Daily Times

The Hindu nationalist government of Utter Pradesh in India led by hardliner Yogi Adityanath stirred quite a controversy when it officially announced that it was renaming the city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh province to ‘Prayagraj’. On one hand the announcement on Tuesday was met with celebrations by a section of supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But the UP government’s move has evoked sharp reactions by Indian progressive voices including Justice Markandey Katju, former Supreme Court judge who earlier served as the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court. Katju took to twitter took to congratulate Yogi Adityanath, the hardliner UP chief minister. Going a step further, he even released a list of 30 Indian cities, whose names, he stressed sarcastically, must be changed. He urged the UP government and the Central government to change the names of cities named after Mughal-era rulers. In a series of tweets, Katju however declared that “we Allahabadis will continue calling it Allahabad, come what may.” Other moderate voices from India include historian Syed Irfan Habib, who tweeted: ‘Absolutely, they just do not want to change the name of Allahabad but are committed to kill the social harmony, they are not concerned either with history or religion as they vandalize both.

What’s alarming is that the move might encourage extremist voices in an already intolerant environment in India

The main concern is present politics, many of us can see through that.” Another tweet by Habib said, “It is a dangerous precedent, has nothing to do with history or religion. Allahabad and Prayag have existed together for centuries. There was no popular demand from the people of the city or elsewhere to change the name. More urgent issues waiting for attention.” Journalist Seemi Pasha also took to twitter to voice her displeasure with the move: “What purpose will changing the name of the city serve? Will the people of the city have better infrastructure, more jobs?? The name has been changed because Yogi didn’t like the ‘Allah’ in #Allahabad. We can’t pretend to be so naïve.” However, the move is being celebrated by those claiming that the change in the city’s name is not meant to stir anti-Muslim sentiments but ‘a return to roots’. The state cabinet in UP announced that Prayagra, harkens back to the city’s ancient appellation, Prayag, before it was changed by Mughal-era rulers in the late 16th century. Prayag in Sanskrit means place for sacrifice, in reference to the Hindu belief that the creator of the universe, Brahma, made his first offering at the area in the city where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet. The Uttar Pradesh health minister, Siddharth Nath Singh, told local media: “The city used to be known as Prayagraj since the beginning.

To those who are opposing the decision, how would you feel if the name your parents gave you was to be changed?” The city, about 400 miles (650km) south-east of the Indian capital, Delhi, is the ancestral home of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which has produced three Indian prime ministers, including the country’s first, Jawarharlal Nehru. The renaming of the city has hogged headlines in the international media as well. A leading British Daily, The Guardian in its report titled, Hindu nationalist-led state changes Muslim name of Indian city, stated: “An Indian city in a state led by a hardcore Hindu nationalist preacher accused of instigating violence against Muslims has had its Muslim name changed to one with Hindu associations.” The controversy has also reached across the border with fundamental voices echoing the sentiment by suggesting that the Pakistani government take steps to change names of places like like ‘Toba Tek Singh’. The chant for now has only been taken up by fundamental voives, with moderate ones urging caution. Whatever turns the controversy takes, one thing is for sure that for now the answer to the question, ‘what’s in a name’ is ‘quite a lot’.

Published in Daily Times, October 20^th 2018.