India Gate, New Delhi, India
India Gate is part of the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission (I.W.G.C), which began in Dec 1917, to build war graves and memorials for soldiers killed in the First World War. The All India War Memorial in New Delhi was designed by Edwin Lutyens, a leading war memorials designer. He created 66 war memorials in Europe, including the highly regarded Cenotaph in London in 1919, the first national memorial erected after World War 1. India Gate commemorates the 70k Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British Army during World War I. His Royal Highness, the Duke of Connaught, laid the foundation stone of India Gate in 1921. The monument was dedicated to the nation ten years later by the then Viceroy, Lord Irwin. Another memorial, Amar Jawan Jyoti, was added much later after India gained independence from the British Raj. The eternal flame burns day and night under the arch to remind the nation of soldiers who laid down their lives in the Indo-Pakistan war of December 1971.
