Gurugram questions

Gurgaon's renaming is different from earlier such efforts

The proposed renaming of Delhi's satellite town in the state of Haryana from Gurgaon to Gurugram throws up a host of questions, not all of them comfortable. The response on social media and elsewhere has not been positive, in that it has focused among other things on what appear to be the misplaced priorities of the Haryana government - Gurgaon, while a major cash cow for the state, does not have its fair share of basic civic amenities, and its growth has been without much regulation or support from the government. Many feel that creating a more responsive municipal structure and working on ensuring better infrastructure should be a priority, not tokenism like renaming a city.

The renaming of towns in post-Independent India has naturally always had a bit of tokenism about it - not that it is necessarily a bad thing. It has often been, after all, a way of reclaiming urban spaces from the colonial experience. Early on, places like Cawnpore were renamed Kanpur, a simple replacement with more modern, less Anglicised spellings. Over time, iconic cities like Bombay and Calcutta submitted to nativist sentiment and changed their names to Mumbai and Kolkata, respectively - followed by the renaming of Bangalore as Bengaluru, more recently. Some of these changes, like Kolkata for Calcutta, were relatively painless and were not accompanied by too much overt aggression by the proponents of the renaming. Others, as in Mumbai, were enforced even on private entities by both state and non-state agencies with perhaps excessive zeal. But in most cases, the logic remained the same: to replace an older, colonial-era name with the one supposedly more in use by the actual inhabitants of the city. The case of Gurgaon is different. Practically nobody calls it Gurugram at the moment, and Gurgaon is a name with unimpeachable "Indian" provenance. In fact, some might argue that it is the first time a colloquial Indian name has been replaced by one with Sanskritic characteristics, something very much in line with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's instincts. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this either, per se, when carried out by a democratically elected government - but it is important to note that this is indeed a different case for renaming than those stated in other previous cases. Gurgaon was unquestionably a name that its inhabitants had coined and used, and so the Kolkata or Mumbai argument does not apply. In effect, the logic of discarding a name that has organically evolved and is universally used is far from clear, and the government should work harder to make its case on the need for the new name.

There is an additional question that must be raised. Renaming is a government's right, but it should be carried out with a care to the brand that a city or a town has developed over time. "Bombay", for example, was a byword for a certain sort of cosmopolitanism, as was "Calcutta"; that branding was abandoned with the name. Gurgaon and Bangalore had even more become 21st-century global brands, with a value all their own. Corporations treat their brands with care, and governments should too. Such renaming should ideally be carried out with a view to maintaining a city's global profile in addition to whatever political or ideological calculations underline the ruling party's decision.

Many other cities are candidates for renaming. Some have long argued, for example, that Ahmedabad should be renamed Karnavati. There is no question that the renaming of that historic town away from a name sanctified by tradition and history would send a very specific message. So it is with other such proposals. Each of them, if and when they are carried out, should weigh the pros and cons more carefully - India is no longer an insecure post-colonial nation, and should not behave like one. The global profile of towns and cities, and their mixed and complex heritage, should be respected.