By Tirthankar Mitra
Speculation about a possible move to rename several roads in Kolkata is doing the rounds. Proposals to change names of thoroughfares named after international leaders of the communist movement would certainly send a message that is not in-keeping with the left-leaning history and image of the City of Joy.
Names of Lenin Sarani, Karl Marx Sarani, Ho Chi Minh Sarani have been flagged for a potential rechristening. Proposal will be sent to the West Bengal Assembly by a 10-member committee headed by Swami Pradiptananda, better known as Kartik Maharaj of Bharat Sevashram Sangha.
The committee also includes former state BJP chief, Tathagata Roy. Public places in the state, including prominent roads and bridges, are under the committee’s saffron scanner.
The committee will hold its meeting after Durga Puja. Their recommendations of name change will be sent thereafter.
No finality can now be associated with the name-changing proposals as of now. Relevance of the historical figures in the context of Bengali and Indian culture will be the deciding criteria.
Yet the tone and tenor of the man heading the first BJP government of West Bengal is a strong-enough pointer to the Sangh’s instinctual need to replace all things Left with the Right. Acts so far indicate that this saffron dispensation will walk down the unruly path less travelled in the past.
If former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dropped in on any community Durga Puja pandals that took her fancy, the present incumbent’s one-upmanship was more than obvious when he dropped in at several Ganesh Puja pandals in his constituency of Bhowanipore, which Mamata Banerjee never visited. He took a dig at the dictatorial ways of his predecessor which set aside even almanac dates on pujas, and did not even let go of birth anniversaries of such luminaries as Jyoti Basu.
High on Hindutva enthusiasm, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari sometimes overshot his mark. His successful bid at a road renaming is the case in point.
Suhrawardy Avenue was the first road to be renamed in Kolkata after the BJP dispensation walked into the corridors of power. It was renamed after Gopal Mukherjee, who led the Hindu mob when Calcutta was torn apart by communal conflagration in August 1946.
The move was welcomed by the saffron camp, which claimed it was in the fitness of things that the name of the “Muslim League leader associated with the Great Calcutta Killings” H A Suhraewardy, the then chief minister of undivided Bengal, has been removed. But it later turned out that the road was originally named after a renowned scholar, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, who was a well-known physician. He also happened to be the first Muslim vice-chancellor of Calcutta University who died three months before the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946!
Accused by the Opposition of overlooking “historical facts”, CM Adhikari has retorted by saying he was against roads being named after Mughals, Pathans and oppressive British rulers. This was a clear pointer that more changes of road names would be made.
The enthusiasm of renaming does not appear to have fizzled out. Lenin Sarani is likely to be named after Deba Prasad Ghosh, a top-bracket Jan Sangh leader, who was also a mathematician who taught at Ripon College. A long stretch of thoroughfare in south Kolkata was named after Mookherjee by the then Congress dispensation.
Lenin Sarani was earlier named Dharmatala Street. It was named after the Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin on his birth centenary in 1970.
There is also consideration to rename Ho Chi Minh Sarani after the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. This road, on the American Embassy in Kolkata is located, was earlier named Harrington Street.
Unlike Marx, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, Harrington needs introduction. John Herbert Harrington was a British administrator and orientalist who had served in colonial Bengal.
Harrington Street came to be renamed in 1970 during the peak of Vietnam War by the then Left-led government, as a statement of anti-imperialism and solidarity with Vietnam. Uncle Ho, as he was affectionately referred to, was a revolutionary Vietnamese leader.
The walls of Kolkata were then filled with graffiti in support of the communist freedom fighters of Vietnam. Small wonder, the saffron camp which looks askance at communist philosophy, has not taken kindly at these graffiti and the 1970 renaming.
The year 1971 saw renaming of Circular Garden Reach Road as Karl Marx Sarani. Two names of noted poets namely, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Rangalal Bandopadhayay, are reported to have been shortlisted to replace the name of the German philosopher, whose writings propagated egalitarianism the world over.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s name may also replace the existing names of Strand Road and Mayo Road, both key thoroughfares of the city. Though he banned the RSS after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, Patel is considered to be an icon by BJP.
Apart from important roads, a change of the name of Titumir bus stand in Barasat seems to be on the cards as well. The replacement name to be selected will be one of a “nationalist Muslim” like the educationist Begam Rokeya Sakhawat, or authors like Qazi Abdul Odud and S Wajed Ali.
Some changes in the names of Metro stations in Tollygunge-Garia stretch are also not ruled out. Instead of persons, the place where the station is located may find a place in the sign boards of the underground transport, one of the transport lifelines of Kolkata. (IPA Service)
