Gate way of India

India Gate

All India War Memorial was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, a leading war memorial designer at that time. A member of the IWGC, he designed sixty-six war memorials in Europe, including the Cenotaph, in London, in 1919. Cenotaph is the first British national war memorial erected after World War I and was commissioned by David Lloyd George, contemporary British prime minister. Although it is a memorial, the design is that of a triumphal arch, similar to the Arch de Triomphe in Paris, France. Situated at the centre of a hexagonal complex with a diameter of 625m and a total area of 360,000 m2, the India Gate is 42m in height and 9.1m in width. The building material is primarily Red and yellow sandstones sourced from Bharatpur. The structure stands on a low base and rises in asymmetrical steps crowned with a shallow dome at the top. There is also a vacant canopy in front of the monument under which once stood the statue of George V in his coronation robes, Imperial State Crown, British globus cruciger and scepter. The statue was later shifted to Coronation Park in 1960 and the empty canopy symbolizes the British retreat from India

Inscriptions

The cornices of India Gate are adorned with the inscription of sun which symbolized the British Imperial Colony. The word INDIA is inscribed at the top of the arches on both sides flacked by the dates MCMXIV (1914) on the left and MCMXIX (1919) on the right. Below this the following passage is inscribed – “TO THE DEAD OF THE INDIAN ARMIES WHO FELL AND ARE HONOURED IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA EAST AFRICA GALLIPOLI AND ELSEWHERE IN THE NEAR AND THE FAR-EAST AND IN SACRED MEMORY ALSO OF THOSE WHOSE NAMES ARE HERE RECORDED AND WHO FELL IN INDIA OR THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND DURING THE THIRD AFGHAN WAR”. Inscribed on other surfaces are the names of 13,218 war dead including that of a female staff nurse from the Territorial Force who was killed in action in 1917.

Amar Jawan Jyoti

Situated below the India Gate arch is an installation of reversed L1A1 Self-loading rifle, capped by war helmet on a plinth made in black marble. Four urns surround the structure with permanently burning flames fueled by CNG and each face of the cenotaph has the words "Amar Jawan" inscribed in gold. Named Amar Jawan Jyoti or Flame of the Immortal Soldier, it was erected in the wake of Liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971 to pay homage to Indian soldiers killed in the action. 

The memorial was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi on 26th January, 1972. The burning flame is manned by members from the three Indian Armed Forces 24×7. Honorary wreaths are placed at the Amar Jawan Jyoti on 26 January, Vijay Diwas and Infantry Day by the Prime Minister of India and Chiefs of Indian Armed Forces

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