The war memorial is located astride the Rajpath, on the eastern edge of the "ceremonial axis" of New Delhi. It stands as a memorial to 90,000 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. 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. Today, the India Gate is often a location for civil society protests.
The Gate today serves as one of Delhi's most important tourist attractions, as well as a site for civic protest.
The memorial in New Delhi, like the Cenotaph in London, is a secular memorial, free of religious and "culturally-specific iconography such as crosses".
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, before the parade is commenced.
1972 - Addition
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1972 - Addition - Images
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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, called Amar Jawan Jyoti, or the Flame of the Immortal Soldier.
1931 - Inaugurated
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1931 - Inaugurated - Images
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The India Gate was part of the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), which came into existence in December 1917 under the British rule for building war graves and memorials to soldiers who were killed in the First World War.
Ten years after the foundation stone laying ceremony, on 12 February 1931, the memorial was inaugurated by Lord Irwin, who on the occasion said "those who after us shall look upon this monument may learn in pondering its purpose something of that sacrifice and service which the names upon its walls record."
ASSOCIATED SITES
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Planning
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1911 - Rajpath
Edwin Lutyens
New Delhi, Delhi, India, Rajpath
Public Space, Streetscape, Government, Park, Planning Project