About

The India Gate is a war memorial in New Delhi. It stands as a memorial to 74,187 soldiers of the Indian Army who died between 1914 and 1921 in the First World War. 13,300 servicemen's names, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who was not only the main architect of New Delhi but also a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission.

It is similar in design to the Arch of Constantine in Rome, and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It is largely an austere structure with little ornamentation. It stands on a low base of red Bharatpur stone and rises in stages to a huge cornice moulding above a frieze with sunburst motifs. It has a shallow domed bowl at the top. It has a rectangular footprint, with a large archway on each of the four faces. The arches on the long sides are larger and higher. The arches on the shorter sides are blocked at the bottom with doorways, but are open higher up. Mouldings run around the building at the levels from which the arches rise. The keystones of the arches protrude slightly. The ceilings and undersides of the arches are decorated with coffers.

The inscription on the top of the gate reads "To the dead of the Indian Armies who fell and are honoured in France and Flanders, Mesopotamia and Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and Far East and in Sacred Memory also of those whose names are here recorded and who fell in India on the North West Frontier and during the Third Afghan War". This inscription is just below the name India, which is flanked by the dates 1914 and 1919, in roman numerals.
The names of 13,313 soldiers are inscribed on the walls of India Gate. The details of these names with their respective date of death, unit name, regiment, and the place on gate where name is inscribed can be found on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website.

In 1972, a structure consisting of a black marble plinth with a reversed rifle, capped by a war helmet and bounded by four eternal flames, was built beneath the archway. This structure was called the Amar Jawan Jyoti. It was moved to the National War Memorial in 2019.

Constructed in:	20th century CE
Height:	42 m
Base:	26m x 15m
Local Language(s):	Hindi, English

History

India Gate was part of the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission, which came into existence in December 1917 for building war graves and memorials to soldiers who were killed in the First World War.

The foundation stone was laid on 10 February 1921 by the visiting Duke of Connaught.

The memorial was inaugurated by Lord Irwin on 12 February 1931.

The canopy on the east was once occupied by a statue of King George V, between 1936 and 1968. It was the subject of many political protests.

In 2022, a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was placed in the canopy.

The Amar Jawan Jyoti was relocated from the base of India Gate to the National War Memorial which was erected in 2019, further to the east of the canopy.