Had also visited the War Memorial at Tawang, built after the war with China in 1962. It was as most war memorials are, somber, dignified and a little confused as to what exactly is its function...to serve as a memorial to the people who died in the war or, in the process, just simply remind one of the war that killed them. So you had the names of the twenty four thousand soldiers who died, as also black and white photos of the war itself and the aftermath.
But unlike what most other memorials would do, it actually admitted that we lost the war. And, more graciously, it even had this plaque which listed out the reasons we had lost it. The causes were the expected ones- poor infrastructure, obsolete weaponry etc. But the last reason on the list was what caught the eye- 'The magnanimity of Pandit Nehru'! It took me a while to believe that this was actually written. Without getting into the veracity of it, whether it is actually right or wrong (it probably is), what was surprising was the candor and the bluntness displayed, things not usually associated with anything remotely governmental or official. This frankness was refreshing to say the least. Though i suspect that the people who put it there decided to take a chance, keeping in mind the remoteness of the location, assuming that no one important would ever visit it to take umbrage! Nonetheless, such forthrightness is to be treasured and maybe the Memorial can perform a dual memorial function- one for the war itself and one for honesty too!
But unlike what most other memorials would do, it actually admitted that we lost the war. And, more graciously, it even had this plaque which listed out the reasons we had lost it. The causes were the expected ones- poor infrastructure, obsolete weaponry etc. But the last reason on the list was what caught the eye- 'The magnanimity of Pandit Nehru'! It took me a while to believe that this was actually written. Without getting into the veracity of it, whether it is actually right or wrong (it probably is), what was surprising was the candor and the bluntness displayed, things not usually associated with anything remotely governmental or official. This frankness was refreshing to say the least. Though i suspect that the people who put it there decided to take a chance, keeping in mind the remoteness of the location, assuming that no one important would ever visit it to take umbrage! Nonetheless, such forthrightness is to be treasured and maybe the Memorial can perform a dual memorial function- one for the war itself and one for honesty too!
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