On Republic Day, PM Modi pays tributes at National War Memorial: 3 things you should know about the site

The National War Memorial was inaugurated by Modi on February 25, 2019. It was built to commemorate soldiers who have laid down their lives in the various battles, wars, operations and conflicts of Independent India.

There are many independent memorials for such soldiers, but before this, no memorial existed commemorating them all at the national level.

There was, however, Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate in New Delhi, an eternal flame honouring the supreme sacrifice of India's soldiers.

Discussions to build a national war memorial had been ongoing since 1961, but its construction was finally approved in 2015. The location was finalised east of the India Gate at C Hexagon.

The memorial has four concentric circles. First and the largest is the Raksha Chakra or the Circle of Protection, marked by a row of trees, each of which represent soldiers who protect the country.

The four circles at the National War Memorial. (Photo: http://www.mygov.in/campaigns/national-war-memorial/)

The Tyag Chakra, the Circle of Sacrifice, has circular concentric walls of honour based on the Chakravyuh. The walls have independent granite tablets for each of the soldiers who have died for the country since Independence. As of today, there are 26,466 names of such soldiers on these granite tablets etched in golden letters. A tablet is added every time a soldier is killed in the line of duty.

The third, Veerta Chakra or the Circle of Bravery, has a covered gallery with six bronze crafted murals depicting the battles and actions of our Armed Forces.

The final is the Amar Chakra, the Circle of Immortality, which has an obelisk, and an Eternal Flame. The flame from the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate was merged with this flame. The flame is a symbol of the immortality of the spirit of the fallen soldiers, and a mark that the country will not forget their sacrifice.

Busts of the 21 soldiers who have been conferred with the highest gallantry award of the country, Param Vir Chakra, are also installed at the memorial.

The Amar Jawan Jyoti was established in 1972 to mark India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh war. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had inaugurated it on Republic Day 1972.

Then Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat at the Amar Jawan Jyoti in October 2018. (Express Photo: Amit Mehra)

The key elements of the Amar Jawan Jyoti included a black marble plinth, a cenotaph that acted as a tomb of the unknown soldier. The plinth had an inverted L1A1 self-loading rifle with a bayonet, on top of which was a soldier’s war helmet.

The India Gate, or the All India War Memorial as it was known earlier, was built by the British in 1931. It was erected as a memorial to the around 90,000 Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, who had died in several wars and campaigns.

When the Modi government decided to merge the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame with the one at the new memorial, one of the reasons cited was that the India Gate was a part of India's colonial past, and it was more fitting to honour the fallen soldiers at the newly built National War Memorial.