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A social media post that claims to show a community-wise split up of Indian freedom fighters whose names have been inscribed on the India Gate is going viral. The post reads ‘95,300 names of Freedom Fighters are inscribed at India Gate, New Delhi. From above, a list of religion and caste-based total is given as: Muslims-61,395 ; Sikh-8,050 ; Hindus(Backward) ; Hindus(Dalits) – 10,777 ; Hindus(High Caste)- 598; Hindus(sanghi from RSS)-0. Indian freedom struggle is written with Muslim blood.’
The post has been shared on Facebook by user Dr-Nutan Patel which has garnered 10,000 shares along with 629 likes on the platform.
Newschecker found similar claims on Facebook with similar captions.
This claim first came into the public domain when Asaduddin Owaisi made the same claim in a speech at a rally in Mumbai in July, 2019. Owaisi claimed that while walking around Delhi and visiting the India Gate, he saw 95,300 names of Freedom Fighters inscribed on it, out of which 61,395 were Muslims.
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Upon conducting a keyword search using the terms “India gate new delhi background”, Newschecker found the website of Delhi Tourism Website which writes about the history of the India Gate.
According to the website “At the centre of New Delhi stands the 42 m high India Gate, an “Arc-de-Triomphe” like archway in the middle of a crossroad. Almost similar to its French counterpart, it commemorates the 70,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British Army during World War I. The memorial bears the names of more than 13,516 British and Indian soldiers killed in the Northwestern Frontier in the Afghan war of 1919.”
India Gate commemorates the Indian and British soldiers who lost their lives in World War I rather than that of Freedom Fighters as claimed in the viral social media post.
Upon further investigation, Newschecker found that the database of the names inscribed on the India Gate is held by the ‘Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)’. Their website mentions details such as the soldier’s name, rank, service number, date of death, age, among others can be seen but there is no mention of their religion or caste.
In the ‘about’ section of their website, it clearly states that the CWGC does not discriminate against the dead soldiers on grounds of their military rank, race or creed.
According to the investigation conducted by Newschecker, the India Gate does not commemorate India Freedom Fighters but rather has the names of Indian and British soldiers that died in World War I fighting for the British Army.
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