'Memory of colonial military valour is often selectively reconstructed for contemporary diplomatic ends.' Examine this with reference to the Battle of Haifa and India-Israel relations.

On 23 September 1918, the Jodhpur, Mysore and Hyderabad Lancers captured Haifa from Ottoman-German forces in one of history's last successful cavalry charges [1]. The battle's afterlife — memorialised by empire, revived for diplomacy — shows that war memory is rarely neutral; it is curated to serve present needs.

An imperial memory before it became a national one

• The Lancers were Imperial Service Troops of princely states lent to Britain: the valour was Indian, the war aim imperial — Haifa's port secured General Allenby's advance, not Indian self-rule.
• The Teen Murti memorial was raised in colonial Delhi in the 1920s — a display of imperial loyalty erected barely after Jallianwala Bagh and Non-Cooperation.
• Official language still says Indian soldiers "liberated" Haifa [1]; factually, the city passed from Ottoman to British control. Framing, not fact.

Reconstruction for diplomatic ends

• In January 2018, Teen Murti Chowk was renamed Teen Murti Haifa Chowk, where both Prime Ministers jointly paid homage during Netanyahu's visit [2]. A colonial monument was not removed but re-labelled and given a new bilateral role.
• The centenary was marked by an Embassy ceremony in Haifa with an Indian Army delegation under Maj Gen V.D. Dogra [1], anchoring a partnership spanning defence, agriculture and technology [3].
• Selectivity is visible in the omissions: Mesopotamia and East Africa, where Indian troops also served and died, receive no comparable commemoration — the remembered battle is the one with a friendly host.

Where the claim needs qualification

• Diplomatic use is not fabrication. Remembering Haifa also restores the vast, long-forgotten Indian overseas contribution to the First World War.
• Commemoration has not displaced policy: weeks after the 2018 renaming [2], India made its first-ever Prime Ministerial visit to Palestine, and continues to support a sovereign State of Palestine [4] — evidence of de-hyphenation.

Memory here is genuine but curated. The corrective is breadth, not silence: extending centenary-style commemoration to Mesopotamia and East Africa, adding interpretive signage at Teen Murti, and restating the two-state position alongside Haifa Day. India can then honour the soldier fully while naming the empire that sent him.