Name game

Sumi Sukanya and Sanjay K. Jha, TT, New Delhi, Sept. 17: You may take off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi and return to the Mahatma Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, if a legacy battle now being fought on the ground vaults into the skies.

Unlike in the cases of the erstwhile Aurangzeb Road in the capital and the postage stamps bearing the names of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, no decision has been taken yet to rename the Delhi airport.

But the Union civil aviation ministry is examining proposals to rename several airports across the country, including the Indira Gandhi International airport in the capital.

A BJP general secretary, Anil Jain, has moved a recommendation that says the Delhi airport, the country's busiest, should be renamed after the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

Sources in the ministry said suggestions to rename several other airports, including those in Chandigarh, Kochi, Dehradun and Udaipur, had been submitted by MPs, RSS leaders and some state governments.

"I have requested this as I feel Mahatma Gandhi is the biggest icon of the country and, therefore, the capital's airport should be named after him," Jain told this newspaper. "This does not mean that Indira Gandhi is not important but I think people will like it more if the name of the Mahatma is given to the airport."

The New Delhi Municipal Council had last month changed the name of a street from Aurangzeb Road to APJ Abdul Kalam Road on the suggestion of a BJP MP, Mahesh Giri, triggering a debate on the politics of name change.

Earlier this month, the postal department had discontinued stamps featuring former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Since 1962, Delhi's main airport was merely called "Palam airport". In 1986, two years after Indira was assassinated, the airport was renamed after her.

Officials in the aviation ministry said renaming or assigning names to existing airports was "very much" on the government's radar.

"Suggestions have been invited for suitable names based on prominent figures and the response has been overwhelming," an official said.

However, another official said: "Doing this (renaming the Delhi airport) suddenly could create a controversy. So, the government is treading cautiously and wants a discussion first."

Echoing the cautious approach, junior civil aviation minister Mahesh Sharma said there was no "formal" move for choosing new names for airports.

The legacy brawl in India is reminiscent of a renaming drive that unfolded in Bangladesh where the Battling Begums have left no stone unturned to outscore each other.

The largest airport in Bangladesh was born as Dacca International Airport, whose main runway was opened by then President Ziaur Rahman. He was assassinated in 1981 and the airport, completed in 1983, was renamed as Zia International Airport.

In 2010, the Awami League government headed by Sheikh Hasina changed the airport's name to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. Hasina, locked in a bitter battle with Khaleda Zia (the widow of Ziaur Rahman), took care to choose the name of Shah Jalal, one of Bangladesh's most respected Sufi saints, and avoided naming it after her family members, several of whom had been assassinated, too.

In India, the BJP general secretary has presented the Narendra Modi government with such a choice by suggesting Mahatma Gandhi's name.

The NDA government has been saying that the contributions of many, not just one family (read the Nehru-Gandhis), should be commemorated.

The Congress today came out with a long list of persons in whose honour stamps had been issued when the party was in power. The party's objective was to contest the charge of "one-family monopoly".

The Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala issued a statement saying that governments in the past issued stamps in memory of those who were ideologically opposed to the party. He cited the examples of Veer Savarkar, a Sangh parivar icon, in 1970, Jayaprakash Narayan, who played a decisive role in unseating Indira, in 1979 and Raj Narain, who defeated Indira after the Emergency, in 2005.

Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had yesterday said the new definitive series would be "inclusive" and stamps would be issued to honour Syamaprasad Mookerjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel, Shivaji, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Bhagat Singh, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Vivekananda and Maharana Pratap.

But the list released by the Congress today suggested stamps had already been issued on Mookerjee in 1978 (by the Morarji Desai government), Upadhyay in 1978, Azad in 1966, Bose in 1964, Patel in 1965, Ambedkar in 1967, Lohia in 1977 and Rana Pratap in 1967.

The Congress said that while it was completely opposed to the ideology of the RSS, its governments did not discontinue the stamp issued by the Vajpayee government in memory of K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the Sangh.

The Congress also released a list of illustrious persons, ranging from Mother Teresa to Satyajit Ray, to suggest that its government had looked beyond "one family" while issuing stamps.

One name on this list is Vladimir Lenin. The choice may appear curious now but not in 1970 when the stamp was issued to commemorate Lenin's birth centenary. Fresh from her battle with the old guard and the nationalisation of 1969, Indira was then consolidating her position with the political support of the Left. Many stamps have such backstories that fade over time.

But the Congress usually finds itself tongue-tied when it comes to questions on honouring its own Prime Ministers who did not carry the "Nehru-Gandhi" surname.

If the Congress governments' gestures in memory of Lal Bahadur Shastri can at best be termed as token, P.V. Narasimha Rao has been completely ignored. So much so that the Modi government took the initiative to erect a memorial to Rao, the Prime Minister under whose leadership Manmohan Singh launched the economic reforms that changed India, in New Delhi earlier this year.

Asked about Shastri and Rao tonight, three Congress spokespersons said they did not want to comment while Surjewala could not be contacted. For the record, a stamp was issued soon after Shastri died in 1966 but the researchers who drew up today's Congress list did not highlight this for some reason.

An airport is also named after Shastri but the Congress is unlikely to be too eager to be reminded of that place - Varanasi, which is now represented in the Lok Sabha by Modi.

"It has become part of the political culture to appropriate history for the party - and the BJP government is doing just that," said Santosh Desai, a commentator. "In a way, the renaming of streets or landmarks now would be the BJP government's backlash against the Congress which named almost everything after the Nehru-Gandhis."

Calcutta is no stranger to renaming sprees with the government of the day hoping there will be a rub-off effect. But more often than not, the names remain on paper (Mother Teresa Sarani for Park Street) or leave citizens thoroughly confused (Metro station names).

"This is a futile exercise. It does not make any difference in the life of a commoner whether an airport will be called X or Y," said sociologist Dipankar Gupta. "But it's strange how political parties manage to do politics around even such things."