Beating retreat in India officially denotes the end of Republic Day festivities.

It is conducted on the evening of 29 January, the third day after the Republic Day and is organized by Section D of the Ministry of Defence.

It is performed by the bands of the three wings of the military, the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force, and pipe bands from the Army, plus from 2016 a massed formation of bands of the Central Armed Police Forces and the Delhi Police.

The venue is Raisina Hills and an adjacent square, Vijay Chowk, flanked by the North and South blocks of the Central Secretariat and the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's Palace) towards the end of Rajpath.

The ceremony was started in the early 1950s when Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were visiting India for the first time after independence.

The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru summoned Maj. G.A. Roberts, an officer in The Grenadiers, asking him to do something spectacularly creative and eventful for Elizabeth's visit.

Roberts thus officially conceived of the Beating Retreat in honour of the visit, by developing the ceremony of display by the massed bands. Army, Air Force and Navy bands consisting of pipes, drums, buglers and trumpeters from various regiments took part. It has become an official ceremony to have a Head of State of a country as the chief guest and that year the Beating Retreat was in their honour.

The chief guest of the function is the President of India who arrives escorted by the President's Bodyguard (PBG).