Mughal Garden is now Amrit Udyan, name change trend, politics or something else
It was informed on Saturday that all the gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan have been renamed as ‘Amrit Udyan’ and the board of ‘Mughal Garden’ has also been removed from there.
It has been said in the press release of Rashtrapati Bhavan that President Draupadi Murmu will be present on the occasion of Udyan Utsav 2023 in ‘Amrit Udyan’ from Sunday. It will be opened for the public from January 31 to March 26.
President’s Deputy Press Secretary Navika Gupta told that all the gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan will now be called ‘Amrit Udyan’. Union Minister Giriraj Singh has tweeted a video of putting a board of ‘Amrit Udyan’ in place of ‘Mughal Garden’.
Discussion on social media
It is seen in some videos that the old board was taken away by placing it on a bulldozer. And many comments were made on social media regarding this. As soon as this news came on Saturday, this step was welcomed by BJP leaders on social media.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted and described it as another historic decision of the Modi government to come out of the mindset of slavery. At the same time, BJP leader Kapil Mishra tweeted a video and wrote, “Another symbol of slavery ended. Mughal Garden is no more, now it is Amrit Garden.”
Where names were changed
- Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power at the Center in 2014, the names of many cities, roads and stations have been changed. Politics has also been happening regarding this.
- The ‘Mughal Garden’ of the Rashtrapati Bhavan which has just been renamed, the name of the ‘Rajpath’ coming out of it was changed last year.
- The Modi government had changed the name of ‘Rajpath’ going from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhavan to ‘Kartavya Path’ in 2022.
- Earlier its name was ‘King’s Way’ in the name of George V, after independence it was named ‘Rajpath’.
- Earlier in August 2015, the Delhi Municipal Council changed the name of ‘Aurangzeb Road’ to ‘APJ Abdul Kalam Road’. However, there was a demand at different levels to name this road after Sardar Patel.
- Aurangazeb died in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad, where there has been a demand to change its name and his tomb is also there.
- It is claimed that Aurangabad was also named by Aurangzeb.
The Shiv Sena has been demanding the renaming of Aurangabad as ‘Sambhajinagar’ since the eighties and last year itself, in a last-ditch effort to save its government, the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s cabinet issued an order to change its name in June 2022.
But as soon as the BJP coalition government came to power, it ordered to change its name again. This time he renamed Aurangabad and Osmanabad as ‘Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’ and ‘Dharashiv’.
Going further back, Mumbai was earlier known as Bombay or Bombay, which was renamed in 1995 by the then Shiv Sena government. Similarly, Madras was renamed as Chennai in 1996 and Calcutta as Kolkata in 2001.
Politics behind name change
- Some analysts are of the opinion that the ‘polarizing intention’ behind the name change cannot be ruled out.
- In October 2018, Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, ordered the famous city ‘Allahabad’ to be renamed ‘Prayagraj’.
- Soon after this, the then BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jairam Thakur demanded to change the name of the state capital Shimla to ‘Shyamla’, which created a lot of uproar at that time.
In Tripathi’s opinion, “She (BJP) wants such controversies to arise so that the debate becomes limited to Hindu-Muslim and the burning issues of the present – such as unemployment, inflation or law and order – divert people’s attention.”
In the year 2018 itself, on June 4, the name of ‘Mughalsarai’ Junction of Uttar Pradesh was changed to ‘Pandit Deen Dayal’ Upadhyay Junction.
Giving information about this, the then Railway Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted a copy of the notification of the Uttar Pradesh government and wrote, “… I am happy that this junction will now be known by the name of Pt. Deen Dayal ji, who gave a great idea like Antyodaya. “
