Naming has a long history in India. The British once confused native names in royal arrogance; Native rulers now rename cities and towns, streets and stadiums to avenge history and inflict old wounds. Sometime this week, it looked like government fiat wanted to do even more – not only rewrite history for political purposes, but also give the dead a fantastic new digital ID. On the website of the Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Service Commission, the Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi, whose tehlu paid tribute to the city where he lived and worked until his death in the 1920s, was renamed Akbar Prayagji.
The poet doesn’t like it. Allahabadi was a sharp satirist, a nationalist, despite being a servant of the British government, and he firmly believed that the destinies of Hindus and Muslims were inseparable. For him, Prayagraj and Allahabad were not on either side of a fault line. But almost a century after his death, the name of his city, which was found to be much Muggle by the powers, was changed by official decree. How can he be exempted? In fact, Allahabadi is not the only person who has suffered this humiliation – two other poets who adopted similar surnames were found to have changed their names on the website.
What’s in a name change? The bureaucratic machine is not known as a friend of poets or poetry or fiction; It is the literality of the paperwork that he recognises – produced in triplicate, duly attested by a gazetted officer. But was the renaming of Allahabadi only about the serious logic of bureaucratic compliance? Or the mindless act of an incompetent bureaucrat? Or something more objective, given the current built-in prick for anything Urdu or Muslim? The Uttar Pradesh government claims that the changes were unintentional and the website was hacked. The name of Allahabadi has been restored. And the curious case of Akbar Prayagji was put to rest.
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