Related Stories Let generals have their stories...

A couple of months after his announcement, civic bodies in Delhi reportedly objected to the plan put forward by the ministry of defence for the construction of a war memorial on the lawns of India Gate. The design and layout of the monument itself is shrouded in mystery — as if it is a burden and an act of shame that bureaucrats and politicians want to get rid of quickly. In other parts of the world, there might have been an open competition for the best design for a monument to honour their ‘heroes’. In India, the idea and its implementation are lost in a bureaucratic maze.

Salaria is not completely forgotten — not amongst his family members, for sure. And not amongst his friends and acquaintances. In Pathankot, his family and the local Shaheed Sainik Parivar have built a gate and hold prayer meetings on his death anniversary. However, memorials for soldiers in India, by themselves a rarity, are largely constructed at the behest of family members and rarely by the authorities. Salaria’s story, noble as it maybe, is not particularly unique.

The death of every soldier in the service of the nation should, ordinarily, spawn a thousand stories about him. In the reluctance it displays to build what ought to be the noblest of shrines to honour these soldiers, India does them a great disservice.

The writer is a PhD candidate at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. He is currently working at Brookings Institute