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The Hindu

Comment

Amit Baruah

Of places and rulers, names and name changes

Narendra Modi Jawaharlal Nehru Umar Khalid India Rajpath

“You are welcome here in this city of Delhi, which has been a city of kings and emperors but which today is the capital of the Republic of India, and I think no king or emperor could give you the welcome which the republican citizens of Delhi have given you.”

— Jawaharlal Nehru welcoming Queen Elizabeth II to New Delhi on January 28, 1961. Extracted from Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Speeches, Volume Four, Publications Division, April 1996.

What do name changes do? Are they a way of ‘correcting’ history? Can history be ‘corrected’? Do they rid individuals of a way of thinking? Are name changes about ideological mind games in the heads of powerful people who have the power to name and re-name? Finally, do name changes actually alter usage?

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