How to name it | Opinion News, The Indian Express

How to name it | Opinion News, The Indian Express

Written by Krishna Kumar |Updated: December 5, 2018 12:55:02 am

The writer, professor of education at University of Delhi, was director of  NCERT from 2004 to 2010

How to name it

More than a sense of power has fuelled the urge to rename places like Allahabad, Faizabad and Mughalsarai. It is also the impulse to erase a part of heritage.

Why some old names survive and where they live on after they are forced out of official usage are interesting questions to contemplate. (Illustration: C R sasikumar)

If you are fond of changing place names, you may find the resilience of old names quite annoying. Though pushed out of official usage, they tend to linger. If you want to know why, you can’t do better than talk to a common user. In Allahabad, for instance, if you ask a rickshaw puller to take you to the Amar Shahid Chandra Shekhar Azad Park, he is likely to verify your intent by asking, “Company Bagh?” In Delhi, I haven’t met anyone yet who refers to Connaught Circus as Rajiv Chowk. The only user of this new name is the Delhi Metro.