Last month, when this song was sung at a school in Bareilly, Sompal Singh Rathore of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad filed a police complaint. The teachers, he alleged, “are making the students recite prayers as per Muslim method with an intention to hurt sentiments of the Hindus … this is being done … to attract students towards Islam … the teachers are hurting the sentiments of Hindus and preparing for the students’ conversion”. The offending words were “mere Allah burai se bachaana mujhko”. The education department promptly transferred the school principal and a teacher spent nearly two weeks in jail.

This shook me. No, that’s a silly euphemism. It upset and disturbed me. Is this a sad reflection of the sort of country we’re becoming? Or am I a dinosaur from an age long past and best forgotten? As I asked myself these questions, I was also reminded of Tagore’s famous prayer, another favourite at Doon: “Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls … into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake”. But is that happening to our country?

I wish they were, but I don’t think my fears are exaggerated. Days before Christmas, a pastor in New Delhi was accused of attempting to convert people when, in fact, the gathering he was presiding over was singing Christmas carols. Newspaper reports say protesters gathered outside and started chanting “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. It quickly flared up into Hindu versus Christian tensions.

Last year, Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite hymn, Abide With Me — which for seven decades was the moment of the Beating Retreat ceremony that many people loved and particularly looked forward to as its haunting tune was echoed by chimes from the portals of North Block whilst the sun gently dipped below the horizon — was dropped. Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser with the information and broadcasting ministry, told BBC this was “a new India breaking free” from the legacy of the Empire. “There’s really no reason why, after 75 years of Independence, we should still have our military bands playing tunes that were introduced by the British”. Dropping Abide With Me is part of an “ongoing process of decolonising India”.

Maybe. But I wonder what Mahatma Gandhi would have thought. Fourteen days from today, I’ll watch this year’s Beating Retreat hoping and praying the authorities have had a change of heart. But I’m certain I’ll be wrong.

I know change is inevitable and the world must evolve but are there no traditions we want to retain? If Abide With Me is a symbol of colonialism, what about Beating Retreat itself? Could it be in danger too? If only I was sure the answer is no.

Carols at Christmas seem as natural as the aarti and fireworks at Diwali or semiya ki kheer at Eid. But will religion now determine what we can sing and partake of?

When she didn’t know the answer to a question, my grandmother would often say, “Rab jaane (god only knows)”. Today that Urdu word for God is identified with Muslims, so is it verboten for Hindus? That would be a terrible shame. But I hear fewer and fewer people speak it.

I can only hope my apprehensions are mistaken. 2023 has nearly 350 more days to run. Will the India I love and remember become more faint and feel more distant 12 months from now? Or will we embrace and cherish the best of our past and keep it with us as we move towards new dawns?

Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story

The views expressed are personal