Roads to have Indian names

If the mandarins at the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC), the civic body that looks after the capital zone of the metropolis have their way, the names of at least 44 roads and streets are to be 'Indianised' soon.

According to a proposal floated, the names of several roads that still remind people of the British colonial era are to be changed soon. While the NDMC chairman has the right to name an unnamed road with the council's sanction, in the case of renaming a road, it has to be recommended to the State Road Naming Authority.

So far the names of nearly 81 roads in the metropolis have been changed since independence in 1947, 26 of them during the past decade.

Names like Kingsway and Queensway were changed immediately after independence and are now known as Rajpath and Janpath respectively. Other names like Canning Road, Lytton Road, York Road, and King George Avenue have already been consigned to the history books.

While the NDMC justifies the trend, saying the exercise is "well meant to honour war heroes, philosophers, social reformers, freedom fighters, historical and literary figures, heritage experts feel changing the names of roads is akin to fiddling with history since these names defined the original character of the city, built by the British early last century.

They argue that Indiansing Lytton Road has robbed the new generation of a chapter in history since Lytton had designed the capital zone and all the gigantic buildings that are pride of the city now.

Besides Rajpath and Janpath, some new names have been accepted over the years, the latest being the Kasturba Gandhi Marg that was earlier known as Curzon Road.

However, certain names have remained in the official books like Indira Chowk and Rajiv Chowk, the names given to Connaught Circus and Connaught Place respectively.

In their zest to honour national heroes, some of the new names are tongue twisters. For example, one of the roads renamed recently is called Srimant Madhavrao Scindia Marg. While Congress leader Scindia was popular even in New Delhi despite belonging to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, no one is sure what Srimant means.

Some other names like Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla Lane and Veer Chander Singh Garhwali Marg are simply too big to become popular.

There are many names that locals find difficult to pronounce due to their foreign origin. They are Olaf Palme Marg, Kwame Nkrumah Marg, San Martin Marg and Simon Bolivar Marg.

An NMDC official said that being the national capital, they are often requested by the Ministry of External Affairs to name a particular road or lane after a world leader as a gesture of diplomatic goodwill.

He argued that in several foreign countries also roads are named after Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

"I am not sure if I know who this Veer Chander Singh Garhwali was. I can only guess that he must have been a freedom fighter belonging to the Garhwal hills. We all refer to this road as simply Garhwali Marg for the sake of convenience. I don't know if this amounts to respecting this freedom fighter or amounts to disrespect to him," says Shyam Arora, who runs a grocery shop on this particular road.

Similarly, people living on roads like Abai Marg, General Artigas Marg and Manas Marg have no clue about the people after whom those roads were named.

Heritage experts say changing names have no social relevance and are empty gestures either to please some foreign powers or at the most aimed at pleasing a particular section of people with an eye on the vote bank.