One of the earliest shock-and-awe campaigns of the Modi government was a renaming blitz. Its high point was the renaming of Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road to commemorate former president APJ Abdul Kalam, replacing a ‘bad Muslim’ with a ‘good Muslim’ on the capital’s roadmap.
The latest renaming project was much quieter—Fort William in Kolkata, the second fortification of the East India Company after Fort St George in Chennai, is now Vijaydurg. It’s part of the process of decolonising the Indian military forces. Maybe it’s low-key because it’s a fine example of how decolonisation can go wrong if it’s all politics and no history.
Vijaydurg on the Arabian Sea was the site of rebel Maratha maritime commander Tulaji Angre’s defeat in 1756 by the combined forces of the East India Company and the Maratha Confederacy under the Peshwa. Not much opportunity to decolonise here. Let’s turn to Fort William, the new Vijaydurg.
Kolkata and large parts of Bengal lived in terror of the Marathas for a decade from 1741. Particularly feared were the borgis—mercenary horsemen who conducted lightning raids for plunder rather than tactical gain. The Company authorities in Fort William built the Maratha Ditch for protection against raiders, and it is still a visible feature in Kolkata as an arterial road later built on the embankment.
Borgi is a uniquely Bangla word that persists in a lullaby in which a peasant asks how he will pay his taxes, because birds have eaten his grain and the borgis will take everything else. You would have to be history-blind to rename a fort in Bengal after a Maratha stronghold.
The US is giving us competition—it’s back to the Age of Exploration, when any old sailor could make landfall anywhere and claim it by whatever name he wanted by a royal European mandate. When President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Google Maps complied quickly. The Associated Press, being 152 years older than Google, cautiously retained the old name; now its reporters are disbarred from presidential events.
Early Americans were conservative about place names. New England is littered with Oxfords, Londons and Cambridges. Colonials and South Asians who came later founded a dozen towns named Delhi across the US. There are three Lucknows, three Madrases and four Calcuttas. Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book in the US, but sadly, there is no Seoni there. However, Kipling’s Vermont home was named Naulakha. You can stay there and work at the desk where the Mowgli stories were written. It’s a heritage property, so they won’t rename it in a hurry.
In India a decade ago, while opinionators had a ball with the ghost of Aurangzeb and the spirit of Kalam, the people remained unexcited because renaming is not a novelty here. It is as ingrained as the practice of repurposing sacred masonry to build new shrines of other religions. This has made temple politics low entry-cost and therefore a permanent headache. But people are slow to switch to new names, preventing the sharp breaks with the past that present-day politics wants to make.
In their minds, elderly residents of former presidency towns still live on streets named for Cornwallis, Wellesley or Clive, though they were renamed after nationalists decades ago. In Delhi, some people still go to Connaught Place, not Rajiv Chowk. Decades after a campaign was launched during the Kalyan Singh government, Uttar Pradesh has finally renamed Mughalsarai Junction after Deen Dayal Upadhayay, whose suspicious death on the tracks is one of our finest conspiracy stories.
BJP state governments accelerated the game. In Rajasthan’s highway signage, Ajmer was renamed Ajaimeru, Ajay’s hill. In religious geographies, the city remains identified with the Sufi Moinuddin Chishti. In secular history, its Mughal fort is still the site where Jahangir signed a firman for Thomas Roe. But now, a bold Chahamana king called Ajay has entered the historical frame, a mysterious figure who predated the other dramatis personae of Ajmer. No problem, Jahangir may have said as he reached for yet another drinking cup. And indeed, it made no difference to most contemporary Indians.
The renaming spree has produced confusing results, though it had looked like a reasonable reaction to colonial renaming, which mangled geographies across the subcontinent long before partition did. Until about 30 years ago, the city its natives call Chennai had the exonym of Madras. Chennai featured only on the station identification of All India Radio. There are no Chennai checks in textile design, only Madras checks. North Indians call their southern brethren Madrasis, not Chennai-ites. Calcutta was restored to its people as Kolkata, which is what they have always called the city, but no one from elsewhere can pronounce the name right.
What remains possible? What of the other tragic political figure associated with Mughalsarai? Lal Bahadur Shastri, India’s second prime minister, was born and educated there. If there’s no room for him in his own town, could we please use Tashkent, where he died in a conspiracy drama even more exciting than DDU’s? If the Uzbeks don’t mind, could we please change the name of Tashkent to Shastri Nagar?
(Views are personal)
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Pratik Kanjilal | Senior Fellow, Henry J Leir Institute of Migration and Human Security, Fletcher School, Tufts University