THE NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL OF INDIA: TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?

One afternoon about a 10 years ago, I happened to be travelling through the town of Tula about 200 km from Moscow. At the town centre was an impressive structure which quite looked like a military commemorative. I was pleasantly surprised to see little school children in smart uniforms lined up opposite the structure. Out of curiosity I told my driver Dmitri (who thankfully spoke some English) to stop, so that I could observe the proceeds. I suddenly saw as to what appeared to be a newlywed bride and groom come up to the structure and stand and bow in reverence. I was mystified and asked Dmitri as to what was going on. What he told me really warmed my heart as a soldier. The ‘structure’ was the local war memorial at Tula which commemorated all the soldiers form the region as well as all the Russians who died fighting in the famous ‘Battle of Moscow’ of World War II. As per local tradition in many cities of Russia, newly-weds always pay obeisance at the local war memorial immediately after the formalities at the church were over. Dmitri added that over 9 million Soviet soldiers and reservist males died defending the Fatherland in WW II, so much so that the number of women in the Soviet Union was much higher than the number of men after the Great War.  

It has been a decade past since that incident, but it all came back to me today, when there is talk going on in our country on a National War Memorial being approved for construction in New Delhi. Far from being elated, I was actually ashamed and saddened that the 67 years, 6 major conflicts and numerous insurgencies since independence do not seem to have awakened the Nation’s collective consciousness as a whole regarding the aspect of respecting the soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in the defence of India. The demand for such a memorial should not be coming only from the armed forces but from the citizenry as a whole.

Whilst we have precious real estate in Delhi wasted so wantonly as memorials for politicians with dubious histories and almost zero National contribution, it has taken almost 7 decades for the Armed Forces to even reach the stage of ‘in principle’ approval of the Memorial. I daresay that even our colonial masters- the British had more gratitude for the Indian Soldier as is evident from beautiful and serene war memorials constructed for the soldiers of the British Indian Army in New Delhi (India Gate- which we continue to use as the adhoc National War Memorial), Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Kohima in India and a number of other places overseas such as the Neuve Chapelle Memorial in France, Florence Memorial in Italy and so on.

Nothing can be more ironical than the fact that even today; India honours its war heroes by placing wreaths 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 rather than a true National War Memorial to honour the memory of more than 20,000 soldiers who have died on duty. Independent India’s rulers never thought it fit to erect a monument equally, if not grander than the India Gate, to honour the memory of our soldiers, airmen and sailors who died since 1947.

At the Amar Jawan Jyoti, 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 gestures. What remains is a sense of bitterness among the loved ones left behind by our men in uniform.

National War Memorial proposals have been made time and again but successive governments have dragged their feet. To add to this, there has been dogged resistance by the bureaucracy and the Delhi Urban Arts Commission and other such Anglophile forums which instinctively reject anything that may seem to alter the colonial vista of Lutyens’ New Delhi. The last time we heard about the proposal was more than two years ago when the then Defence Minister AK Antony stated hurdles in the way of building a National War Memorial had been removed. Since then there had been a pregnant silence until In July 2014 the Narendra Modi Government finally announced plans to construct a National War Memorial around the canopy in front of India Gate and a National War Museum in adjoining Princes Park. Whether this is another empty political rhetoric or truly a sincere promise- only time will tell.

The callous and insensitive attitude towards a National War Memorial by the Nation as a whole, has definitely left a deep feeling of hurt in those who gave their sons, daughters and loved ones to fight and die for the nation and also resulted in poor appreciation of their sacrifice amongst generations of Indians- totally opposite of the Russian example that I have quoted above. We are no doubt proud of our Armed Forces, but that by itself is not enough. It is time for us as a Nation to overtly express gratitude to our men and women in uniform. A grand National War Memorial in the National Capital to honour the martyrdom and perpetuate the memory of the martyrs would be a small token of acknowledging that debt of gratitude until then it will remain as a blot on our collective conscience as a people.