Erected By Citizens’ Contributions, National War Memorial Southern Command Is The First In South Asia

India's first independence war left the country in ruins, followed in 1971 by another Indo-Pakistani conflict. It was the shortest-historic war of all times that ended in 13 days with the fall of Dhaka. To mark the significance of this war, a memorial has been built in Pune Cantonment. Dedicated to post – independence war martyrs, The National War Memorial Southern Command is the only war memorial in South Asia which has been built by citizens’ contributions. The memorial was unveiled and dedicated to the nation on 15th August 1998.

The memorial possesses a gallery labelled the Maratha Gallery where, myriad paintings are displayed depicting the times of Shivaji Maharaj. Another gallery, the Munition Gallery, exhibits and displays munition imported from the Soviet Union for Kargil War, that is MiG-23BN, a Mikoyen Gurevich fighter aircraft, other than primers and fuzes, bullets of different kinds, tank machines, Russian under-water tank machines, to name a few. A tour inside will take you to the mannequins that represent the formal uniform of all major posts of the tri-service.

The highlight of your visit will certainly be the light show which begins after sundown. The light show depicts every scene of a 35-minutes documentary with the use of colourful lights which captivates the audience till its last minute. The documentary gives a brief on how our brave soldiers defeated those that assembled every time to bring our country harm and how great sacrifices were made by our Indian army. It is said that – “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm”, well, in the form of this light show, you will be overwhelmingly proud to actually have a glimpse of how.