India honors, immortalizes Philippine hero Jose Rizal with a monument in New Delhi

Jose Rizal, a national hero of the Philippines, was accorded honor by the Indians with a monument right at the heart of the capital of the world’s most populous country, India.

The monument, immortalizing Rizal with a bust, was built at the Jesus and Mary College of the University of Delhi. This prestigious school stands on a road that honors him: the Jose Rizal Marg (Jose Rizal Street), named after him in 2001.

The monument’s inauguration on March 24 of this year further strengthens the 75-year-old diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The unveiling of the bust was graced by Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique A. Manalo and Indian Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs Jaideep Mazumdar, who also formerly served as Indian Ambassador to the Philippines.

In his address to the audience, Manalo mentioned the bust of Mahatma Gandhi, the Great Soul, in Manila, unveiled in 2019 by former Indian President Ram Nath Kovind.

Manalo referred to Rizal and Gandhi’s busts as “lustrous beacons of the enduring friendship and solidarity between our countries.”

Manalo also invited the two counties to “honor their shared legacies, not only by these physical altars of veneration. We hope that the event also touches off a thirst for contemporary scholarship on their lives and works and on broader Philippine Studies and Indian Studies.”

The Philippines honors and immortalizes Gandhi with a monument built at the Center for Peace Education of the Miriam College on Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City.

Gandhi’s monument in the Philippines marked the 70th year of diplomatic relations between the two countries established in 1949. On July 11, 1952, the Philippines and India penned a Treaty of Friendship. Both Rizal and Gandhi were polyglots.

Rizal, an ophthalmologist, writer, and polymath, used his pen to spark a revolution by Filipinos against the Spanish colonial power. The Spanish ruled in the Philippines for more than 300 years.

The Spanish colonial government charged him with rebellion after the Philippine Revolution broke out. His writings inspired the uprising against the colonial power. His famous novels are Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo.

Rizal, who had Spanish blood himself, was executed by the Spanish colonial government by a firing squad of Filipino soldiers of the Spanish Army on December 30, 1896. A squad of Spanish soldiers was on guard, ready to shoot the squad of Filipino soldiers if they did not fire at Rizal.

The Filipino revolutionaries, led by Andres Bonifacio, also regarded as a national hero of the Philippines, continued the struggle for independence from the colonial power after Rizal’s death. The Filipinos declared independence from Spain in 1898.

However, Spain sold the Philippines to the Americans for $20 million. The United States quickly colonized the nation following the August 13, 1898, Mock Battle of Manila. The Spanish forces surrendered to the Americans, beginning another occupation that lasted until 1946. The one-day battle was a sham, staged to demonstrate that Spain lost the Philippines to the Americans in a fight. 

During the Commonwealth of the Philippines under the Americans, the country was occupied by the Japanese from 1942 to 1946 until their defeat by the combined forces of Filipino guerillas and American forces.

Rizal’s monument in New Delhi is the first public memorial in his honor in South Asia outside the Philippines.