Remembering our War Dead

Engraved on the walls of the All India War Memorial Arch, which took ten years to build 1921-31 are the names of 60,000 Indian soldiers as well as 13,516 British and Indian officers and men who died overseas. It towers triumphantly over the great landscaped vista that stretches between it and the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Since Independence, India and Pakistan have fought four wars and there was a major armed conflict with China in 1962. Thousands of officers and men of Indian armed forces lost their lives in defense of our country in these wars. In the wake of the most recent of these episodes 8212; the Kargil war 8212; people are asking why we have failed to raise a proper memorial to honour our soldiers who sacrificed their lives to save our nation8217;s honour and independence.

While any number of answers will doubtless be forthcoming, a more pragmatic approach to this gross act of neglect would be to do something about it. A superb opportunity has opened up to make amends for this lapse now. The closing down of the Safdarjung Airport in the heart of Lutyens8217; Delhi provides a grand site for a dignified memorial. This 300-acre green lung must be saved from the obsessive urge of our decision-makers and building contractors to erect monstrous structures on every open space that comes in view. This site offers a dramatic setting for a unique memorial to the war heroes of independent India. The creation of a unique memorial to commemorate and celebrate their patriotism and valour will also help save this magnificent stretch of open land for use by Delhi8217;s citizens, the most ignored in any new development proposal.

First, the runway and the taxiing areas leading to it could be raised by two to three feet 8211; so as to enable people to more easily read the names engraved on an appropriate stone surface. The runways and approach areas would thus be aesthetically covered, and with sensitive lighting and landscaping the areas around them can be transformed into a strikingly original and innovatively designed memorial. It would neither intrude on nor dominate the rest of the park, nor strike a jarring note with the historic Safdarjung Tomb next to it.

The entire open land of the airport area should be developed into an attractive horticulture park with jogging tracks, picnic spots and some discreetly located facilities and amenities for the public; nothing garish, loud or crass. Even a huge lake or water body could be created, fed by an imaginative scheme of water harvesting. The water reservoir in New York City8217;s Central Park meets more than one crucial need of that metropolis.

Lutyens8217; New Delhi is remarkable for its generous green spaces, lawns, watercourses, flower and fruit bearing trees and their integration with the parks developed around monuments. What Lutyens8217; plan succeeded in creating is one of the world8217;s outstanding garden cities, with a refined emphasis on elegance and civic grace: in practical terms its greening reduced temperatures during the hot dust-laden summer months of Northern India. When the British built New Delhi to move their capital from Calcutta, they had no illusions about how long they would be in India. But they nonetheless built with integrity and total commitment to producing something memorable and long-lasting.

The irony in all our urban conservation, or development proposals, is that while Indian planners and builders frequently visit most major cities of the world, enjoy the beautiful open spaces they see in Rome, Paris, London and Washington DC, marvel at the care with which these vast green spaces have been landscaped, and admire the sense of civic grace evident in their maintenance and upkeep, they fail to recreate any of these assets in their own works here in India. As a result, we are allowing continuing degradation of some great and historic sights and skylines of Delhi. Through haphazard expansion and over-building Delhi is becoming a vast, congested slum city.

The closing of the Safdarjung Airport has brought forth some bizarre suggestions from our over-enthusiastic but ill-equipped 8216;experts8217; in public life, ranging from turning it into a permanent fair ground for Asian arts and crafts, to building a gigantic convention centre on it, to an entertainment complex!

India8217;s capital is incomplete without a solemn and spacious memorial to the nation8217;s fallen heroes where our people can bow their heads in gratitude for their valour and sacrifice. The nation8217;s war dead and this city8217;s crowded humanity both need a large sacred patch of open earth studded with natures green bounty to breathe in peace and freedom and in undying awareness of what the nation8217;s present and future owe to its past.