By Kumkum Chadha
“What’s in a name?”
Would William Shakespeare be turning in his grave? Quite likely because when he wrote the famous and kind of immortal line, he had not imagined that centuries later, politicians would spar over a name.
For the uninitiated, it is in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet that the “what’s in a name” line figures. The context: a name is just a word and has little relevance to the qualities of a person. Even though the reference is to Romeo, the line is universal. Till of course, politicians decided to turn it on its head and play havoc.
And this time it is not about Romeo, but Ram: the Indian god which has paid handsome dividends to the BJP. The Ram Temple campaign, it is well known, has not only helped it gain power, but ensconced it for a long innings. Therefore, for the ruling BJP to dig in and resurrect it at regular intervals is a given.
And this is what it did recently when it brought in the refurbished rural employment law replacing MGNREGA or Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Like MGNREGA, the new law is also somewhat unpronounceable: Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill abbreviated as VB-G RAM G. Needless to say, the key is RAM: a word that is both music and magic to the BJP’s ears.
The two Gs, one preceding and the other succeeding, lends the reverence that is due to BJP’s most revered god. In essence, the G RAM G not only has a lyrical quality, but one that is likely to resonate with that section of the electorate which remains eternally grateful to the saffron party for building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. That the mammoth effort and the near impossible deadlines to build it in record time did not accrue political dividends is another matter.
An interesting aside, though unconfirmed, is that the time spent on the G RAM G nomenclature perhaps exceeded the time spent on the nitty gritty of the new scheme. This is quite likely because the BJP is a party that believes more in optics than substance. The new scheme, the Opposition has argued, is unnecessary and amendments in the existing law were enough to achieve the objectives the government claims it has through G RAM G.
Technicalities apart, at the heart of the controversy is the nomenclature. Opposition parties were irked at the government’s move to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme. Leading the charge is the Congress that has questioned the “craze” of the centre to change the name of every scheme that is in existence. However, it was not designed to be a face-off between the father of the nation and the Indian god, because that would be sacrilege.
The Opposition, therefore, was careful: it limited its objections to Mahatma Gandhi’s name being replaced without mentioning Ram or attacking the new nomenclature. Had it done that, it would have incurred the wrath of Ram devotees as also provided a handy tool for the BJP to reiterate that the Opposition, particularly the Congress, was anti-Ram.
On its part, the ruling elite sufficiently hammered the twin themes of Gandhi and Ram. Stating that Gandhi “lives in our hearts”, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said: “Bapu used to talk of Ram Rajya and his last words were ‘Hey Ram’ but the Opposition has a problem with saying Ram”.
The Congress hit back saying: “History will remember your name for removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the Bill” even as it staged a protest holding photographs of Mahatma Gandhi.
BJP’s obsession with the name game is a given. At one level, it stems from its aversion to colonialism; at another, its hatred of the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. On the first, it is adamant about changing names linked to both the Mughal and colonial periods.
Consequently, the BJP has renamed several cities and given it Hindu or Hindi names. For instance, in Uttar Pradesh Allahabad was renamed Prayagraj, Faizabad became Ayodhya and Mustafabad was renamed Kabir Dham.
In Maharashtra Aurangabad was renamed Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad became Dharashiv. More importantly in Delhi, the well- known Rajpath was renamed Kartavya Path and the prime minister’s residence on Race Course Road changed to Lok Kalyan Marg. These perhaps had an underlying message of the current dispensation being synonymous with a duty-bound government and its seat of power being one that has the welfare of the people at heart.
At another level, the BJP-led government did what it could to erase the legacy stamp from schemes: Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission became AMRUT or Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana became Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, to name just two.
It was also to bring centre-stage non-Congress leaders whose contribution to the nation, its development and progress has largely been ignored. Therefore, when Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajiv Gandhi’s name was replaced with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deen Dayal Uphadhyaya, there was a “method to this madness”, so to speak.
A major distortion that has been corrected has been about the Nehru Memorial Museum. Till Prime Minister Narendra stepped in to correct this anomaly, the sprawling Teen Murti House was synonymous with Jawaharlal Nehru: India’s first prime minister. Even though it was Nehru’s official residence, it kind of remained the fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhi family. In fact, both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi’s last journey began from Teen Murti House.
If reports are anything to go by, Indira Gandhi was keen that her younger son Sanjay’s last journey should commence from Teen Murti Bhawan given that both he and Rajiv had grown up in what she considered was their “family home” quite forgetting that this was government property.
Once Narendra Modi assumed power, he decided to convert the Nehru Memorial into what today is a museum of all prime ministers thus creating a level playing field for those who governed the country.
Even those who see this as a move to “erase” the Nehru legacy would find little fault with the government’s attempt to showcase the contribution of every prime minister who ruled the country.
Loyalists may argue that Nehru was first among equals, but this in no way obviates the contribution of those who succeeded him—be it Lal Bahadur Shastri, Atal Bihari Vajpayee or even Inder Kumar Gujral. Modi accorded each their due place at least in the Museum.
There are two sides of the name game: one that Modi government is “doing away” with anything and everything that has a Nehru-Gandhi or the dynasty stamp. Two, if the current dispensation is driven by a frenzy to do away with the family stamp, its predecessors were hell bent on leaving that same stamp on all important institutions, airports and roads. Their bid: to make India synonymous with what in their considered view was and remains the “first family of India”. Can anyone forget the Congress’ “India is Indira and Indira is India” slogan?
Therefore, the pertinent question to ask is: Is the Modi government correcting past mistakes? Or is it committing fresh ones? To put it simply, it is a little of both.
—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator
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