Uttar Pradesh government to add ‘Ramji’ as Ambedkar’s middle name in official documents

LUCKNOW: In a major development, Yogi Adityanath government passed an order on Wednesday night to officially introduce word ‘Ramji’ as the middle name of Dr BR Ambedkar in Uttar Pradesh. 

Passing the order, the state government directed all departments and the High Court benches in Lucknow and Allahabad to replace ‘Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar’ in all documents and records with ‘Dr Bhimrao Ramji Aambedkar’, as signed by the leader himself on the pages of Constitution of India.

While the spelling of Ambedkar in English will remain unchanged, the spelling in Hindi will change so that his name is pronounced ‘Aambedkar’. Dr Lalji Prasad Nirmal, director of the Babasahib Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Mahasabha, said that the campaign had been initiated by Governor Ram Naik in December 2017, who had written to PM Modi, CM Yogi Adityanath and also the mahasabha, expressing the need to spell Ambedkar correctly.

“Ramji was the name of DR Ambedkar and as per the practice in Maharashtra a person’s father’s name is used as his/ her middle name,” he said.

Naik had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, drawing his attention to the incorrect spelling and usage of Ambedkar in official records, and asking him to issue directions for its correction. 

UP government had, by then, passed an ordinance to have Ambedkar’s name correctly written in government records.

In his letter issuing the directions, Jitendra Kumar, principal secretary, general administration department, has said that taking cognizance of the 8th schedule of the Indian  Constitution, where Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar’s name is written as Dr Bhimrao Ramji Aambedkar, the government has “directed the authorities concerned to correct the name in all records, documents related to the government.”