Stuck in idolatry

So has the Aam Aadmi Party also climbed on the “rewriting history” bandwagon? You would think so because the change of name from Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road was first announced by Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s agitator-in-chief (AIC) and chief minister.

But digging slightly deeper shows that the AIC and chief minister was only doing what he does best, which is to seize the moment (also called opportunism by people on the other side). Actually it was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s east Delhi MP Maheish Girri (who — wild guess — believes in numerology), who sent a petition to the New Delhi Municipal Council requesting the name change, and hearing of its decision, Mr Kejriwal jumped at the chance to take the credit for himself.

Should that be called “credit” though? The renaming of streets and institutions has become so widespread that it should be notified as an epidemic against which we should all be inoculated. The home ministry did issue guidelines some 40 years ago to guard against this disease, saying that names of existing roads should not be changed; only new roads, or old roads without official names, should be freshly named.

Even that needs a caveat: sometimes places take on names by an undeclared, unofficial and unorganised process, which is nevertheless sanctified by universal usage. A good case in point is Mumbai’s busy intersection everyone still calls Kemps’ Corner. It thus got named because a popular chemist called Kemps dispensed medicine there; the store moved to the Taj Mahal hotel nearly 50 years ago and now has disappeared from there too. No matter: everyone knows it as Kemps’ Corner. (If this had been in Delhi, it would immediately be abbreviated to “KC” but Mumbaikars aren’t given to such laziness.)

Similarly, whatever their official names might be, people call — and will continue calling — Mumbai’s domestic and international airports by their locations: Santa Cruz and Sahar airports, respectively. Incidentally, one of Mumbai’s hippest suburbs is called Bandra which comes from the Marathi word vandre that stands for the monkeys which proliferated in the jungle that was once there. More recently, sycophantic Congressmen eagerly showed off their loyalty to “the family” by christening Mumbai’s newest landmark as the Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link. Everyone calls it the Worli Sea Link.

Places renamed due to rampant nationalism suffer the same fate: Flora Fountain is still “Fountain” to everyone, not Hutatma Chowk; the Unesco Heritage protected railway terminal is still VT (Victoria Terminus) and not CST (Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus); the Prince of Wales Museum is still that, and not Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. This does not imply any disrespect for Shivaji at all, nor any particular affection for British royalty: it’s just that people get used to the name of a place, and familiarity, in these cases, breeds comfort.

The renaming of Aurangzeb Marg, though, has other connotations. Mr Kejriwal may have been quick to embrace the change because replacing one Muslim name with another may absolve him of any communal motives, but the fact remains that the move came from a BJP MP, and the move is consistent with the party’s unabashed attempts to rewrite history.

Among Muslim rulers, Aurangzeb has always been a controversial figure. He was, by and large, extremely intolerant and his zeal to impose Islamic rule was probably the strongest among Muslim rulers. He demolished temples and fought against the Marathas. On the other hand, he was also responsible for preserving important temples like Chitrakoot and Mahakali temples. History tells us that Chhatrapati Sambhaji, Shivaji’s eldest son, as a young man became a sardar of the Mughal court under Aurangzeb and fought along the Mughals against the Bijapur Sultanate; it also tells us that later Sambhaji gave shelter to a son of Aurangzeb, who was fighting against his father; and that in the end, Aurangzeb captured, tortured and executed him…

These convolutions in our history are complicated and understood only by a study of the political alliances of that time. Looked at objectively, Aurangzeb was someone we could have done without, but even if he was cruel and fanatical, can we wish him away? Can history be erased? Another important point to note is that the road in Delhi was not named by the Mughal emperor by diktat in his lifetime, but by the government of free India after Independence. Presumably, this was after due deliberation and after weighing the pros and cons of Aurangzeb’s place in our history. Will every government that comes into power do its own evaluation of history? Today Aurangzeb, tomorrow no Aurangzeb. Today Nehru, tomorrow no Nehru. Today Deendayal Upadhyay, tomorrow no Deendayal Upadhyay…

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was without doubt our most popular President, a people’s head of state if ever there was one, and a useful icon for science in a country where science is generally relegated to the background. There is no doubt that his memory should be honoured. But does that have to be done at the expense of our history? It’s a ridiculous proposition, an equation which only hurts us as a nation.

The only way out is to rein in our national obsession with idolatry: Chandni Chowk has a resonance which will be lost if it is renamed after a person. It was designed and established by Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan’s favourite daughter, but luckily it was not named after her (however nice the name is), but after the moonlight that shimmered in the pool of water at its centre. Similarly, would Flora Fountain have the same ring if it was called the Frere Fountain?

That was to be the original name after Sir Bartle Frere, governor of Bombay at that time, much respected for the number of great public buildings that came up due to his progressive outlook. Instead it was named after Flora, the mythical Roman goddess of flowers and spring, whose statue is the centrepiece of the square. The romantic gestures responsible for naming Delhi and Mumbai’s most prominent sites are rare, but wouldn’t we be enriched if there were more of them?

That could easily be so if we followed a simple idea. Every time a major project comes up, like the Worli-Bandra Sea Link, we should hold a national contest to select the best name for it. If everyone could enter, we would have an embarrassment of riches to choose from. It won’t happen because we are a country so stuck in idolatry that we must create new idols every day.

The writer is a senior journalist