Meet Tania Sher Gill, who will lead the Army contingent at the Republic Day parade

Captain Tania Sher Gill will lead the Republic Day parade as the parade adjutant on January 26. A parade adjutant is responsible for directing and conducting the parade. She was also the first woman parade adjutant for the Army Day parade on January 15 when she led an all-male contingent in the parade at the Cariappa Parade Ground in Delhi Cantonment. 

“It was a feeling of great pride, a sense of accomplishment and worthiness, and pure blessing,” Shergill, who comes from a long line of army personnel, told PTI after the function. 

The 26-year-old is the fourth generation of her family to serve in the Indian Army. Her great grandfather was part of the Sikh Regiment in World War I. Her paternal grandfather was also part of the same regiment and her maternal grandfather served in the 14th Armoured Regiment. Her father served in the artillery regiment. 

She is a graduate of the Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai and applied to the academy during her final year of engineering. The Hoshiarpur native, Shergill has a B Tech degree in electronics and telecommunications from Nagpur University. 

After completing her training at OTA, she was commissioned in the Corps of Signal in 2017. 

“When the selection was on for the Parade Adjutant, I knew that if I would get selected, I would be the first woman to do that job in the parade’s history,” she said.

Leading the contingent at the Army Day function, Shergill received a lot of praise from senior officials and loud applause as she directed the parade. Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra Group also took to Twitter to share the video of Captain Sher gill leading the parade. He wrote, “Now this gives me goosebumps. So incredibly inspirational. Tanya Shergill is what I’d call a true celebrity. THIS video should be trending...not just the Tik Tok variety...”

On asked to deliver a message to women who are chasing their dreams, Gill said, “When we don the uniform, we are just officers, gender is immaterial, all that matters is merit.”

She added, “And girls and women chasing their dreams should just believe in themselves. It doesn’t matter if some people think they are any less than boys and men. I would tell them just focus on your goals and pursue the goals with passion."

The Republic Day parade has fielded many all-women contingents since 2015. In 2019, Lieutenant Bhavna Kasturi became the first woman to lead the Army contingent at the Republic Parade.

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)

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