By Sumna Sadaqat / Muslim Mirror
The acclaimed English litterateur Shakespeare in his famous play wrote the line ‘What’s in a name?’ But is it just so simple? Certainly, not! Especially for the right- wing governing party in India, the BJP, name has it all. Hindutva politics around names of monuments, cities, tombs, government offices under the BJP led government in India have become a frequent norm now. For the past eight years, such incidents are periodically raised to keep the issue smouldering in order to gain public support, win elections, and primarily as another baby step towards forming a Hindu Rashtra as envisioned by the RSS.
Generally, be it names of people or places foremostly they are an important part of one’s identity and being. Particularly a name of a place not just holds on to the culture associated with it, but describes the values, tradition and heritage of its inhabitants as well as unravels the geographical, political and social history of the region, which is probably why the current government is so interested in changing the names of places in an attempt to do away with the country’s historical legacy. It is not surprising to see that most of the places whose names have now been changed were earlier, ‘Muslim’ or had some affiliation with the Muslims. Similarly, the new names chosen are usually Sanskrit words, or after familiar personalities, mostly ambassadors of Hindutva. Not only is this trend will have a baleful influence on the largest religious minority in the country, but is equally or more of alarming for the majority community which gets a free call to indulge in low grade communal violence when the state takes such measures relentlessly.The Muslim community in India has suffered the brunt of questions on its dietary practices, clothing, institution of marriage and inheritance, congregation prayers, places of worship and even method of calling to prayer in the recent years, which has isolated the community politically and socially.
Architecture throughout history has been used as a political tool by monarchs, colonial regimes, authoritarian rulers and governments either merely as a symbol of power or to even instil, rather impose a certain ideology amongst masses. It happened when the British structured the port cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Chennai or summer capitals like Shimla which still owe a lot to the colonial masters for their shores, drainage, barracks and transport network. These and other cities are still reminiscent of British rule in India and their culture is reflected in the types of structures, material used and décor inclusive of the names of many such places.
But not all architectural developments or renaming of sites has a similar orientation. One such and more relatable example is of the European powers who ensured to rename and redevelop the Andalusian or Spanish architecture of the Muslim dynasties after their miserable downfall in the region which resulted in the complete transformation of Muslim ruler’s palaces, places of worship (Masjid or mosque), gardens and markets to Christian cathedrals, churches, tombs, emperor residences and others, by just changing the name from the Arab or African title to its Spanish equivalent. In the transformation spree, Abdul Rahman I’s Rusafa Palace was changed to Convento de San Fransisco de la Arruzafa, capital of Abdul Rahman III Madinat al Zahra (beautiful city) was changed to Cordoba la Vieja and the mosque of Cordova after Ferdinand III was referred to as La Mezquita (the mosque) amongst many other such changes. After the culmination of approximately seven centuries of Muslim rule, European Christian rulers within a couple of centuries managed to get rid of every trace of Muslim rule and existence in the region by various means inclusive of manipulation in existing architecture. Seeing the rapid changes in India being analogous to Spain post Muslim rule is unfortunate, as for the democratically elected Indian government to follow the footsteps of anarchies in the 21st century is condemnable.
This story was originally published in muslimmirror.com . Read the full story here