Will the name of this city of Uttarakhand change? Proposal sent to Ministry of Defense CM Dhami has already indicated
The Lansdowne Military Cantonment Board, located in Pauri district of Uttarakhand, has suggested renaming the town of Lansdowne to ‘Jaswantgarh’ after the hero of the 1962 India-China war, Shaheed Jaswant Singh. Official sources said a resolution to rename Lansdowne as Jaswantgarh after Mahavir Chakra winner Jaswant Singh was passed in a meeting chaired by Cantonment Board chairman Brigadier Vijay Mohan Choudhary this week.
Vijay Mohan Chowdhary told that the proposal has been sent to the Defense Ministry. Earlier, the Defense Ministry had asked the Cantonment Board to suggest ways to change the names of military areas in the state that were kept during the British era. However, in this proposal, the Cantonment Board has also mentioned that the general public is against changing the name of Lansdowne, but if the name is to be changed then it would be logical to change it to Jaswantgarh.
CM Dhami has indicated
During the British rule, 132 years ago, the city was named Lansdowne after the then Viceroy. Earlier the name of this city was ‘Kalon ka Danda’ (a mountain surrounded by dark clouds). Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has already said that the names of the British era, which remind us of slavery in the state, will be changed. He had said, “Under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the process of changing the British-era names which attest to slavery is going on and it will be done in the state as well.”
It is worth mentioning that Jaswant Singh, a resident of Bariya village of Bironkhal area of Pauri district, had participated in the Indo-China war in 1962 during his posting in the fourth battalion of the Garhwal Rifles. He stopped the Chinese army from moving forward for 72 hours on November 17 in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. He was posthumously awarded the Mahavir Chakra. At the same time, people opposing the name change of the city believe that this will lead to loss of identity of the city and damage to tourism.
