Naming nation, cities, roads, institutions in the country

Despite eight long decades of country’s independence, unfortunately the country is still named differently as India and Bharat. It is good that in G-20 summit in New Delhi, only Bharat was used as official name of the country. Other countries like Ceylon and Burma abandoned their British-given names after achieving independence renamed their countries like Shrilanka and Mayanmar. Constitution should be amended so that India may be known only as Bharat. Uttar Pradesh state-assembly even passed an unanimous resolution in this regard on 03.08.2004 which is yet to be endorsed by Bharatiya Parliament.

Even abbreviated VT of ‘Victoria Territory” on Planes of Bharat should be asked to be changed as BH as abbreviated form of “Bharat” by making official request to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Likewise name of Victoria Memorial in Kolkata should be changed to some name after some freedom-fighter of Bengali origin like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Even distorted spelling of ‘Delhi’ in form of British legacy should be restored to the original ‘Dehli’ which means ‘Entrance’ in the manner is done by many other countries like ‘Dhaka’, ‘Beijing’, ‘Myanmar’ etc by Bangladesh, China and Burma according to actual pronunciation. There has been a trend of gradual renaming of cities and states. There should be a thorough look to names of all states and cities of the country, and required renaming should be done in one go. It is unfortunate that despite a unanimous resolution having been passed by West Bengal state-assembly on 26.07.2018 still remains to be implemented.

There are as many as 32 Rampurs in the country creating great confusion even to postal-department. All such cities with common names should be renamed. Erstwhile Mughal Emperors in the country distorted names of many cities in the country by giving many cities Islamic names which all should be changed. Likewise, there are too many Arjun Nagars and Krishna Markets in Delhi. Further there are similarly named colonies like Pratap Nagar and Rana Pratap Bagh causing confusion to everyone. Duplicate naming should be done away by giving new names to roads, colonies, markets and other places having similar or same names.

System of naming colonies and roads inside them should be named like in Defence Colony and Chanakyapuri (New Delhi) where streets are named in tune with name of the colony. Every effort should be made for naming in Indian languages avoiding use of English.

It had been a wrong practice everywhere in India with ruling party in a state flooding the complete state with names of roads and institutions after their favourites. System should be to achieve unanimity and consensus with opposition parties in naming roads and institutions. With Delhi High Court once having given nod to new system of polls for Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), there was a haste in renaming roads and streets according to requirements of decision-taking political rulers before notification for MCD polls was issued, without proper deliberations. It may be recalled that such renaming of a road after Sardar Shobhasingh had to be later reversed when members of public objected to such renaming. Renaming of historical Chandni Chowk after a former Deputy Mayor of the city was also reversed after public protests.

It has been a normal practice that ruling parties decides names for roads and institutions without trying for unanimity and consensus with opposition-parties. All India Congress Committee (AICC) had to shift its main gate of new headquarters from Deendayal Upadhyaya Marg to Kotla Marg because AICC never wanted its postal-address to be linked with name of the then President of Bhartiya Jansangh. Likewise media-reports once reported about a function organised by the then Congress-ruled Raipur (Chhatisgarh) civic-body to rename an important city-road Rajiv Gandhi Marg as Shyamacharan Shukla Marg after name of former Chief Minister from Congress having been cancelled at last moment even though huge amount of public-money was already spent on full-page newspaper-advertisements for the highly-publicised event which actually did not happen. It depicts high-level rivalry amongst different factions of Madhya Pradesh Congress to the extent that some heavyweight Congressmen dared even to rename road earlier named after Congress’s former Prime Minister. Politics apart, action is a must against concerned ones having wasted public-money for their photo-publicity through costly media-publicity for an event which later did not take place. System should be to name roads, institutions and other public place in consensus of members of ruling and opposition in legislature or in civic bodies. Former West Bengal government had to take back its proposal to rename ‘Indira Bhawan’ in Kolkatta as ‘Kavi Nazrul Bhawan’ which was named after former Prime Minister for Indira Gandhi having led nation to victory in 1971-Indo Pak war making Bangladesh a sovereign nation.

It is not proper that successive governments of other parties may change names of government-property in such manner. To avoid any such confrontation, system should be to name any government property (including institutions, roads) etc built from public-exchequer only with consensus between political rulers and their counter-parts on opposition-benches.  It will also prevent wrong practice everywhere in India with ruling parties in various states flooding the complete state with names of roads and institutions after their favourites. Even erection of statues and memorials should also be decided by consensus between ruling and main opposition party.

Congress had no right to criticise BJP-controlled Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for naming its new Civic Centre building after name of BJP’s political mentor Shyama Prasad Mukerji, founder-President of Bhartiya Jansangh. It has been a normal practice, though improper, that ruling political party at MCD decides names for roads and institutions without trying for unanimity and consensus with opposition-parties. It will be interesting in case of Congress regaining power in MCD that it will have its headquarters in a building named after a person it never respected. Even All India Congress Committee had to shift its main gate of new headquarters from Deendayal Upadhyaya Marg to Kotla Marg because the party never wanted its postal-address to be linked with name of another President of Bhartiya Jansangh.

Famous cities like Indraprastha, Hastinapur should be restored on Bharat map. It is significant that even Islamic country Pakistan did not change name of its prominent city Lahore which is accepted by Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) in its literature as being named after Luv, the son of legendary Lord Rama since Luv had established the city.

North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) since merged in unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) once rightly decided to auction names of streets and other public places after proper screening, on lines of auction of VVIP numbers of cars. Step enriched municipal body with extra funds to be utilised for city’s needs. It is also time that modification and renaming may be done by municipal bodies especially New Delhi Municipal Council in case of some roads/streets. For example, monarchy-signs of ‘Rajmata’ and ‘Shrimant’ in ‘Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Marg’ and ‘Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Marg’ should be removed. After all ‘Ashok Road’, ‘Prithviraj Road’ etc named after former kings do not have monarchy pre-fix of ‘Samrat’ in name of popular pre-fixes as argued by New Delhi Municipal Council.

Nothing could be more senseless to even think of renaming Chandni Chowk, heart of India capital city Delhi after Sachin Tendulkar that too when system allows any naming only posthumously.  Earlier also a similar move to name historical bazaar of ancient era after a former Deputy Mayor of the city had to be reversed after public protests. Even sign-boards on the road had to be immediately repainted as ‘Chandni Chowk’.

Logical and justified demand of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) for renaming prime road of Lutyen’s zone in New Delhi from Aurangzeb Road to Guru Tegbahadur Marg should be accepted. It was cruel emperor Aurangzeb who ordered killing of great martyr Guru Tegbahadur who sacrificed his life to protect right of Kashmiri Pandits. Need is to highlight those guilty ones who were instrumental in naming capital’s prime road after the killer Aurengzeb. Earlier regime named several other national icons after cruel Aurengzeb in a post-independence era like Air India plane.

NDMC in an earlier RTI response admitted that ‘Sansad Marg’ is the only name for the road in New Delhi which is called ‘Parliament Street’ by several public-authorities in translated version, while literature-rules do not allow popular nouns including names of roads to be translated. Taking a U-turn on its earlier stand, NDMC justified dual naming including as ‘Parliament Street’ as being a historical fact with such naming being more than a century old. Historical fact remains that Parliament came into existence only after India became republic in the year 1950, and as such the name Parliament Street could not exist before any such date. NDMC has itself changed names of many historical places and roads like of Connaught Place, King’s Way, Queen’s Way, Curzon Road etc after independence. All roads in Delhi should be known as Marg in place of Road like exists system in Kolkata where all roads are known as Sarni and Salai in Chennai.

Lok Nayak Hospital (Delhi), Delhi-government hospital formerly named by Janta Party government in the year 1977 (post-emergency) as Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain Hospital has been named simply as Lok Nayak Hospital. Having too long names of states, roads and institutions is meaningless. People rename these in abbreviated names like (now) Lok Nayak Hospital was earlier popularly known as LNJP Hospital with no one knowing that this hospital was named after Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain Hospital. Even it will be more appropriate that name of the hospital may be re-written as Loknayak (single word) Hospital rather than Lok Nayak Hospital so that further abbreviation may not be possible. There are many such cases like Uttar Pradesh written as UP, Kasturba Gandhi Marg as KG Marg etc. Union and state governments should make study-teams for having a detailed report on names with more than one word. All naming should be one-worded to eliminate all chances of replacing the real names by abbreviated names.

Office of the then (caretaker) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee after NDA losing Lok Sabha elections in the year 2004 at a supersonic speed managed to get number of government-bungalow changed from 8 to 6A with files moving and signed by dozens of officials just within a couple of days perhaps due to belief in numerology. RTI response revealed that firstly it was desired to get bungalow-number to be changed to lucky 7. But when it was pointed out that bungalow-number 7 already existed on other side of the road as per practice of having odd and even numbered bungalow-numbers on two opposite sides of the road in Leyton’s zone of New Delhi, an over-writing was done in communication from Prime Minister’s Office desiring this bungalow to be re-numbered as 6A and then allotted to Atal Bihari Vajpayee as his post-retirement government-accommodation. Unfortunately bungalow still remains to be numbered as 6-A rather than 8. Is such facility to get house-number changed according to personal desire available to commoners. If not, such a royal privilege available to political rulers must be done away with bungalow number 6A Krishna Menon Marg (New Delhi) to be now re-numbered as 8.