UK war body draws up plan for Kohima battle anniv

AMRITSAR: After recently constructing a war memorial in Tanzania for Indian soldiers who had fallen in the East African Campaign of the First World War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is drawing up plans to renovate the huge Indian war memorial in Iraq and commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kohima in a big way.

Richard Hill, CWGC head

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 24

After recently constructing a war memorial in Tanzania for Indian soldiers who had fallen in the East African Campaign of the First World War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is drawing up plans to renovate the huge Indian war memorial in Iraq and commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kohima in a big way.

The new war memorial has come up at Tanga in Tanzania and has inscribed on it the names of 344 Indian soldiers. Richard Hill, CWGC’s Director for Africa and Asia Pacific Area, who was on a visit to India said the memorial commemorated the battles fought against the Germans in that region along the eastern coast.

Headquartered in London, the CWGC was created in 1917 and looks after 1.7 million graves and memorials from the two world wars. Publically funded by Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom with an annual budget of £67 million, it also commemorates over 1.6 lakh Indian soldiers who died in the two great wars.

Tanzania currently has an Indian-origin population of about 50,000, which began settling there in the 19th century. The Indian community and the Indian High Commission were also involved in the project.

Hill said the commission was planning to make the 75th anniversary of the Battles of Kohima and Imphal, among the most decisive battles of the Second World War, a big affair. Fought in 1944, it was the turning point of the war in the eastern hemisphere that checked Japanese advance into India.

“We would like to work with the Army, state governments and tourism agencies on this. We have proposed a project to the Chief Minister for commemorations in 2019 and as a starter, we plan to hold a small ceremony in Kohima next year, where the CWGC maintains a war cemetery for 1,420 Allied war dead,” he said.

There is also a huge war memorial and cemetery at Basra in Iraq, which is in a state of disrepair that commemorates the sacrifices of about 35,000 Indian soldiers in that theatre.