Do we have a war memorial in this country? Don’t we need one? Those questions got answers of sorts  – “No” and “Yes”, respectively – last week, when the Union Cabinet decided to build one in New Delhi at a cost of Rs 500 crore. This has been waiting to happen since at least January 2014. That’s when then-PM-candidate Modi said in a speech that India is the only country that does not have a war memorial.

Couched in those terms, there is apparently no argument. In fact, there is not meant to be one. For a war memorial is one of those emotive issues that politicians – not just Modi – love. Calling for one immediately bolsters their patriotic credentials. Side benefits are that they can pay zero attention to any number of other important issues. Even better, those who demur about this memorial in New Delhi can be branded unpatriotic.

Many memorials

Opening myself up to such branding, let me suggest this first: it is absolutely untrue that India does not have a war memorial. On the contrary, we have many. This list alone has pictures of war memorials in Pune, Mhow, Bhopal, Rezang La, Darjeeling, Chennai, Ambala, Zoji La, Gwalior, Jammu, Kochi, Jaswant Garh, Chandigarh, Siachen, Dombivli, Vizag, Tawang, Drass and Dehra Dun – besides one in New Delhi that’s called India Gate. One more has come up apparently since the list was compiled: Bangalore’s National Military Memorial.

That’s a long list. But let me suggest this next: it is not even close to being a complete list. I have myself visited war memorials in such places as Mumbai, Rewari, Palampur, Leh, Jodhpur, and somewhere near the Line of Control.

To claim, therefore, that there is “no war memorial” in India is, given this list, ignorant at best. There are those who will quibble, saying what we really lack is a “national” war memorial. To them, let me point out that then-candidate Modi himself did not use that adjective. He really did say that our country does not have a war memorial [“hamare desh ke paas war memorial nahin hai”]. Apart from that, some of the memorials listed in the two previous paragraphs are themselves called “national war memorials”.

But that is just quibbling, of course. This country is actually dotted with many memorials, the great majority not even listed above, to individual soldiers who have fallen in our various wars. This one, for example, is outside Jaisalmer.



We salute these brave Indians for their sacrifice for this nation – by definition, then, their memorials are “national”. Pronouncing that we have no national war memorial ignores and insults these Indians, their sacrifice and their memorials.

In fact, even needing to list our memorials is faintly distasteful. The reason for – the value of – a memorial to our soldiers is what it does to your heart. To fully appreciate that, lists and rhetoric and quibbling don’t cut it: nothing serves as well as actually visiting one. Every time I have done so, that lesson hits home hard.

Hall of Fame

Just one example: a few years ago I visited what’s called the “Hall of Fame”, near the Line of Control. (The officer who arranged for me to visit asked me not to say any more about its location). While this Hall of Fame is at the top of a low hill, there are several individual monuments you pass as you approach. One has these three names: “Surjit Singh, Gurprit Singh and Badridan Bharat”. Another is an elegant tower that says, simply, “Padinale Po Munnale”. If you know Tamil, you’ll recognize those words: “Go Forward, Fourteenth”. They are probably the only words of Tamil for miles around – as I looked up at them, that itself struck me as a tribute to the great idea, the soul, of India. Tamil from the south, in these remote northern reaches of the country.

But about an hour later, I had Tamil on my mind again. The memorial itself has rooms with photographs, memorabilia and inscriptions that remember past wars. It also has a collection of granite panels. Each has a year on top: 1948, 1949, and so on. One panel for each year since Independence. Each has names etched into the granite: names of Indians who died in each of those years, fighting for our country. No panel without at least several dozen names. Several with hundreds.

It takes a lot to simply stand there and read those names. But the true enormity of what’s here sinks in when you come to the end of the names and find, stretching beyond, several more granite panels. Empty granite panels. No names on them, but erected all the same, waiting to be filled.

The Hall of Fame has actually assumed the fighting will go on for years into the future, and has thus readied itself for the innumerable tragedies that lie ahead. The black granite stands there, waiting for Indians to die fighting our wars, waiting for their names to be sent here to be etched. Think of it: out there in the vastness of India are young men (and possibly women) – hopeful engineers, expert hockey exponents, middling students – who will not live to see their names carved into these blank panels.

I stood there stunned, almost breathless at the import of all this granite. Beside me stood the soldier who had escorted me here, gun slung over his shoulder. In Tamil he murmured, so quietly that I nearly missed it: “My name’s not there.”

What’s the greatest memorial to those who have died protecting our country? Seems obvious to me: the peace they died fighting to establish. Peace so that we won’t have to erect any more blank granite panels in which we carve names. Peace so that fine young soldiers like my Tamil-speaking escort will know his name will never be there. Peace so that we won’t need to remember that he died for India, because he will live for India.

That memorial, we don’t have. Yet.