Modi Silences Critics With Netaji Bose Hologram, Statue Plan At India Gate; Merges Amar Jawan Jyoti With National War Memorial

Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to unveil a fixated hologram statue of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose at India Gate before Republic Day on January 23, till a grand statue of Bose is complete and installed at the same site. Marking the 125th birth anniversary of Bose, this grand gesture by the Government is likely to silence the Opposition that criticized the decision to shift Amar Jawan Jyoti or the “eternal flame” for soldiers from India Gate to the National War Memorial (NWM) built in 2019 at a cost of Rs 176 crore. “It gives me great satisfaction that the eternal flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate is being merged with the NWM. As someone who had steered the design selection and construction of NWM, I’d been of this view all along,” tweeted Lt Gen Satish Dua. India Gate was built by the British in memoriam of soldiers of the British Indian Army who died in World War-I. The Amar Jawan Jyoti was placed under the India Gate in 1971 by former PM Indira Gandhi but names inscribed on India Gate were not of martyrs of the 1971 war. Targeting the Opposition, sources term it “ironic” that people who did not make a NWM for seven decades were protesting now, “when a permanent and fitting tribute is being made to our martyrs”.