WHAT’S IN A NAME

Restoring names of institutions and places

INTRODUCTION

“WHAT’S IN A NAME? THAT WHICH WE CALL A ROSE BY ANY

OPTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS SWEET” It means A rose, even if it is
called by something else, would smell just as sweet. 1 the name of places and
institutions may or may not be linked with their history, culture, identity, and pride
but it never improve the standard of living of the people belonging from that place
or institution . Restoring of name of places and institutions in name of restoring of
our history, culture, identity, and pride is nothing less than a political move and try
to create a majority strong vote bank in which the try to covey the message that
minority have made no contribution to India’s history, culture, identity, and pride.

We are not recovering the lost history, culture, identity, and pride by changing the
name of places and institutions and it is only a n ideological construct as for a long
time, we have enriched with nostalgia about India that was taken from us 1200
years ago. We have been told from time to time and we also believe that Bharat
was once a “Sone ki Chidiya(golden bird)’’ and our golden age was destroyed with
the coming of Muslim invader and they started to break what was created, distort
them, or simply defile them by giving them new their names . it has become the
part of our subconscious mind that Muslims came and destroy our history, culture
through defiling our temple like Ram Mandir and created their own monument like
Babri Masjid , destroyed our identity mass conversion like we take a comfort in to
so called fact that nearly 95% of Muslim in India were originally Hindus who are
letter converted , and it is therefore possible to restore them to their Hinduness. It is
the same belief that plays out in the quest to rename the places and institutions .

1
(QUOTE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, CA. 1600)
What is being told in the defense of capturing the glory of the past is itself full of
flaw . this is clear when a nativist name like Gurugaon was changes to
GURUGRAM. The defense used for the change was a myth that Guru gram was
school of Dronacharya. We celebrated it in the name of restoring of our history but
no question raised about why the Dronocharya, who had disabled his student,
Ekalavya, by cutting his thumb needed to be celebrated. We are not exactly
recovering our lost history by changing the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj ,
because the Hindu poet BODHISATTVA wrote , there never was a prayag that
claim to be restoring now.

The need for mandatory public consultation when government seeks to rename a
place and institutions, to understand, this is essential to examine the legal
instruments which confer this power

‘Land’ is an entry in the state list of the seventh schedule in the Constitution. A
related aspect of which is to rename sections of land (cities, towns, railway stations
etc. ) thus vests in the states. States exercise this power through their revenue
legislation. Although the proviso to the section not provides for mandatory public
consolations but limitations imposed by MHA guidelines which came in 1953 and
again updated in 2005 which contains five directions , in which 2nd direction “…
the names of villages etc having a historical connection should not be changed
as far as possible .”https://thewire.in/law/the-law-of-renaming-mandatory-
public-consultation

Since these directions serve the critical public functions of protecting tradition
and historical significance, it is impossible to give them fullest effect without
conducting a public consultation. For instance, it is not possible to know whether
“people have got used to” a name, or whether the name has a “historical
connection” without seeking the opinion of or inviting objections from local
residents.
Additionally, with provisions like Section 4(1)(c) 2 of the RTI Act in place, it is
mandatory for

“every public authority” to “publish all relevant facts while formulating

important policies or announcing the decisions which affect public”3

Even with the MHA guidelines in place, state government like Utter Pradesh did
not even submit the proposal to MHA before Allahabad was renamed. Until a court
sets this aside for non compliance with the mandatory procedure, states can
proceed unhindered with their agenda .

WHAT’S IN A (Re)NAME?

Commemorate contemporary icons like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and restoring our
history, culture, identity , and pride we can create new land marks and institutions
in their names. Recycling old once is such a cheap way of honoring someone or
restoring our history, because nomenclature is an emotive issue when we use any
name for long time then we are creating our life according to that name like so
many stories are linked though that . by changing the name of any place like in
Utter Pradesh, Mughalsarai railway station, has recently become Deen Dayal
Upadhyaya junction but local people and scooterwallahs and texi drivers continue
to identify it by its original name i.e. mughalsarai railway station.

CONCLUSION

The new culture of rename of our places and institutions in name of restoring our
lost history, culture, identity and pride is nothing about real history rather it is only
a political move of our govt. to divert the real issue of our society like poverty,
unemployment, inequality in education, crumbling health sector etc….

The main concern about this new culture of renaming or our places is that majority
of people accepting and also celebrated it , because maximum the name changed
was on earlier on Muslim person or verbally it sound like Urdu word, and it is in
our subconscious mind that it is the only Muslim invaders who kept us under
different forms of slavery for more than 1000 years and destroyed our history,
2
https://rti.gov.in/
3
https://thewire.in/law/the-law-of-renaming-mandatory-public-consultation
culture, identity and not give a single positive thing to India, which is factually
wrong as we know India’s top revenue generating monuments were built by
Muslim leaders . I am not try to convey that the name change by Muslim leader is
not wrong , that is also wrong when they impose their name on our society by
coercion but what about rename of that place without any consolation with public
it is also wrong.

It is very simple when we say that we have to preserve our history, culture,
identity then renaming of place and institutions never helps as we know Gupta
period is referred as SWARNA YUG (golden period) it is not due to name of that
place it is due to the work done by the ruler of that time so we have to also focus
on that like we have to increase proliferation in free or accessible education or
health system eradicating poverty , enabling the rule of law not rule of man ,
guarantee the fundamental rights of people , create better facility for business.
when we focus on eradiating of social problem above stated then only in reality we
restore our past like golden period, present and future also. As for example govt.
want to change the name of Aligarh university to Harigarh university what can
govt. can do they can developed the university at world level like Oxford , create
employment , eradicate poverty, increase social peace between each community .
this is real restoration of our history , culture and identity.

NAME – ANUJ RAJ, B.A.LLB , 2ND YEAR

COLLEGE – CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,MITHAPUR

PATNA