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India-Pakistan
After decades of indifference, Indian leaders finally pay respects to WW1 dead
2006-11-10
YPRES (Belgium): On the 11th hour, of the 11th day (November 11) of the 11th month of the year 2006, Sonia Gandhi becomes the most senior Indian leader ever to lay to rest the ghosts of Indian soldiers who fought and fell here in World War I.

Eighty-eight years after the so-called Great War ended, leaving a variously estimated 43,000 to 65,000 Indians dead on the battlefield, Gandhi marks the ultimate sacrifice of the men who valiantly fought a white man's war, thousands of miles away from home, in a cause that was not their own.

Flying into Belgium on Friday, for a three-day visit, Gandhi's first scheduled official act is the trek to Ypres, the flat, battle-scarred wastelands in the west Flanders region, 130 km from Brussels.
Posted by:john

#5  A few years later, he authorized initial nuclear weapons research (that would produce the bomb tested in 1974)
Posted by: john   2006-11-10 20:05  

#4  prevented this.

Nehru's hatred for the man in uniform. Soon after Independence the first commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces, General Sir Robert Lockhart, presented a paper outlining a plan for the growth of the Indian Army to Prime Minister Nehru.

Nehru's reply: "We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. You can scrap the army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs."

He didn't waste much time. On September 16, 1947, he directed that the army's then strength of 280,000 be brought down to 150,000. Even in fiscal 1950-51, when the Chinese threat had begun to loom large on the horizon, 50,000 army personnel were sent home as per his original plan to disband the armed forces.

After Independence, he once noticed a few men in uniform in a small office the army had in North Block, and angrily had them evicted.

It was only after the 1947-48 war in Jammu and Kashmir that he realised that the armed forces are an essential ingredient of any independent, sovereign nation.

"I remember many a time when our senior generals came to us, and wrote to the defence ministry saying that they wanted certain things... If we had had foresight, known exactly what would happen, we would have done something else... what India has learnt from the Chinese invasion is that in the world of today there is no place for weak nations... We have been living in an unreal world of our own creation."
Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajya Sabha, 1963
Posted by: john   2006-11-10 20:03  

#3  My theory is that it represents a change in the Indian world view.. less insular and more engagement with the west.

Also coming to terms with an army that was considered by many Indian politicans to be a tool of british colonialists, a mercenary force.

Nehru actually wanted to disband the entire Indian army. He almost did so.. only the attack by China and the loss of 5000 sq km of territory in Kashmir
Posted by: john   2006-11-10 19:58  

#2  John, any reason why it's taken them about 90 years to finally get around to this?
Posted by: tu3031   2006-11-10 16:46  

#1  

Situated on the Rajpath in New Delhi, India Gate (originally called the All India War Memorial) is a monument built by Edwin Lutyens to commemorate the Indian soldiers who died in the World War I and the Afghan Wars. The foundation stone was laid on 10 February 1921 by the Duke of Connaught. The names of the soldiers who died in these wars are inscribed on the walls. It was completed in 1931. Burning under it since 1971 is the Amar Jawan Jyoti (The flame of the immortal warrior), which marks the Unknown Soldier's Tomb.

Posted by: john   2006-11-10 13:32  

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