capitals and cities.
Although no one is buried there, the India Gate or the All India War Memorial in New Delhi was built by the British colonialists in memory of the 90,000 soldiers who died in world war I. On its arch and the foundations are inscribed 13,516 names of Indian and British soldiers who were killed in the Indo-Afghan War of 1919, and form a separate memorial. The Indian Republic paid its homage to the warriors who perished during the Indo-Pakistan War of December 1971 by installing the Amar Jawan Jyoti under the arch of the gate where a flame burns day and night to remind the Nation of those who made the supreme sacrifice.
Likewise, in the USA, there is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arlington National Cemetery; the Westminster Abbey in London has the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior; and in France the unidentified war dead is buried under the Arc de Triomphe.
But anonymous burial of people other than soldiers is not that uncommon; for instance, in some parts of Eastern Germany, 43 percent of burials are anonymous.
The magazine, Christian Century reports that according to the Roman Catholic Church anonymous burials are a reflection of the diminishing belief in God, which is countered by the high cost of headstone markers and the solitary nature of German life.
Secret Graves
Vandalism of the burial site, robbery of the grave and desecration are some of the reasons for making the grave site secret, usually by the family of the notorious or the infamous. A shameful and infamous instance of a historical grave desecration was that carried out by vandals of the grave of the Mughal Emperor Akbar at Sikandra near Fatehpur Sikri, some time after
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