How the names of streets, cities and places are changed provides clear clues to the government ethos of the time – as far as new names are concerned, changing usage is not that easy.
How the names of streets, cities and places are changed provides clear clues to the government ethos of the time – as far as new names are concerned, changing usage is not that easy.
“Welcome to this city of Delhi, which has been the city of kings and emperors, but which is today the capital of the Republic of India, and I think no king or emperor can welcome you, whose republic citizens of Delhi You’re welcome.
– Jawaharlal Nehru welcoming Queen Elizabeth II 28 January, 1961 for New Delhi. retrieved from Jawahar Lal Nehru, Selected Speeches, Volume FourPublications Division, April 1996.
What do name changes do? Are they a way of ‘correcting’ history? Can history be ‘corrected’? Do they rid people of their way of thinking? Are name changes about ideological mind games in the heads of powerful people who have the power to rename and rename? Finally, do name changes really change the usage?
My history teacher Dilip Simeon read Saadat Hasan Manto’s episodic short story about Partition, “Toba Tek Singh” for many years, just believing it was a mythical place. Much later, while reporting from Islamabad, a dateline in dawn The newspaper distorted my ignorance of reality – Toba Tek Singh had a real place in Pakistan. (Now it is a district.) Several attempts were made to change its name, but Toba Tek Singh would not have it.
Names have a way of sticking to them.
Several years ago, a Congress leader changed the name of the house – Connaught Place in the heart of New Delhi to be called Rajiv Chowk. But Connaught Place is still known as unaffiliated by any other name devoid of history. After the commissioning of the Delhi Metro, a concession was given – the metro station is actually called Rajiv Chowk.
story of delhi
grew up in Delhi, lived through becoming Mother Teresa Crescent of Willingdon Crescent or Cornwallis Road to become Subramaniam Bharti Marg, In 2015, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologically active government at the Centre, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) renamed Aurangzeb Road (named after a ‘bad’ Mughal-Muslim ruler) as APJ Abdul Kalam Road. done. (In the name of a ‘good’ Muslim, the previous BJP government had pushed for the post of President).
But history and the people who made it have a way of living. So, Aurangzeb no longer has a road Delhi is associated with them, but officially survives as a single lane on APJ Abdul Kalam Road. NDMC probably forgot about Lane as it concentrated all its energy on Aurangzeb street,
In Bhopal, a short walk from Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the luxurious new, airport-style Rani Kamalapati Railway Station in November 2021. It is a clean, efficient station with wide platforms and eateries. But there is a problem. Ask an auto driver from Bhopal In order to take you to Rani Kamalapati station, they will find out that you have never been to the city before. The new name given to the railway facility just before the inauguration is not Rani Kamalapati but the language of the name Habibganj station. The confusion is real for the visitor, although some websites help link Habibganj (in parentheses) to Rani Kamalapati.
Behind some of these name changes is a Hindu-majority look at the past. And, it is not a mind game limited to the capital of India. Beyond Habibganj and Kampalati, is the Mughalsarai-Deen Dayal Upadhyay railway junction in Uttar Pradesh. Evidence of an ideological driver for a name change is very hard to ignore.
Now there is a new name change. Kartavya (Duty) Path Trumping Rajpath, the venue of India’s majestic 26 January Republic Day Parade. After independence it was earlier changed from Kingsway to Rajpath. on 8 September, Mr Modi said“Rajpath was for the British Raj, to which the people of India were slaves. The spirit and structure of the Rajpath was also a symbol of slavery. Today its architecture as well as its spirit has changed.”
The word “Raj” in Hindi means “rule” and the fact that right or wrong, Rajpath displayed the full glory of an armed India on Republic Day – self-reliant or otherwise – on an annual basis. No other road, path or route in the country was so privileged.
One can get involved in the issue about the nature of governance in the country, dating back to decades of Congress and now 14 years under the BJP-led government, in which no prime minister or party has done anything to provide more authority to the people. The inclination has not shown, in an era when individual freedom has multiplied in many countries.
ethos of governance
In his speech, Mr. Modi also mentioned the fact that his two-term, eight-year government had abolished several colonial laws to free the country from the point of view of slavery.
The response came from an unexpected quarter. in a letter from prisonUmar Khalid of Jawaharlal Nehru University, formerly of Jawaharlal Nehru University, had this to say, “Recently, there has been much discussion of removing the colonial symbols of slavery. Are up in arms against the political opposition. Do people see any similarity between the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) – under which we are imprisoned – and the Rowlatt Act, which was used by the British against our freedom fighters did?”
If Congress made UAPA then BJP adopted it more strictly. People like Umar Khalid, who led the ideological fight against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), are paying the price for the protest.
So, we now have Janpath (“the way of the people”) crossing the Kartavya Path in New Delhi along Man Singh Road and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg.
But, perhaps, the name of the most important road that should be remembered not only by India and Indians but by all those who work along it – Shanti (Peace) Path – is in news a few kilometers away from all roads in Delhi.