Amar Jawan Jyoti on Friday was merged with the eternal flame at the newly constructed National War Memorial (NWM) here. Some veterans and political leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, however, criticised the move and said it was an insult to the fallen soldiers.
In a short military ceremony, the flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate was taken and merged with the War Memorial about 400 metres away in the afternoon. Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Marshal BR Krishna presided over the ceremony that included a parade and salute.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, announced that a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate as a symbol of India’s indebtedness to him. This announcement came ahead of Bose’s 125th birth anniversary.
Until the installation is completed, a hologram of Netaji will be projected at the site of the statue, the Prime Minister said. “I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netaji’s birth anniversary,” he tweeted.
“At a time when the entire nation is marking the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I am glad to share that his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate,” Modi tweeted on Friday. “This would be a symbol of India’s indebtedness to him.”
The statue will be installed under the grand canopy near which the Amar Jawan Jyothi flickers. The canopy, which was built along with the rest of the grand monument in the 1930s by Sir Edwin Lutyens, once housed a statue of the former king of England George V. The statue was later moved to Coronation Park in Central Delhi in the mid-1960s.
The National War Memorial, built in 2019, will now be the single point for military ceremonies and tributes to fallen soldiers.
In the past three years, most military events have been moved to the new memorial from India Gate.
Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the Amar Jawan Jyoti on January 26, 1972 as a memorial for the Indian soldiers killed in action in the India-Pakistan war in 1971.
Modi had on February 25, 2019, inaugurated the National War Memorial. Names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets at the memorial. The memorial is spread over 40 acre and was built at a cost of Rs 176 crore.
Facing criticism from some ex-servicemen and political leaders, sources in the Government said “there is a lot of misinformation circulating regarding the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti.
The flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished. It is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. It was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other wars but none of their names are present there, they said.
The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in the World War 1 and the Anglo Afghan War and thus is a symbol of our colonial past, they said.
The names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. Hence it is a true shraddhanjali to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there, officials said.
It is ironic that people who did not make a National War Memorial for seven decades are now making a hue and cry when a permanent and fitting tribute is being made to our martyrs,” they said.
The Government’s response was to a tweet by Congress leader Rahul. Written in Hindi, it said, “It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind... We will once again light the ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ for our soldiers.”
“Whatever is being done is a national tragedy and an attempt to rewrite history. Merging the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the War Memorial Torch means erasing history. BJP has built the National War Memorial, that does not mean they can extinguish the Amar Jawan Jyoti,” said Congress leader Manish Tewari.
Air Vice Marshal(retired) Manmohan Bahadur tagged Modi on Twitter and requested him to rescind the decision.
“Sir, the eternal flame at India Gate is part of India’s psyche. You, I and our generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there,” he stated. While National War Memorial is great, the memories of Amar Jawan Jyoti are indelible, Bahadur noted.
Colonel (retired) Rajendra Bhaduri said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is sacred and need not be extinguished. “India Gate has names of Indian soldiers who died in wars. It is immaterial who constructed it,” Bhaduri said on Twitter.
Former Lieutenant Colonel Anil Duhoon said on Twitter that “If one can’t make it then break it, is the BJP’s mantra for new India.
He said the Amar Jawan Jyoti is too sacred to be touched or relocated. “Why can’t they have two of them? Can’t understand their functioning,” Duhoon added.
However, Lieutenant General (retired) Satish Dua expressed “great satisfaction” on merging the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the National War Memorial’s eternal flame.
“As someone who had steered the design selection and construction of the NWM, I had been of this view all along that India Gate is a memorial to the fallen heroes of First World War,” Dua stated.
The Amar Jawan Jyoti was added in 1972 as we did not have another memorial, he mentioned. The NWM pays homage to the soldiers who were killed in action after the country’s independence and all homage ceremonies have been shifted to the new memorial already, he noted.
Former Army Chief General Ved Malik also supported the Centre’s decision to merge the flames. He said on Twitter that it is “a natural thing” to merge flames now as the NWM has been established and all ceremonials related to remembrance and honouring soldiers killed in action are being held there.