A shoddy imposition of Nehruvian follies in history onto the seat of one of the great powers of Indian civilization: Kalinga. The Ashokan war was just a tiny blip in the long history of Kalinga. If they are building fancy monuments, why not build things that celebrate Kalinga?
https://twitter.com/tiwary02/status/1373159530649948164
By the way, Xuan Zhang doesn’t mention the Kalinga war when he was describing Kalinga in his travel memoirs. He was a Buddhist pilgrim. He recounts all sorts of tales and historical accounts that were important for Buddhism. But the Kalinga war doesn’t appear. It’s a modern myth.
The whole myth about Ashoka’s repentance after Kalinga war was cooked up after some inscriptions were deciphered haphazardly during British Raj. It’s a filmsy incomplete history that was imposed on India by a modern emperor who saw himself as the reincarnation of Ashoka: Nehru.
This is why the fuss about Ashoka in every Indian state activity post independence. They even made an ugly Ashoka hotel. Now there is an Ashoka university. There are of course stupid Bollywood movies on Ashoka. The whole thing is an elaborate myth cooked up in the colonial era.
This is what Xuan Zhang writes about Kalinga. By the way, the translator was some British scholar. I am not sure if the identification of the king who laid down the Stupa near the Kalingan capital with “Aśōka Rāja” is accurate. The Chinese original text must be checked again. 
The story that Xuan Zhang decides to narrate about Kalinga is how the people were apparently cursed by a Rishi and suffered great losses in population and prosperity. I couldn’t place this within any story from the Hindu Purānas. If anybody has an idea, please let me know.
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