Modi promises India its National War Memorial
30 Jan 2014
Nothing can be more ironical than the fact that more than six-and-a-half decades after Independence from British colonial rule, India still honours its war heroes – soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in defence of their motherland – by placing wreathes at a memorial that was added on to a relic of the British Raj.
The Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate in New Delhi was and remains an after-thought than a true National War Memorial to honour the memory of more than 20,000 soldiers who have died on duty.
No less ironical is the fact that India Gate, an imposing monument on the central vista in the heart of the national capital, was built by our colonial rulers to honour Indian soldiers who died in World War I.
Independent India’s rulers never thought it fit to erect a monument equally, if not more grand, to honour the memory of our soldiers, airmen and sailors who died since 1947.
Instead, the easy and lazy route was chosen to install the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. Wreaths are placed there in the most desultory manner.
We perfunctorily salute the ‘Unknown Soldier’ but fail to remember the soldiers who died battling India’s enemies.
Each of them had a name, a face, a regimental identity. All that, and more, is obliterated by our half-hearted gesture.
What remains is a sense of bitterness among the loved ones left behind by our men in uniform.
It is not that there has never been a proposal for a National War Memorial. Indeed, this proposal has been made time and again but governments have dragged their feet. Even when an effort has been made to revive the proposal, there has been dogged resistance by the bureaucracy and the Delhi Urban Arts Commission which instinctively rejects anything that may alter the colonial vista as conceived and executed by Lutyens.
A half-hearted political leadership has done little to overcome that resistance. The last time we heard about the proposal was two years ago when Defence Minister AK Antony said hurdles in the way of building a National War Memorial had been removed.
Since then there has been total silence.
The absence of a National War Memorial rankles deeply with those who gave their sons to fight and die for the nation.
More important, it has resulted in a poor appreciation of their sacrifice among generations of Indians. We are no doubt proud of our Armed Forces, but that by itself is insufficient. As a nation we owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to our men and women in uniform.
More important, it has resulted in a poor appreciation of their sacrifice among generations of Indians. We are no doubt proud of our Armed Forces, but that by itself is insufficient. As a nation we owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to our men and women in uniform.
A National War Memorial to honour the martyrdom and perpetuate the memory of the bravest among them would be a small token of acknowledging that debt of gratitude.
Yet, we have failed to do so – as a result, there is a gaping hole in our collective memory as a nation, a blot on our collective conscience as a people.
BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was referring to this gaping hole in our collective memory, this blot on our collective conscience, when he eloquently spoke about how we have failed to honour our soldiers by not building a National War Memorial.
“There is no country in the world where there is not a war memorial. India has fought several wars, thousands of our soldiers have been martyred, but there is no memorial to honour their sacrifice,” Modi said at the event to mark the 51st anniversary of Lata Mangeshkar’s soul-searing song ‘Aye mere watan ke logon’.
More than a lakh people, among them thousands of war veterans and hundreds of families of martyred soldiers, who attended that event in Mumbai endorsed Modi’s view by applauding him for saying what few if any politicians have said from a public platform till now.
True to their creed, Modi’s critics have been prompt to twist and turn that statement and mock at him.
Modi does not know that there is a war memorial called Amar Jawan Jyoti, said some.
Others crudely reminded him about the war memorial at Kutch he inaugurated.
Then there were some who spoke of the various war memorials in the States.
Given their jaundiced vision, Modi’s critics missed out on the stones and boulders, small pillars, occasionally white-washed and inscribed with names like ‘Major Shaitan Singh’, that dot our side of India’s border with Pakistan and China.
They are memorials too, immortalising the valour of our martyred soldiers at the spot where they fell, fighting till the end.
But are the scattered memorials in the States, the stark monuments to Major Shaitan Singh and thousands of others, the Amar Jawan Jyoti dwarfed by the majestic India Gate, the street corner testimonials written on rusting tin plates, the roundabouts named after our bravehearts, enough?
Is that all we owe to our Armed Forces?
Is that sufficient to inculcate a sense of gratitude among the masses, to teach our children to be upright and patriotic, to showcase the bravery of our soldiers for the world to see?
It is downright silly and plain stupid to mock at Modi for raising an issue that has been long festering, causing agony and pain among our soldiers, airmen and sailors: The absence of a National War Memorial.
It is silly to remind him of the scattered memorials – he inevitably visits each of them whenever he is in their vicinity.
It is stupid to mock at him for “getting his GK wrong” because Amar Jawan Jyoti is at best an apology for a National War Memorial, listed as the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’ in tourist pamphlets.
Modi believes in enshrining the memory of each martyred soldier collectively at a single memorial.
It is in the fitness of things that such a memorial should be built in New Delhi, in a large and open space, far more grand than any other memorial, yet sombre and dignified.
The US has the Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam War Memorial to honour its soldiers.
Similar memorials exist in other countries.
In fact, a memorial in Colombo honours the soldiers of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force who died in Sri Lanka, the names of each one of them etched in stone forever.
Sadly, those names are not known and heard of in India.
The National War Memorial which Modi envisages will similarly enshrine the memory of our heroes, the names of each soldier, airman and sailor who has died fighting for India since independence etched in stone so that future generations do not forget them.
Their memory will become a source of inspiration and strength; it will rally round every Indian whenever the nation faces a crisis.
India awaits a National War Memorial.
Modi has let it be known that this wait shall be over when he becomes Prime Minister.
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