The Obelisk Rises But Memorial Hall Is Still Off Limits

Bengaluru's memorial for martyrs has been 16 years in the making and is still not fully accessible to the public

- Anita Rao Kashi

For almost six years, driving down Bengaluru's Sankey Road elicited a smile. Rising dramatically from the ground, a gigantic pointed stone standing behind iron gates opposite the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium inevitably brought to mind the menhirs of Obelix from the Belgian comic series Asterix. At the end of July, on Kargil Vijay Diwas, it was officially inaugurated as a tribute to fallen martyrs—six years after it was installed and 16 years after the project began, even as the other component of the memorial remains in limbo.

Called veeragallu (Kannada for hero stone), the obelisk draws from a Kannadiga tradition that goes back to the fifth century of erecting a carved memorial to commemorate the heroic death of a warrior in battle. This one is set in a corner of the Rashtriya Sainika Smaraka (National Military Memorial), a 6.5-acre park that is wild in parts and manicured in others, and speckled generously with old trees. In keeping with its title, the 78ft, 440-ton granite monolith is a gigantic homage to the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy personnel who have died in the line of duty since 1947. Adjacent to it is a set of 10 accordion-style stone plaques etched with the names of nearly 22,000 martyrs. Labels such as "Indo-Pak War 1971" and "Kargil War 1999" are sombre reminders of loss and sacrifice.