cavalry regiment raised in 1773, retained its horses and scarlet tunics, but swapped the King's cypher on their pennants for the emblem of the new republic.