The History-phobic Disease of Changing Place Names

 

The History-phobic Disease of Changing Place Names

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

There are many people who claim that India is developing rapidly under, and only because of, the Narendra-Modi-led BJP government. I very strongly dispute this attribution of every good thing happening in India to a political God. Who can better illustrate the way in which political bhakti can lead to a mesmerized view of everything as being the work of "The Leader", than George Orwell in his super-classic "Animal Farm":

"Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as "Napoleon." He was always referred to in formal style as "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," and the pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings' Friend, and the like. In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleon's wisdom the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!" The general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled Comrade Napoleon, which was composed by Minimus and which ran as follows:

Friend of fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on

Fire when I gaze at thy

Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky,

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Thou are the giver of

All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

Every beast great or small

Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all,

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Had I a sucking-pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,

He should have learned to be

Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeak should be

"Comrade Napoleon!"

Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed on the wall of the big barn, at the opposite end from the Seven Commandments. It was surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon, in profile, executed by Squealer in white paint".

 

But I will not waste time in discussing whether or not India's development is the sudden doing of one political party and great Leader, or whether it is a natural continuing process of what has been happening in the last few decades; nor in discussing whether the development has benefitted all sections or only the powerful sections of society. Every person who has any opinion to give on these matters will have his own views and arguments, and discussion and debate is futile.

I will not even bother to discuss the anti-Hindu and anti-Indian-culture acts of the ruling party government, since I have done so in many articles already, and in great detail.

But, as a historian, one thing that has always infuriated and depressed me beyond words is the trend, again so very terrifyingly illustrated by Orwell in his book "Nineteen Eighty Four", of wiping out the records of history in a hundred different ways, the most blatant one being the changing of names of places on jingoistic, pseudo-nationalist and parochial grounds. To a historian, this represents an extremely poisonous kind of history-phobia, wiping out from public memory and record significant past phases of our history, whether good or bad. Not only does this represent a frightening Orwellian kind of mentality (I know it is ironical to have to refer to as "Orwellian" those very things which Orwell so prophetically warned us against rather than recommended, but there is no better term), but it represents countless crores of rupees of wastage of public money involved in the incorporation of these changes into the official machinery.

I have already referred to this history-phobic name-changing disease in earlier articles. Now, as a proud Mumbaikar − proud of the rich historical heritage of my city − I find it galling that this disease is spreading in my beloved Mumbai like an epidemic. In a hundred years, if this satanic trend continues, no place in Mumbai will be recognizable by its historical name, or any of its historical names:

https://www.ndtv.com/mumbai-news/8-mumbai-railway-stations-to-be-renamed-see-full-list-5236887

"Mumbai:

The Maharashtra government will rename eight Mumbai railway stations that have British-era names. The decision was taken at the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday.

The eight railway stations set to be renamed in Mumbai are:

1. Mumbai Central to be named after philanthropist Jagannath Shankar Seth.

2. Curry Road to be renamed Lalbagh.

3. Sandhurst Road will become Dongri.

4. Marine Lines to be named Mumba Devi.

5. Charni Road to become Girgaon.

6. Cotton Green to be known as Kala Chowki.

7. Kings Circle might soon be called Tirthankara Parshvanath.

8. Dockyard Road will be renamed Mazgaon.

Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale has announced that the Maharashtra government has approved his proposal to rename eight railway stations in Mumbai. The MP representing Mumbai South-Central constituency said that the proposal will now be sent to the Centre for approval".

I live in Gamdevi, and my local station is Grant Road. There was a proposal a few years ago to rename Grant Road railway station itself as Gamdevi! Strangely, this grotesque suggestion has not been implemented this time. We can expect it in the next round, or in one of the many next-rounds that will definitely follow in quick succession when cynical politicians want to show some kind of jingoism or pseudo-nationalism.

But what can one expect in a country where history and historical studies are held in utter contempt, and so many people are smugly proud of this disgusting attitude?

 

Appendix added 18-3-2024:

I append a comment on the above article by a reader, and my reply to it:

Comment:

But some questions do arise:
1) Do you not want a de-anglified and Marathified Maharashtra?
2) Do you not want to erase the colonized and slave mindset that people have?
3) Do you not want to "eradicate" Adharma - no matter its shape or form?

Maybe this renaming stuff doesn't appeal to you, however, will a common Marathi person really be disheartened by this renaming of things? I do not think so.

Maharashtra has after all been the गढ़ of Hindutva and decolonization (at least historically. Today it is unfortunately the गढ़ of bollywood, wokeism, islamists, missionaries, hinduphobic mediahouses, schools, and universities, and bhimvaadi propaganda).

I'm sure the common people support these renaming measures. Otherwise there would be a protest just like the protest for reservations and quotas

My reply:

This is a demonstration of what I mean by a contempt for history.
1. A de-anglified and Marathified Maharashtra would be a Maharashtra where people stop speaking, reading and writing in English, stop wearing western clothes, stop eating western food, stop buying western cultural objects, stop aspiring to become NRIs. How does changing place names while becoming de-Marathfied and Anglicized in everything else make Maharashtra de-anglified and de-Marathified? It only obscures history.

2. We Hindus are proud to point out how Hindu-Indian culture is represented all over the world. How would we like it if, for example, all the countries of south-east Asia changed all their names to de-Indianize and southeastasianize their countries: Garuda airlines and Singapore changed to Malay-Indonesian names, all place names of Sanskrit origin changed to names in the local languages, etc.? How would we like it if all Sanskrit-origin place names in Tamilnadu and Andhra were changed to new names with pure Tamil and Telugu etymologies? In a hundred years, no-one would remember, or be able to point out, India's cultural influence, or the spread of Sanskrit, which would be wiped out of historical memory. How does this kind of blanking out of history help anyone, except history-phobic people?

3. Every place in the world has a history. You can create new things and give them new names. You can restore old names of local places which have been changed by invaders (Allahabad to Prayag). You can Marathify de-Marathified names (Bombay to Mumbai). But you cannot appropriate the places built and named by others (whether those builders were good historical figures or bad ones) and give them your own names or the names of people of your liking, thereby blanking out history. Every new ruling dispensation will then keep changing names of everything as per their own whims and prejudices. Is there nothing better and more concrete to do other than blanking out history? The people who built and named places (or railway stations) are a part of history.

Please don't present these political and history-phobic stunts as responses to popular democratic aspirations of people.

Further, we cannot expect Hindus to protest for anything, whether they like the things or not. How many people protest because Hindu temples and institutions are still controlled and exploited by the governments and politicians while Muslim and Christian ones are not? Right and wrong cannot be measured by whether people "like" or fail to "protest" against them. Certainly, I have never heard of "common people" "protesting" against the existing names of these stations.