Cemeteries offer scope of war tourism

Memorial has been built on a tennis court in Kohima

The place has been maintained neatly with a flowering plant besides each grave

The World War II cemetery at Kohima holds the key to a fascinating world of  war tourism in the Northeast and beyond. In today’s world of high speed information exchange, if one Googles about the Kohima World War II cemetery the first result on the search engine’s list will be links to news reports about the Kohima-Imphal war being adjudged as the “greatest British battle” in the world. The Kohima World War II cemetery is where a lot of action took place.

With the Union government trying to promote war tourism, various World War II sites in Northeast India would find footfall. But the key attraction would always be the cemetery at Nagaland Capital Kohima. 

“When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.” This is perhaps the most used message to salute war heroes globally. But hardly people know that this message actually originated from an epitaph at the Kohima Cemetery. This epitaph is credited to John Maxwell Edmonds, an English Classicist who is also known to have written a few more epitaphs for the World War I in 1916.

The Wikipedia further says that the Kohima War Cemetery was built in remembrance of the British and Indian soldiers who gave up their lives during the World War II against the Japanese.

Also known as the “Battle of Kohima”, this battle was fought from April 4 to June 22, 1944. This is considered to be one of the fiercest battles fought and is also known as the “Stalingrad of The East”. But there is much more to this history. In the World War II, the Japanese were advancing rapidly through Burma (now Myanmar) and they had crossed over Manipur and Nagaland as well. Kohima was the last place  where the British could put up  resistance. 

In April 1944, the Japanese Army after occupying important routes on the Burma (now Myanmar) frontier advanced into the Northeast India through Manipur and Nagaland (at that time called Naga Hills). At Kohima, then part of Assam, they occupied the Garrison Hill and attacked a small contingent of the Commonwealth forces. The battle was intense and it was virtually fought across tennis court in front of the bungalow of the deputy commissioner and the Japanese lost. During an intense and unusual debate in 2013, the British National Army Museum voted the Battle of Imphal and Kohima as "Britain's Greatest Battle".

 The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) maintains this cemetery along with many others in the world. The CWGC cares for cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 154 countries.

The war cemetery in Kohima is on one edge of the Garrison Hills. This is where the deputy commissioner’s bungalow used to be before the Battle of Kohima. The cemetery has memorial built right on the tennis court, where the fierce battle was fought. The cemetery houses 1,420 graves. The place has been maintained neatly with a flowering plant  besides each grave.

Inside the heavily-guarded cemetery, the visitor can feel the nostalgia of the World War II. The best view of the cemetery and the Kohima city come from the top of the cemetery. At the top of the cemetery, there’s a dome like memorial structure, commemorating 917 Hindus and Sikhs soldiers, cremated according to their faith.

From the top, the visitor gets an interesting view of the graves, all in lanes according to the Army units. The Kohima war cemetery has been visited by many dignitaries even in recent memory. The Duke of York visited the cemetery in May 2012. 

The two ends of this historic cemetery are marked with tall concrete structures engraved with the Cross. Along the sloping ground of the well-maintained cemetery, there are series of terraces with stone makers with bronze plaques that have names of the each one of the soldiers laid to rest. 

On the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2005, a memorial service was held at the Kohima War Cemetery attended by 41 members of the Royal British Legion.

There are lot of World War II remains in Manipur’s capital Imphal as well. There are remains in parts of Assam, Meghalaya. Americans and Europeans have been conducting trekking missions to find out World War II aircraft remains in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Remains are found in Tripura as well.

In such a scenario, with improvement of law and order in the Northeast, the region can  easily be turned into a major World War II tourism destination in the South East Asia. A tourism circuit can also be developed with the help of the Myanmar government.

Even in Guwahati, the biggest and busiest city in the Northeast India, there is a small World War II cemetery. But not many know about it. Over 500 graves of soldiers from at least five countries – India, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada--are in the Guwahati cemetery.

There was no thrust from the governments to promote World War II tourism. But now all the North-eastern states are sending proposals to the Centre to open up these destinations  through a major campaign.

The Guwahati cemetery also has graves of Japanese soldiers. There are altogether 10 Commonwealth cemeteries belonging to the World War II across India, of which five are in the Northeast.

Imphal also had a Japanese war cemetery and memorial. In Upper Assam’s oil town of Digboi, there is a cemetery. A new cemetery has been found at  Jairampur in eastern Arunachal Pradesh. It has graves of Chinese soldiers who took part in the works of building the roads during the World War II to link Northeast India to China via Myanmar.
There is a vast potential to tap both domestic and foreign tourists, who might be interested in learning more about cemeteries and other related sites in the region on World Wars.