India Gate

The India Gate, originally called the All India War Memorial, was designed by the prominent British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and its foundation stone was laid in 1921. It was built to commemorate the 70,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who lost their lives during the First World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The structure is a masterpiece of red and yellow sandstone, standing 42 meters high and drawing inspiration from the architectural style of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Inscribed on the walls of the gate are the names of over 13,000 servicemen, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom. This solemn monument serves as a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made by these individuals on far-flung battlefields across the globe. Following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, a small structure consisting of a black marble plinth with a reversed rifle capped by a war helmet and four eternal flames, known as the Amar Jawan Jyoti, was added beneath the arch. For decades, this eternal flame served as India's tomb of the unknown soldier. In 2022, the flame was merged with the eternal flame at the newly constructed National War Memorial nearby, while a grand statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was installed under the nearby canopy, marking a new chapter in the monument's history as part of the revamped Kartavya Path.