The India Gate (formerly known as All India War Memorial) is a

war memorial A war memorial is a building, monument, statue, or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or (predominating in modern times) to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war. Symbolism Historical usage It has ...

located near the Rajpath (officially called Kartavya path) on the eastern edge of the "ceremonial axis" of

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

. It stands as a memorial to 74,187 soldiers of the Indian Army who died between 1914 and 1921 in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

, 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. Designed by Sir

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

, the gate evokes the architectural style of the ancient Roman

triumphal arch A triumphal arch is a free-standing monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road, and usually standing alone, unconnected to other buildings. In its simplest form, a triumphal ...

es such as the Arch of Constantine in Rome, and later memorial arches; it is often compared to the

Arc de Triomphe The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, often called simply the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Plac ...

in Paris, and the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Following the

Bangladesh Liberation war The Bangladesh Liberation War (, ), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an War, armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalism, Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in East Pakistan, which res ...

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. This structure, called

Amar Jawan Jyoti Amar Jawan Jyoti (, or light) is an Indian memorial conceptualised and constructed after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and inaugurated on 26 January 1972. It was the national war memorial in India until February 2019, when the new National War ...

(Flame of the Immortal Soldier), has since 1971 served as India's tomb of the unknown soldier. India Gate is counted amongst the largest war memorials in India and every Republic Day, the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

visits the Gate to pay their tributes to the

, following which the Republic Day parade starts. India Gate is often a location for

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Imperial War Graves Commission, 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. The foundation stone of the Gate, then called the All India War Memorial, was laid on 10 February 1921, at 16:30 hrs, by the visiting Duke of Connaught in a ceremony attended by officers and men of the Imperial Indian Army, Imperial Service Troops, the Commander-in-Chief, and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy. On the occasion, the Viceroy is reported to have said, "The stirring tales of individual heroism, will live forever in the annals of this country", and that the memorial which was a tribute to the memory of heroes, "known and unknown", would inspire

future generations Future generations are Cohort (statistics), cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The Moral agenc ...

to endure hardships with similar fortitude and "no less valor". The Duke also read out a message from the King, which said, "On this spot, in the central vista of the Capital of India, there will stand a Memorial Archway, designed to keep", in the thoughts of future generations, "the glorious sacrifice of the officers and men of the Indian Army who fought and fell". During the ceremony, the Deccan Horse, 3rd Sappers and Miners, 6th Jat Light Infantry, 34th Sikh Pioneers, 39th Garhwal Rifles, 59th Scinde Rifles (Frontier Force), 117th Mahrattas, and 5th Gurkha Rifles. The land was owned by contractor Sir Sobha Singh who helped construct large tracts of New Delhi and was the primary contractor. India Gate from Rajpath

Ten years after the foundation stone's laying 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." In the decade between the laying of foundation stone of the memorial and its inauguration, the rail-line was shifted to run along the

Yamuna River The Yamuna (; ) is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in List of major rivers of India, India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of about on the southwestern slopes of B ...

, and the New Delhi Railway Station was opened in 1926. The Gate, which is illuminated every evening from 19:00 hrs to 21:30 hrs, today serves as one of Delhi's most important tourist attractions. Cars used to travel through the gate until it was closed to traffic. The Republic Day Parade starts from Rashtrapati Bhavan and passes around the India Gate. India gate is often a location for civil society protests, including demonstrations in response to the 2011 anti-corruption movement. In 2017, the India Gate was twinned with the Arch of Remembrance in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

, England, another Lutyens war memorial, following a very similar design but on a smaller scale. In a ceremony, India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom laid a wreath at the arch in Leicester and the British High Commissioner to India laid one at the India Gate.

Design and structure

The memorial gate was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who was not only the main architect of New Delhi but also a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission and one of Europe's foremost designers of war graves and memorials. He designed sixty-six war memorials in Europe, including the highly regarded Cenotaph in London in 1919, the first national war memorial erected after World War I, for which he was commissioned by David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister. The memorial in New Delhi, like the Cenotaph in London, is a secular memorial, free of religious and "culturally-specific iconography such as crosses". Lutyens according to his biographer, Christopher Hussey, relied on the "elemental mode", a style of commemoration based on a "universal architectural style free of religious ornamentation". India Gate ceiling

The India Gate, which has been called a "creative reworking of the Arc de Triomphe" has a span of across the larger opening and lies on the eastern axial end of Kingsway, present-day Kartavya Path, th
central vista
and main ceremonial procession route in New Delhi. The India Gate stands on a low base of red Bharatpur stone and rises in stages to a huge cornice moulding above a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

with sunburst motifs. The shallow domed bowl at the top was intended to be filled with burning oil on anniversaries, but this is rarely done. The memorial-gate hexagon complex, with a diameter of about , covers approximately in area. The India Gate structure is oblong, with a large archway on each of the four faces, but the arches on the long sides are larger and higher. The arches on the shorter sides are blocked at the bottom, with doorways, but open higher up. Technically the four arches make the building a tetrapylon. There is a large ornament in stone above the blocked bottom of the arches on the shorter sides. Mouldings run around the building at the levels from which both sizes of arch rise, and the keystones of the arches protrude slightly. The top of the keystones on the short sides' arches touch the bottom of the moulding at the base level of the higher long sides' arches. The ceilings and undersides of the arches are decorated with well-spaced coffers.

Inscriptions

The cornice of the India Gate is inscribed with Imperial suns while both sides of the arch have INDIA, flanked by the dates MCMXIV ('1914'; on the left) and MCMXIX ('1919'; on the right). Below the word INDIA, in capital letters, is inscribed: 13,313 names are engraved out of which 12,357 are Indian. Access to read the names on the memorial is restricted, though they can be seen on the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

(CWGC) website, which lists the names with their respective date of death, unit name, regiment, place on gate where name is inscribed, location, and other information).

Canopy

About east of the gate, at a junction of six roads, is a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

, inspired by a sixth-century pavilion from Mahabalipuram. Lutyens used four Delhi Order columns to support the domed canopy and its '' chhajja''.

Statue of King-Emperor George V

In the autumn of 1930, Jagatjit Singh, the Maharaja of Kapurthala State, organized an appeal amongst the Indian princely rulers to erect a statue of King-Emperor George V in New Delhi to commemorate the sovereign's recent recovery from

sepsis Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...

. As originally conceived, the statue would have depicted the monarch in marble riding in a howdah atop a red stone elephant; a canopy was not then included in the design. The final concept, approved by George V before his death, dispensed with the elephant, instead incorporating a red stone canopy and pedestal, with the pedestal standing tall. An tall marble statue of the King-Emperor wearing his Delhi Durbar coronation robes and

Imperial State Crown The Imperial State Crown is the state crown of the British monarch. Based on the design of Queen Victoria's Crown of 1838, which had fallen into disrepair, it was made in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI. The crown remains in use today ...

, bearing the British

globus cruciger The for, la, globus cruciger, cross-bearing orb, also known as ''stavroforos sphaira'' () or "the orb and cross", is an Sphere, orb surmounted by a Christian cross, cross. It has been a Christian Church, Christian symbol of authority since the M ...

and sceptre, was placed atop the pedestal, which bore the Royal Coat of Arms and the inscription GEORGE V R I, the "R I" designating him as 'Rex Imperator' or 'King Emperor'. The combined height of the statue and pedestal was ; while the pedestal and canopy were designed by Lutyens, the statue was designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger of the Royal Academy of Arts. The canopy was topped by a gilded Tudor Crown and bore the Royal Cyphers of George V, with the completed monument intended to "mark the loyalty and attachment of the Ruling Princes and Chiefs of India to the Person and Throne of the King-Emperor." Following the premature death of Jagger, the statue's head and crown were completed by one of his assistants in England and then shipped to India, while the remainder of the monument was carved in India. The statue's installation in the autumn of 1936, amidst the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

, made it a target for Independence activists; on the night of 3 January 1943, during the Quit India movement, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna and Manubhai Shah scaled the statue, smashed its nose and draped it with a large black cloth inscribed "Death to the Tyrant." The statue remained standing at its original site for two decades following the nation's independence in 1947, but certain political factions increasingly objected to its continued presence in its central location, particularly after the tenth anniversary of Independence and the centennial of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. On the night of 12–13 August 1958, the royal insignia of George V and the Tudor Crown atop the canopy were removed. With increasing pressure from Socialist members of Parliament, then-Deputy Minister Home Affairs Lalit Narayan Mishra stated in May 1964 that all British statuary would be removed from the national capital by 1966. Two days before

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

in 1965, members of the Samyukta Socialist Party overpowered two constables guarding the site, covered the statue in tar and defaced its imperial crown, nose and one ear, also leaving a photo of

Subhas Chandra Bose Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian independence movement, Indian nationalist whose defiance of British raj, British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians, but his wartime alliances with ...

at the monument. Despite the resulting adverse publicity and the growing controversy over the situation, the matter of relocating the statue dragged on for several years. The British government rejected a proposal to repatriate the monument to the United Kingdom, citing the lack of an appropriate site and sufficient funds, while the British High Commission in New Delhi declined to have the statue relocated to their compound, due to limited space. Efforts to move the statue to a Delhi park were strongly opposed by the nationalist Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which then held power in the city. Finally, in late 1968, the statue was removed from its position beneath the canopy and briefly placed in storage before being moved to Delhi's Coronation Park, where it joined other British Raj-era statues. During and after the statue's removal, it was often suggested that a statue of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

be placed under the canopy. The suggestion was even discussed in the Indian Parliament. In 1981, the government had in response to a question in the Parliament, confirmed that it was considering the installation of a Gandhi statue under the empty canopy, but nothing came of it.

Subhas Chandra Bose statue

On 21 January 2022, Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

announced that a statue of

would be installed in the canopy at India Gate. The announcement came two days before the 125th anniversary of his birth. A 28 feet high and 6 feet wide 3D holographic statue of Bose was inaugurated at the site on 23 January 2022, celebrated as Parakram Diwas (Courage Day). On this occasion, an award in the name of Bose was instituted for the exemplary work in disaster management. On 8 September 2022, Prime Minister

inaugurated the newly made statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose near the India Gate.

Amar Jawan Jyoti

Amar Jawan Jyoti, or the flame of the immortal soldier, is a structure consisting of black marble plinth, with reversed rifle, capped by war helmet, bound by four urns, each with the permanent light (''jyoti'') from compressed natural gas flames, erected under the India gate to commemorate Indian soldiers martyred in the war of the liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971. It was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 January 1972, the twenty-third Indian Republic Day. Since the installation of the Amar Jawan Jyoti, it has served as India's tomb of the unknown soldier. It is staffed around the clock by the Indian armed forces. Wreaths are placed at the Amar Jawan Jyoti every Republic Day, Vijay Diwas, and Infantry Day by the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of the Armed Forces. On 21 January 2022 the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate was merged with the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the National War Memorial.

National War Memorial

In July 2014, the government announced plans to construct a National War Memorial in the C-Hexagon (India Gate Circle), and an adjoining National War Museum. The cabinet allocated for the project. The National War Memorial was completed in January, 2019. Since January 2022, it houses the

, or the "Flame of the Immortal Soldier".

Gallery

File:India Gate, New Delhi at Night.jpg, The gate is illuminated with colors of the Indian flag File:India-gate-names.jpg, Engravings on the walls of the gate File:India Gate - Architecture inside.jpg, The ornaments on the side axis File:Indian Armed Forces flags.jpg, Flags of the Indian Armed Forces at the gate File:Defense.gov photo essay 120606-D-BW835-022.jpg, Indian army at the gate File:Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's official visit to India (07).jpg, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu at the wreath laying ceremony File:A Mass Run against Drug Abuse, on the occasion of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, at India Gate, in New Delhi on June 26, 2011.jpg, People at the gate, on International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, in 2011 File:India_Gate_View_Point.jpg, India Gate View Point

References

;Notes ;Citations

Bibliography

External links

* {{Delhi landmarks Gates of Delhi Monuments and memorials in Delhi Buildings and structures in New Delhi Triumphal arches in India Gates in India World War I memorials in India Terminating vistas Indian military memorials and cemeteries Military of India Buildings and structures completed in 1931 Works of Edwin Lutyens in India War memorials by Edwin Lutyens Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials Road junctions in India Squares in India Tourist attractions in Delhi British colonial architecture in India