This story is from November 12, 2018

Six facts on the city renaming spree

Six facts on the city renaming spree
Different reasons to change name
Recently, BJP run state governments have been on a name changing spree. In Uttar Pradesh, Allahabad is to become Prayagraj while Faizabad district will be Ayodhya district. Haryana decided Gurgaon should be Gurugram. While renaming for political purposes was not uncommon even in the past, this scale of ‘religious’ renaming is been unprecedented.
For instance, Ismail Khurd village in Rajasthan is now Pichanwa Khurd while the new name for Miyon ka Bara is Mahesh Nagar.
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My name is better than yours
Uttar Pradesh is not unacquainted to name changes with change in political regimes. In 2012, the Samajwadi Party government under Akhilesh Yadav renamed eight districts earlier named by Mayawati. Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar became Amethi, while Ramabai Nagar was rechristened as Kanpur Dehat. Similarly Bheem Nagar, Prabuddha Nagar and Panchseel Nagar were renamed as Sambhal, Shamli and Hapur respectively. Kanshiram Nagar was renamed as Kasganj while Jyotiba Phule Nagar became Amroha. The most interesting is the case of Hathras

The curious case of Hathras
How can you tell who is in power in UP? Look at what a certain district in Western UP is officially called. If it’s Hathras, it must be the SP or BJP in power, if it’s Mahamaya Nagar, behenji is in the saddle. In 1997, Mayawati’s government created a new district by carving out areas around Hathras town from Aligarh and Mathura districts. She named it Mahamaya Nagar after Gautam Buddha's mother. Kalyan Singh’s government changed it to Hathras only for it to become Mahamaya Nagar again in 2002 when Mayawati returned to power. Mulayam Singh in 2006 said sorry, it’s back to being Hathras. A year later, Mayawati stormed to power and we saw the return of Mahamaya Nagar. Five years later, Akhilesh Yadav returned the favour and it’s back to Hathras. Watch out for what happens if an SP-BSP alliance wins.
Getting the pronunciation right
In 2014, the central government approved the renaming of 12 cities in Karnataka. Many of these were in effect respelling of existing names to match the pronunciations based on local scripts. Bangalore became Bengaluru; Mangalore-Mangaluru; Mysore-Mysuru; Bellary-Ballari; Bijapur-Vijayapura; Belgaum- Belagavi; Chikmagalur-Chikkamagaluru; Gulbarga-Kalaburagi; Hospet-Hosapete; Shimoga-Shivamogga; Hubli-Hubballi and Tumkur-Tumkuru. Calcutta to Kolkata, Bombay to Mumbai or Trivandrum to Thiruvananthapuram would arguably fall into this category too.
In track changes mode
Recently, Mughalsarai station was renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhayay Junction. The renaming of railway stations is also an old phenomenon. Built in 1887, Mumbai’s iconic Victoria Terminus was renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in March 1996. Eleven years later, it acquired a further honorific to become Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaaj Terminus. Ahead of Janmashtami celebrations this year, the railways approved the renaming of Jharkhand’s Nagar Utari town and railway station to Banshidhar Nagar, after the Banshidhar Temple located in the state’s Garhwa district.
We aren’t alone
Name changes are not a peculiarly Indian phenomenon. Several international cities have also been renamed. For instance what used to be Canton is Guangzhou, Saigon is Ho Chi Minh City, Leningrad was and is back to being St Petersburg, Constantinople is Istanbul and Stalingrad, where one of the most famous battles of Second World War was fought, was and is now Volgograd. Even countries can get renamed. For instance, before 1935, Iran was Persia. Similarly, Myanmar was Burma and Sri Lanka was Ceylon.
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