India Gate
The India Gate (formerly known as the All India War Memorial) is a war memorial located astride the Rajpath, on the eastern edge of the “ceremonial axis” of New Delhi, formerly called Kingsway. It stands as a memorial to 84,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who died in between 1914 and 1921 in the First World War, in France, Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far East, and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 13,300 servicemen’s names, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate.[2] Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the gate evokes the architectural style of the memorial arch such as the Arch of Constantine, in Rome, and is often compared to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the Gateway of India in Mumbai.
Following the Bangladesh Liberation war in 1972, a structure consisting of a black marble plinth with a reversed rifle, capped by a war helmet and bounded by four eternal flames, was built beneath the archway. This structure, called Amar Jawan Jyoti (Flame of the Immortal Soldier), has since 1971 served as India’s tomb of the unknown soldier. India Gate is counted amongst the largest war memorials in India and every Republic Day, the Prime Minister visits the gate to pay their tributes to the Amar Jawan Jyoti, following which the Republic Day parade starts. India Gate is often a location for civil society protests.
Design and structure
India gate, as seen from Rajpath
The memorial-gate was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who was not only the main architect of New Delhi, but also a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission and one of Europe’s foremost designers of war graves and memorials. He designed sixty-six war memorials in Europe, including the highly regarded Cenotaph in London in 1919, the first national war memorial erected after World War I, for which he was commissioned by David Lloyd George, the British prime minister.[11] The memorial in New Delhi, like the Cenotaph in London, is a secular memorial, free of religious and “culturally-specific iconography such as crosses”. Lutyens according to his biographer, Christopher Hussey, relied on the “elemental mode”, a style of commemoration based on “universal architectural style free of religious ornamentation”.
The India gate, which has been called a “creative reworking of the Arc de Triomphe” has a span of 30 feet, and lies on the eastern axial end of Kingsway, present day Rajpath, the central vista and main ceremonial procession route in New Delhi.[11] The 42-metre (138-foot)-tall India gate, stands on a low base of red Bharatpur stone and rises in stages to a huge moulding. The shallow domed bowl at the top was intended to be filled with burning oil on anniversaries but this is rarely done.[citation needed] The memorial-gate hexagon complex, with a diameter of about 625 metres, covers approximately 306,000 m2 in area.[
National War Memorial
Main article: National War Memorial (India)
[Interactive fullscreen map]
National War Memorial (NWM) complex and India Gate within the C-Hexagon, with Amar Jawan Jyoti and Netaji hologram statue. The rings of the NWM form a chakravyūha.
In July 2014, the government announced plans to construct a National War Memorial in the C-Hexagon (India Gate Circle), and an adjoining National War Museum. The cabinet allocated ₹500 crore (US$63 million) for the project.[28] The National War Memorial was completed in January, 2019.[29][30] Since January 2022, it houses the Amar Jawan Jyoti, or the “Flame of the Immortal Soldier”.[27]