The Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate was merged with the eternal flame at the National War Memorial (NWM) here on Friday.
In a short ceremony, a part of the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame was taken and merged with the flame at the NWM, which is 400 metres away on the other side of India Gate.Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Air Marshal B R Krishna presided over the ceremony. The Amar Jawan Jyoti was constructed as a memorial for Indian soldiers who were killed in action in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, which India won, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.It was inaugurated by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on January 26, 1972.Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 25, 2019, inaugurated the NWM, where names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets. Government sources said 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.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, the government sources said.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.
