India: The Hindutva Right Wing Gunning for renaming roads named after Mughals

The Hindu, NEW DELHI, September 1, 2015

Special Correspondent

Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi. Photo: R. V. Moorthy
Efforts are afoot from within the Sangh Parivar to push for amending the 1975-vintage guideline barring such rechristening.

Now that the decision to rename the Capital’s Aurangzeb Road after the former President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, has been red-flagged for violating a central law, efforts are afoot from within the Sangh Parivar to push for amending the 1975-vintage guideline barring such rechristening.

To counter the Citizens for Democracy — which on Saturday reminded the government of its own statement in Parliament as recently as April 21, 2015, about the decision not to change names of existing roads in the Capital because of the logistics involved — RSS activist Rajeev Gupta, who is associated with the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (SBAS), met Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday to press for changing the guidelines to rename all roads in the city that bear names of Mughal rulers.

Since online petitions are circulating against the renaming of Aurangzeb Road, he has also started one of his own calling for rechristening other roads named after not just Mughal rulers, including Akbar Road, but also those belonging to the Delhi Sultanate — Lodhi Road and Tughlaq Road.

In a related statement, the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, another Sangh organisation, said all nationalist citizens should welcome the renaming of the Aurangzeb Road as the former President’s contributions were far greater than the Mughal ruler’s.

Though the RSS-backed SBAS is keeping a low profile on this front, its founder Dinanath Batra told The Hindu that “this has been our thinking all along.”