India Gate

A sandstone war memorial arch honouring Indian soldiers who died in the First World War.

The arch is 42 metres tall and made of red stone, on a low base of Bharatpur stone. It honours 74,187 soldiers of the British Indian Army who died in World War I and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. Thousands of names are carved on its walls. At night it is lit up every evening from 7 o'clock until 9:30, and it is one of Delhi's top places to visit.

Names on the walls

According to Wikipedia, 13,313 names are engraved on the arch, 12,357 of them Indian. Some figures for the British names vary in sources.

The Korean Wikipedia says the design was inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Flames, a canopy and a statue

Beneath the arch the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame was lit in 1972 to honour soldiers killed in the 1971 war. In January 2022 the flame was merged with the nearby National War Memorial.

About 150 metres east stands an empty canopy that once held a statue of King George V, installed in 1936 and removed in 1968. A statue of Subhas Chandra Bose was unveiled there in September 2022.

The architect and the design

India Gate was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the main architect of New Delhi and a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission. He designed sixty-six war memorials in Europe, including the Cenotaph in London. India Gate has been called a creative reworking of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It has a span of about 9 metres across the larger opening and stands on a low base of red Bharatpur stone. The building is oblong with an archway on each of the four faces, which makes it technically a tetrapylon. Its top is carved with imperial suns, and on both sides the word INDIA stands between the dates 1914 and 1919 in Roman numerals. Every year the Republic Day Parade passes around it.

On the globe

The model shows the tall stone arch. Look for the canopy behind it.