Kasargod villages now adopt communal' names

KOZHIKODE: Kasaragod has been witnessing frequent changes in village names, often on communal lines. The trend is rampant in areas where Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule the roost. Thus, new exotic names such as Hanuman Nagar, Hadad Nagar, Ilyas Nagar, Hameed Mukku and Durga Nagar are adorning the villages erasing the traditional names which were there since time immemorial.

The place where Kasargod Government College stands now was known as “Kunjumaavintady'”(beneath the small tree in Malayalam) till 1957. Some called it as ‘Kunjumaayintady’ triggering the Hindu rightwing organisations to demand a name change. But Muslim groups opposed, and the then education minister Joseph Mundassery came up with a compromise name, ‘Vidyanagar’. Thus Kunjumaavintady changed into Vidyanagar.

Muslim fringe groups protested against the name of the place Kurathiyaduka near Meencha on the ground that Kurathi denotes a Hindu Tulu Theyyam. The other group opposed and the place was renamed to ‘Gandhi Nagar’ after the intervention of district legal service authority. The place near Bekal where people beloning to Kottayar caste resided became Hadad Nagar and the nearby place Ilyas Nagar after Muslim population grew stronger.

“Kasargod is a place where communalisation takes place explicitly. Communal undercurrents in the name changes and rising cases of the moral policing incidents when a boy and girl belonging to different religion speaks marks this trend,” observes Dr C. Balan, former head of history department, Kannur University.

In 2003, when Cherkalam Abdulla was a minister, there was an attempt to change the name of ‘Kettungal’ near Cherkala to ‘Ikbal Nagar’. But a section of IUML with others vehemently opposed the move, and the village kept its name. ‘Hanuman Nagar’, ‘Hameed Mukku’ etc. too came up in different parts of Kasaragod taluk as per the local demands. “Not all name changes have a communal angle,” said IUML leader C.T Ahamed Ali.