<b>T N Ninan:</b> Street Politics

Among the people who have been honoured with Delhi streets being named after them in recent years, you have Rajesh Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia, K K Birla, Uma Shankar Dikshit and Mother Teresa. Three of them were Congress politicians, one a businessman who was by no means the most distinguished member of his tribe, and one a Christian missionary honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize and the Bharat Ratna. Some of the roads may have had no previous names, some did (like South End Road and Willingdon Crescent). Similarly, the busiest road crossing in the capital has been named after a Congress municipal councillor; the Delhi Metro people have sensibly ignored this and called the station at the crossing by its commonly used name, ITO. In short, the 1975 decision to not change road names has had quite a few (usually not honourable) exceptions made.

Nevertheless, there is substance to the argument that place names are part of a city’s sense of itself and of its history, and therefore that changes should not be made lightly. Even after half a century of independence, Singapore has not changed the street names given by its former British rulers, and still has a main artery named after Queen Elizabeth (though Harry Lee did become Lee Kuan Yew). India, given the country’s and also Delhi’s quite different history, has been understandably nationalistic. It therefore was quick to replace British street names like Curzon Road with Kasturba Gandhi Marg, and York Road with Motilal Nehru Marg. Still, streets named after Josip Broz Tito and Olaf Palme have a singular lack of resonance with the city’s residents, most of whom would not also be able to correctly pronounce Benito Juarez Marg.

And so, leaving aside Aurangzeb’s notable place in history, and recognising him as a divisive figure, let’s consider the options. You could choose any of several literary figures. Rabindra Nagar and Bharti Nagar (as also the adjoining Subramania Bharti Marg) honour two poets, while there is a Tolstoy Marg near the commercial heart of the city. So, would Mirza Ghalib Road be a superior substitute for Aurangzeb Road, since he also was, like APJ Abdul Kalam, a Muslim? I suspect Kalam himself would have agreed.

If you prefer to replace one emperor with another, why not Raja Raja Chola I, who built an empire, re-ordered administration, was a patron of the arts and letters, and built a giant temple? You could argue that Chola had nothing to do with Delhi, but neither did Bharti or Tagore. In fact, you could consider naming more roads after the great Indian emperors of history: the Mauryan empire is represented by Ashoka Road and there is a Chandragupta Marg in Chanakyapuri, while Lady Willingdon Park was renamed Lodi Gardens. But what about the Vijayanagara and Kushan empires?

There are other options. If a street in the capital can be named after Copernicus, why not honour our own Aryabhata, a pioneer in the classical age of Indian mathematics and astronomy? This would be perfectly in keeping with the ethos that led to the naming of the city’s diplomatic enclave as Chanakyapuri. If you prefer someone more contemporary, there’s always Ramanujam. Other candidates might be Satyendra Nath Bose and CV Raman. I venture to suggest that a city that honours leading poets and scientists would sound much better and feel more elevated than one that recognises second-rung politicians.

Then there is that ever-present issue of the number of places and structures named after members of today’s leading dynasty: other than Motilal Nehru Marg there is Jawaharlal Nehru Road (easily defensible), but also Nehru Park, Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, Indira Gandhi airport, Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, Rajiv Chowk, Indira Chowk, and so on. This would strike most people as a mite excessive.

But when some in the ruling dispensation would be happy to see changes even to the Nehru Museum, it will look motivated if it starts changing those names.