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From
time immemorial, architecture has been used to express the power, glory and triumphs of the rulers. After ravaging conquests, it was customary for the victors to build imposing gateways, triumphal arches, victory towers or lofty columns marking the epoch event. Also there was the practice of making edifices and statues located in public squares to freeze into stone and mortar architectonic reminders of the might of the rulers to their subjects. Most European towns are embellished with city piazzas and roundabouts adorned by statues of mighty kings or legendary generals astride their steeds, brandishing swords in postures of leading great military campaigns. The Arc de Triomphe, dedicated to those who fought in the Napolenian wars, is as much a powerful symbol of Paris as perhaps Qutub Minar is of Delhi, built by Qutb-ud-din Aibak who took possession of the city in 1206. The British brought in Sir Edward Lutyens, to carve out from the sandstones of Rajputana, the glory and magnificence of their imperial power in India. The Raj Path, an axial vista connecting the Rashtrapati Bhawan atop the Raisina Hill to the India Gate, is a grandiose avenue with gardens, canals and linear tree plantations along its 4-km stretch. It is one of the most awesome vistas the perfection of whose ensemble of architecture, space, scale and landscape come together as a symphony of urban design. The 42-metre-high India Gate was made by the British in 1931 to commemorate 90,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who lost their lives in World War I and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. Following India's Independence, the India Gate also became the site of the Indian Army's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, known as Amar Jawan Jyoti ("the flame of the immortal soldier"). The ravages of World Wars I and II started similar trends world over to erect national war memorials to honour the sacrifice of soldiers who had died in the defence of the country. But Independent India has no such national war memorial of its own. The crusade for it by the defence establishment started in 1960, but nothing materialised. Years of squabbles over the proposed location for the National War Memorial at the India Gate, and the objections raised to it by various bodies, including the Delhi Urban Arts Commission, put it in the limbo. The main contention of these bodies was that the heritage precincts of the India Gate complex should have no new modern interventions. With the matter reaching an impasse, the Group of Ministers (GOM) set up the Government has now decided that the memorial would be established at the India Gate vista. As such there seems to be still a fixation, and perhaps a prestige issue involved, with the defence forces, about the belief that only a location as prominent as of India Gate, would be truly worthy of honouring the supreme sacrifice of the fallen soldiers. This is fairly understandable, yet an open- minded approach is required. Such a rigid belief underlines the conviction that the proposed memorial would draw its core strength only from the primacy of the coveted site. Another fixation, in designing of such monuments is about the issue of their soaring height to loom large over the city's horizon as perhaps, the only tool of architecture available to convey the desired visual impact.
Changing national ethos However, such an approach needs to be reviewed in the context of society's changing values and national ethos in the present times, regarding using architectural forms and their location, for symbolising national sentiments through memorials. Today, India as a mature democracy needs to reflect in architectonic terms, on how it wishes to honour its soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice. The way of doing this is not only by erecting a lofty monument in the epicentre of India's historic but nevertheless essentially a colonial urban space. The India Gate vista, regardless of its primacy in the Capital's axis of power, is essentially a crowning glory of the British rule. Mature democracies the world over, now, are designing such memorials in an architectural language that brings forth the poignancy, tragedy, heroism and the subtle grief of the bereaved families. They speak of a nation in mourning, a people in grief yet honour the brave and remind countrymen to do their duty. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Washington DC speaks in such a refined architectural language. Even the 9/11 New York Memorial, commemorating the loss of many innocent civilians and valiant fire fighters in the line of duty, has an architectural concept depicted by a sublime water cascade with landscape elements all around freezing the collective grief of the loved ones. The design of the Chandigarh War Memorial, perhaps, the largest post-Independence war memorial of the country, with nearly 8459 names of the deceased soldiers, since 1947, from the Army, Air Force and Navy located in the city's serene and beautiful Bougainvillea Garden is a case in point. The site chosen was in the city's prime garden space of the Leisure Valley (8km-long parkland) next to Le Corbusier's Capitol Complex, but not in a prominent civic piazza or complex. The design that was evolved, grew from the gardensque settings of the site. A spiral-like low wall, coiled around a central space, from where a sculpture, symbolising the three wings of the armed forces coming together in unison rises up into the sky, to manifest the collective sacrifice of the forces, regardless of the colour of uniform that the soldier wore. The memorial was inaugurated by the then President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on August 17, 2006. This analogy highlights that enlightened military minds do appreciate sensitive design elements and good reasoning, without being dogmatic about any pre-fixed notions. Surely, if the country can commemorate Gandhi and Nehru's sacrifices by building their samadhis along the Yamuna river front, away from the imperial scale and spatial order of colonial India's arena of power, why not for our soldiers in uniform too? Similarly other locations too can be considered. Let the proposed National War Memorial not echo conflict, war or hatred but evoke honour and glory for the nation's bravehearts and express a nation in mourning for its loved ones. The dead soldier's silence sings our national anthem, the words of Aaron Kilbourn say it all. Let us salute our fallen sentinels, in a subtle yet silent way.
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