Remembering Japanese who died in Nagaland, 60 years later

Kohima : Six decades after nearly 5,000 Japanese died fighting Allied Forces in the forgotten battle of Kohima, a war memorial is being set up to commemorate the soldiers in India's northeastern state of Nagaland.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said his government has allotted a plot of land to a Japanese NGO for constructing the memorial near state capital Kohima. The construction is expected to begin soon.

"The decision to allot the land was made to promote tourism and also respect the feelings of many Japanese who come here to pay their respects to those who died in the war," the chief minister said.

Details of the Japanese NGO and the plans for the memorial were not immediately available.

The Nagaland government is also building a war museum at village Kisema, 12 km from the capital. "The museum should open by this calendar year and will house various remnants of the war and other artefacts all related to the battle. We hope the museum will be a major tourist attraction," Khekiye Sema, Nagaland's commissioner of tourism and cultural affairs, told IANS.

During World War II in 1944, Nagaland and adjoining Manipur was the scene of many fierce battles between the Japanese and Allied Forces. The Japanese swept over Fareast Asia and came up to Kohima.

Hundreds of Indian soldiers and locals from the region fought alongside the British to repulse the Japanese attack – more than 4,000 soldiers of the Allied Forces died in the battle.

The British and the Indian Army cemeteries commemorating those who died in the World War II in Kohima and Manipur are well maintained with little stone markers and bronze plaques recording their anguish and sacrifice.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains these graves.

But there is no Japanese war memorial in the region although their fighters who died in the battle lie buried in and around Kohima.

Hundreds of British tourists, including war veterans and descendants of those who perished in the war, visit Nagaland each year to relive the forgotten battle by holding commemorative services.

These services were being held under the banner of the Royal British Legion that was formed to perpetuate the memory of those who died in the service of their country.

"When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today," reads an epitaph in one of the graves at the Kohima war cemetery.