Importance of the name-change gambit in Indian politics

It is a pity that Thackeray succumbed to the same lazy politics of name change that so many politicians indulge in today

In its dying moments last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of Maharashtra, headed by then chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, approved the renaming of two places — Aurangabad was changed to Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad to Dharashiva. It also named the Navi Mumbai Airport after late political leader and land rights activist DB Patil.

The move had a touch of the absurd about it. Here was a government which was teetering on the brink of a collapse brought on by the rebellion of as many as 39 Shiv Sena MLAs under the leadership of rebel-in-chief Eknath Shinde. The BJP, to whom the deserters had evidently plighted their troth, was waiting in the wings to help Shinde and co-make their lunge for power. And all Uddhav Thackeray did as he went down, the only concrete response he had against the torpedoing of his government, was to rename two cities and christen an airport.

Did Thackeray and his small band of still loyal MLAs feel that this would redeem him in the eyes of those who had lost faith in him? Did they think that the act of replacing two Muslim place names with Hindu ones would counter the charge that he had forsaken the Shiv Sena's Hindutva ideals?

Also read: MVA need not take credit for Aurangabad renaming, says Bhagwat Karad

It is a pity that Thackeray, who conducted himself with uncommon grace and dignity in the midst of his ignominious ouster, succumbed to the same lazy politics of name change that so many politicians indulge in today. In Thackeray's case, the gesture was doubly unfortunate. First, it seemed like a pathetic afterthought, a belated, half-hearted attempt to underscore his Hindutva street cred. And second, after a markedly non-communal tenure, it was rather sad to see him take a stab at playing the communal card. As he stood amidst the wreckage of his chief ministership, it made Uddhav Thackeray seem even more uncertain of what he stands for.

But, wait. Is the name-change mantra really such a lazy gambit? It has, of course, become quite a leitmotif of India's current political scene. Politicians seem convinced that it's the simplest and quickest way to make an ideological statement and be a (Hindu) crowd-pleaser. There is the heavy-hitting stuff like bulldozers and burqa bans that require considerable effort to put into motion. But you also need some easy-breezy strategies to blow the majoritarian bugle, and switching Islamic-sounding place names to Hindu ones fits the bill. There is, indeed, some cost to the exchequer in effecting these changes, but, hey, who cares about that when the political gains are supposedly significant?

Last week, Prime Minister Modi, who was in Hyderabad for the BJP's national executive meet, referred to the city as 'Bhagyanagar', indicating that his party would push for changing its name and is likely to make it a poll promise in the run-up to the Telangana Assembly elections in 2023. The PM's broadsides against chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's government made it clear that the BJP is getting ready to go into next year's elections with all guns blazing. Needless to say, the name-change mantra will be chanted often as part of the party's promised land of achchhe din for the state.

To be sure, the BJP is not the first political entity in India to make a statement by changing place names. But, earlier, the switch was mainly a reversal — from colonial corruptions of names back to the local monikers. And the motive was nativist, rather than religious.

Hence, Bombay was changed to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, Trivandrum to (it has to be said, the far less easy to pronounce) Thiruvananthapuram, and many others. Indeed, several countries around the world have similarly jettisoned their names given by Western powers and replaced them with those that are more in line with their cultural and linguistic traditions — Persia became Iran, Burma changed to Myanmar, Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, and so on. Last month, the UN recognised Turkey's wish to be renamed Türkiye, which is what the locals call their country.

What is remarkable about the Hindu nationalist groups' name-change mantra, however, is that it often has little or no historical, cultural or linguistic foundation. It is driven by a single agenda, which is to wipe out Muslim names. 'Bhagyanagar', the BJP's choice for Hyderabad, for example, stands on shaky ground. Legend has it that Quli Qutb Shah, the 16th-century ruler who founded Hyderabad, was in love with a Hindu woman called Bhagmati and initially named the city Bhagnagar in her honour. But historians are divided on whether the legend has a factual basis.

There is another springboard for the proposed name change — a makeshift Bhagyalakshmi temple that abuts the Charminar monument. Although the Archaeological Survey of India has termed it an illegal structure, and although it came up only in the 1960s, BJP leaders such as Yogi Adityanath and others are keen on renaming Hyderabad after the said deity.

Needless to say, the fetish for replacing Muslim place names with Hindu ones is part of the BJP's Hindu nationalist agenda. But when BJP leaders make the name-change mantra part of a poll campaign as well, clearly, they believe that it resonates with the people, that a significant number of them will be gratified if their cities bear Hindu names, and that this is one quick way of appealing to them.

Most citizens of erstwhile Allahabad probably never realised that they needed to junk that name for something like Prayagraj; most people passing through Mughalserai station probably never chafed against it and wished that it be rechristened after a Hindutva icon like Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

But how does that matter? Make people aware of a "wrong", instruct them about the need to set things "right", and then be seen to deliver the solution. And, hey presto, you soon have them singing from the same hymn book, and rooting for the party and the leaders who scripted it.

This is exactly how you carry out the ideological conversion of a people. And these are the moves that energise and enthuse those that are already converted. Too bad that Uddhav Thackeray eschewed the strategy until the last day of his chief ministership of Maharashtra.

(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.