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Amazing fact, thanks for sharing this
Great
Nice read
Nice post
Public memory is very short
Nice read
Nice and Informative read. I am born and brought up in Chandigarh but never knew about this monument and the story behind the creation of Chandigarh.
Good research and very nice ☺️
The city is literally having grave history for being beautiful in it's own ways, but this too ironic.
Interesting information
Well written and rightly brought up
When Punjab was rent asunder by the British, the Radcliffe Line awarded Lahore to western Punjab, leaving the eastern part of the (Indian) state without a capital.
Keen to move on from the bitter memories of colonial rule and the wounds of partition, India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted a city his countrymen could identify as their own.
The site for the new capital was chosen after an aerial survey in 1950 by PL Verma, then chief engineer, Punjab, who liked the plateau, then an agriculture area at the foot of the Himalayas. Celebrated Swiss-French architect-designer Le Corbusier gave wings to Nehru’s vision.
Nehru personally took interest in Chandigarh’s execution, and when he visited the project site on April 2, 1952, he declared – Let this be a new town symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past, an expression of the nation's faith in the future.
After Nehru’s death, near the same spot (Now, Lily Garden in Sector 9) that he used as an observatory to watch the layout of Chandigarh, a 30-feet-high tower surrounded by a rectangular arch was laid in his memory.
Ironically, today, most of the residents of Chandigarh are not aware about the memorial built in the memory of Pandit Nehru, who gave them the city beautiful.
“Earlier there used to be a plaque on this tower (referring to memorial), I had myself seen it. But I never bothered to read what was written on it,” said a 25-year-old web designer Jagannath Jena, when asked about the significance of the tower he was standing near.
When asked by a lady walker in her forties about the Nehru memorial, she pointed at the concrete block about 50 meters away from the memorial.
The concrete block carries a plaque at one side, mentioning: Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, saw the layout of Chandigarh from this spot on April 2, 1952; while the opposite side, carries a plaque mentioning: This memorial was inaugurated by MS Randhawa, Chief Commissioner, on February 27, 1967.
But there is no navigation towards the memorial and Nehru’s name is missing from the memorial too.