Memorials preserve history

Given their history, I’m wary about the construction of yet another memorial in India. But the idea of a national war memorial, poised to leap from intent to drawing board, 55 years after it was first proposed is exciting. When completed, it will honour the nearly 22,500 men from the armed forces killed in the line of duty.

The government has invited submissions for designs for the memorial that is to come up near Delhi’s India Gate (incidentally, a British-built memorial to honour soldiers who died fighting for the Empire). This is an opportunity that not only democratises participation but, more crucially, democratises those we choose to remember.

Our soldiers deserve a memorial. Many like Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, who died of injuries sustained after getting caught in an avalanche in Siachen Glacier this year, come from humble farming families — India’s anonymous Everymen ready to die to protect our freedoms and borders.

So far, our story of memorial building has been, by and large, a sorry tale of brazen selfpromotion or a naked attempt at cornering valuable real estate. In the first instance, you have the frenzied building spree of four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati who only recently announced that if voted back to power in the forthcoming state elections she would focus more on development than building memorials. Amen to that because I’ve lost count of the crores spent on putting up statues of BR Ambedkar, Kanshiram and, obviously, herself, throughout the state.

In Lutyens’ Delhi the farce of turning the homes of politicians into memorials and museums — at least five of them, including Jagjivan Ram and Lal Bahadur Shastri — has mercifully come to an end with a government order dated October 2014.

But in Mumbai, a bitter war has broken out over the demolition of the 72-year-old Ambedkar Bhavan on the night of June 25. The demolition apparently on orders by the People’s Improvement Trust, set up by Ambedkar, was to make way for a 17-storey building that will include a Vipassana centre and conference halls. Ambedkar’s grandsons, Prakash and Anandraj, are opposed to what they call the ‘commercialisation’ of the property. They want Ambedkar Bhavan to be rebuilt through public participation and the matter is in the High Court of Bombay.

Then there’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, announced when he was still chief minister of Gujarat. The Sardar Vallabhai Patel statue, reportedly to be built at least partly by thousands of Chinese workers, will, at 182 metres, be the tallest statue in the world. Until the Shivaji project comes up, because the statue of the warrior king is planned to be 10 metres higher than the Sardar’s. The Rs 2,000 crore Shivaji project will also include an entertainment zone and multi-cuisine food courts.

My objection to these grand plans is not so much to the memorials as to Disneyfication of the lives and relevance of great men. Name schemes and projects — take your pick, sanitation, healthcare, irrigation, highways — after our great leaders. Name hospitals and schools after them. What does a statue achieve?

The construction of a memorial is an opportunity. Memorials traditionally honour people or values we cherish. It tells us who these people were and it tells us who we are as a people.

How best do we honour the memory of our martyred soldiers? In the days to come, I am hopeful that we will see blueprints of exciting, contemporary designs that will make sense of the tragedy of battle and death and pay tribute to the sacrifice of our soldiers. Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, I am hopeful that our memorial will become a beloved place for contemplation, an invitation to visitors to participate, perhaps go online to click on a name to learn more about those who laid down their lives for their country.

More than a mere structure, a memorial preserves history, helps in reconciliation and becomes a site of collective memory. It reminds us that for all our differences, we can still be one.

See the article in Hindustan Times

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