Meet Major Rishabh Singh Sambyal: From 4 Para SF to President's Aide and Internet Sensation

A Dogra officer from Samba who led a Republic Day winning contingent, earned the Balidaan Badge with 4 Para (Special Forces), served as Aide-de-Camp to President Droupadi Murmu — and then left the Army on his own terms.

In the protocol-heavy world of Rashtrapati Bhavan, most ADCs stay in the frame and out of the conversation. Major Rishabh Singh Sambyal did the opposite, without trying. Between 2025 and early 2026 he became one of the most-searched serving officers of the Indian Army: the man holding the umbrella in the rain, passing a handkerchief at an emotional moment, and standing still long after the cameras should have moved on.

The story is more substantial than the viral clips. It runs from Sainik School and the 133rd NDA Course, through the Jat Regiment on Kartavya Path, into 4 Para SF — the “Daggers” — and then into one of the most selective staff appointments a young officer can hold. By late August 2026 the uniform chapter had closed. Sambyal confirmed he had left the Army for personal and family reasons, denied rumours that he was emigrating or marrying a foreigner, and was photographed meeting President Murmu again at Rashtrapati Bhavan as former ADC.

Early life: Samba, Dogra heritage, and a Sainik School start

Rishabh Singh Sambyal comes from a Dogra Rajput family in Samba district, Jammu and Kashmir — a community with a long record of service in the Indian Army, including the Dogra Regiment. Secondary profiles list his date of birth as 11 March; the year has not been officially published. From his 2013 NDA entry and 2018 commissioning he is in his early thirties. Height is reported around six feet, comfortably above the 173 cm ADC threshold.

He is consistently described as having studied at Sainik School Kapurthala, then prepared for the NDA at Lakshya Defence Academy in Jammu. In later remarks he said he had once wanted to be an Air Force pilot. “As luck would say, it was God’s plan that I am in the Army… I’m not flying the engines, but I’m still flying with the parachute.”

Selection and commissioning: NDA 133, IMA, Lieutenant in 2018

The documented selection timeline is:

• 2013 — Cleared the UPSC NDA written examination
• February 2014 — Recommended by the Services Selection Board
• 2014–2017 — 133rd Course, National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla
• 2017–2018 — Indian Military Academy, Dehradun
• 2018 — Commissioned as Lieutenant

Some write-ups say he was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment and later posted or attached with the Jat Regiment for the ceremonial year that made him famous. Others simply record Jat Regiment service from 2018 to 2021. Either way, the public first met him not as a commando but as an infantry Captain on Republic Day.

The 2021 Republic Day parade: where the country first saw him

On 26 January 2021, then-Captain Sambyal commanded the Jat Regiment marching contingent on Rajpath (now Kartavya Path). The contingent won the Best Marching Contingent Trophy. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s recognition of that performance is still cited as the first national marker on his file.

That is the image many people still carry: olive greens or ceremonial dress, sword or pace-stick discipline, a very young officer running a nationally televised drill to a trophy. Ceremonial command is not combat command, but it is a public test of bearing, voice, timing and nerve. Those same qualities later made him look “born” for Rashtrapati Bhavan.

4 Para SF — the Daggers, and the Balidaan Badge

After the parade year he volunteered for Special Forces. 4 Para (Special Forces) is nicknamed the Daggers, sometimes Mighty Daggers. The battalion specialises in counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and mountain warfare and is part of the Parachute Regiment’s SF group — the maroon-beret “Red Devils.” It has been associated with high-risk work along the Line of Control and in other theatres; 4 Para was among the units linked to the 2016 cross-LoC surgical strikes. Operational detail of any individual officer’s deployments is not public and should not be invented.

Probation for Para SF is deliberately brutal. Only a small minority of volunteers — often cited as about 4–5 percent — earn the Balidaan (sacrifice) Badge. Sambyal did. That badge, not social media, is the professional credential that sits behind the ADC appointment.

Appointment as ADC to the President

Sometime around 2024 (sources also say 2023 or “around 2025”), Major Sambyal was selected as Aide-de-Camp to President Droupadi Murmu. He served in that role through 2025 and into 2026, and was visible again at the 2026 Republic Day parade beside the President.

An ADC to the President is not a bodyguard in the cinema sense and not a private secretary in the civil sense. The President’s ADCs are drawn from the Army, Navy and Air Force. They live inside protocol: schedules, state arrivals, investitures, travel, liaison with the services, and the unglamorous work of making a constitutional office move on time without looking as if anyone is being managed.

Typical requirements discussed in open sources include a strong service record, several years with a unit, high physical standards, and a temperament that can stay silent in the right rooms. Height minima (often given as 173 cm), turnout and discretion are part of the filter. A Para SF background is unusual enough in that setting to be noticed; it is not a prerequisite.

His day-to-day public duties, as described across contemporaneous reports, covered:

• Protocol at Rashtrapati Bhavan and on tour
• Coordination with security agencies around the President’s movements
• Administrative support on the day’s grid of meetings and ceremonies
• Ceremonial presence at national events
• Liaison between the President’s office and the armed forces

He was also photographed with guests including Paralympic gold medallist Navdeep Singh — one of the images that circulated with earlier versions of this profile.

The assignment is finite. ADCs rotate. By mid-2026 his rotation had ended, and then he left the service itself.

How an ADC became an internet sensation

The fame was not a launch. It was accumulation.

Three categories of clip did most of the work:

The handkerchief. During a ceremonial moment that read as emotional on camera, he offered President Murmu his handkerchief. The gesture was small, correct, and instantly readable.

The umbrella. In rain at Rashtrapati Bhavan he held an umbrella over the President without breaking military bearing. That photograph — ADC in dark uniform and aiguillette, President in a sari walking the gardens — travelled further than any press release.

The stillness. Videos of him standing through long events without fidgeting became their own genre. Comment sections filled with jokes that people now wanted to “become President,” and with the less careful label “national crush.”

By 2025–26, SSBCrack were citing Google Trends to call him one of the most-searched serving Indian Army officers for two consecutive years. Fan pages multiplied. The tone of coverage, unusually for a viral soldier story, stayed mostly admiring rather than investigative. He did not give a splashy media tour while still serving. The camera found him because the President’s calendar is public.

That matters for how the story should be told. The professionalism was real; the celebrity was a side effect of nationally televised protocol plus a face the internet decided it liked. Treating him as an influencer who happened to wear a uniform gets the causality backwards.

August 2026: leaving the Army, in his own words

In mid-August 2026 Sambyal appeared in live sessions and reaction videos that news channels clipped within days. He said thousands of people had asked the same questions. His answers, paraphrased from those recordings, were unusually direct for a recently serving officer:

• He left the Army for personal and family reasons. As a child he had dreamed of the uniform and had not imagined taking it off. “There come instances which change your life forever.”
• He is not leaving India and is not settling abroad.
• He is not marrying a foreigner. He said there were no marriage plans in the near future and that he did not have a girlfriend.
• He has no specific next job to announce, but wants to keep contributing to the country out of uniform.

Reports added that on 21 August 2026 he met President Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan after leaving the ADC post, and that the President’s official digital photo library captioned him as former ADC. There has not been a detailed Ministry of Defence press note in open reporting; the confirmation sits on his own videos plus that Rashtrapati Bhavan labelling.

He remains unmarried as of those August 2026 remarks.

Quick facts 

Through that sequence Sambyal became something rarer than an internet sensation — a visible example of how the Army actually moves a capable officer through infantry, special operations and constitutional staff work, and how even that path can end when personal life requires it. The uniform is off. The facts above are what remain.