HYDERABAD: The BJP appears to have opened another front in its battle to gain power in Telangana by just dropping an ‘M’ from Karimnagar.
In the BJP's full page advertisement issued in several newspapers in Telangana, marking the end of BJP Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar's Praja Sangrama Yatra on Thursday, Karimnagar was misspelled as Karinagar.
Initially, the BJP became a subject of mockery for its inability to spell a name correctly. Journalist circles made fun of the party that seeks to capture power in Telangana. But very soon, realisation dawned upon them that misspelling was a deliberate attempt by the BJP to avoid using a word that includes Karim. They felt that the dropping of the ‘M’ from Karimnagar was deliberate as well as symbolic.
Through its advertisement, the BJP appears to have declared its intent to tweak the spelling of Karimnagar to call it Karinagar. Kari is a Sanskrit word for elephant. While the BJP did not restore the name of Ahmedabad as Karnavati, many people call it Amdavad, making it sound less Arabic.
Reacting to the misspelling, a resident of Karimnagar said, "Our original village is in undivided Karimnagar district. My father, who was illiterate, and many others in the village used to call it Karinagar only in their conversation. Even now, the aged people call it Karinagar only."
While some journalists had drawn attention to the use of Karimnagar for official purposes, the BJP's intention appears to be clear — that it wants to shed the names given by the Bahmani and Asaf Jahi (Nizam) rulers.
On November 29, Deccan Chronicle reported that the BJP intends to strip many places of their Arabic sounding names. "The names of the current cities are under serious consideration for restoring them to their historic names, such as Karinagaram for Karimnagar, Palamuru for Mahbubnagar," said Bandi Sanjay in Bhainsa.
RENAMING GAME
The tendency of rulers to rename cities or villagers to reflect their ideological leanings is not a new phenomenon. Delhi, originally Indraprastha, was renamed multiple times.
Initially called Elgandala, the town in northern Telangana was renamed after himself by Syed Karimuddin, the in-charge of Elgandal fort, on April 10, 1905. Previously, it was called Bahudhanyapuram, Tellakandua and Veligandula.
Over thousands of years, the names of thousands of places were changed. If Hindu kings or feudal lords named places after gods, saints or their family members, Muslim rulers renamed them to reflect Islamic heritage. The British spelled them in whatever manner they could pronounce native words, giving them altogether different names.
The practice continued even after India became a republic — under the Congress' domination at the Centre — to shed names that sounded less Indian (and more English). So Madras became Chennai, Bombay became Mumbai, Calcutta turned Kolkata and Bangalore became Bengaluru.
After the BJP gained political currency, it began renaming places which sounded less Hindu or native (and more Arabic). Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh has become Prayagraj, Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh is Narmadapuram, Amin (Haryana) is Abhimanyupur, and Mustafabad (Haryana) is Saraswati Nagar. It promised to rename Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar, if it comes to power in Telangana.
As promised, BJP Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay seems to have made good on his promise starting with his home town Karimnagar, err Karinagar!
