Veena Naravane
[dropcap]A[/dropcap] few months ago I visited the Kohima War Cemetery. While I was walking through the neat rows of headstones, I heard a sudden commotion. Looking over the parapet, I saw a group of children in blue uniforms getting out of a bus and bounding up the steps of the multi-leveled cemetery. I couldn’t believe my luck. I started edging closer to the group and tried to locate the teachers accompanying the group. I wasn’t going to miss this lesson. In about 15-20 minutes the children had scattered all over the 7 levels of the cemetery. Many were sitting on the parapets in groups chatting and drinking water. Others were walking around desultorily between the monotonous rows of black headstones. Still others had whipped out their mobile phones and were busy with photoshoots.I waited in anticipation for the teachers to regroup the children. After about half an hour of this one of the teachers blew a whistle from the car park where he was standing. To my dismay, the children started descending the hill, herded into the bus and were gone.Through this article I would like to address the principals and teachers of the numerous schools in Kohima.War cemeteries, war museums and battlefields are widely acclaimed teacher resources the world over. Kohima was the theatre of one of the most important and defining battles of World War II.We are lucky to be living in a place where history can be resurrected for our children. Teaching plays a vital role in keeping alive and shaping the popular memory of war. Who can do this better that the teachers in Kohima? All it needs is a spot of research and rigorous lesson planning.
As is common knowledge, the Kohima War Cemetery is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), a UK based organization which commemorates nearly 1700,000 soldiers of the commonwealth forces that died in World War I and II. It maintains cemeteries and memorials in 153 countries around the world.
The CWGC has an excellent website www.cwgc.org. The website offers learning and teaching resources suitable for both primary and secondary classes. The website can be used to give the children a walk through a virtual cemetery before they visit the real one. The virtual cemetery will give an idea to the children on the thought behind the layout of the cemetery, the headstones, and the symbolism at work at the symmetry. The site has many pamphlets in an easy-to-read format that the teachers can download. Embedded in the website is another micro site called ‘Forever India’. This site deals extensively with the sacrifice of Indian Soldiers in the Wars. It is also possible to search soldiers on the website with the help of surnames, date, war, rank, regiment, awards etc.Children can be encouraged to research individual histories of the young men who laid down their lives in these wars.
The leaflet ‘Poets of the Great War’ is a wonderful resource for English teachers. It would not be out of place for English teachers in Kohima to incorporate a few war poems in their curriculum. Who can forget the poignant ‘In Flanders Fields’ by one time soldier John McCrae. The poem gave us that eternal symbol of martyrdom – the poppy, not an uncommon sight at the Kohima War cemetry.The Kohima epitaph is one of the most profound epitaphs ever written for war graves. The popular inscription evokes many thoughts on life and its brevity.
Battlefields are an important teaching resource as well. The CWGC website also gives ideas to teachers on how to organize battlefield tours. There are numerous classroom activities that can be done before a tour is undertaken. The War museum at Kisama can be exploited to the fullest by the teachers in and around Kohima.It would be an excellent place to conduct a lesson on primary and secondary sources of history. Scavenger hunts can be conducted as a fun activity for younger children.Photographs, documents and museum montages can all be used to start an enquiry based lesson.
There are immense possibilities for teachers in Kohima. It is important to develop your student’s capacity to empathize and take a moral stance to war in general. Teachers play an important role in putting each successive generation in touch with the legacy of war. History of a long forgotten war is perceived as boring. What relevance does it hold for the children of today? Not so in Kohima, for here we have the all important local links to the Great War which are waiting to be unearthed by some enterprising teacher.
