Uttar Pradesh | From Ali to Hari

Get set to rewire your mental map once again. The BJP-controlled Aligarh Municipal Corporation has passed a resolution to rename the town as ‘Harigarh’. The file will now be sent to the state government for consideration. The district councils of Aligarh had passed a similar resolution in 2022 as well, but now, after the municipal corporation move, the Uttar Pradesh government is said to be seriously considering the name change.Such an inclination would hardly be out of character for the Yogi Adityanath administration. Aligarh will only be getting in line to join a long list of towns and cities that have gone through a name change after Yogi first came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. What makes it more striking, of course, is its eponymous association with the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), which got its present name 103 years ago, nearly half a century after it was born in 1875 as a child of the Aligarh Movement led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to bring modern education to Indian Muslims.All that may get coloured a deeper shade of sepia very soon. Sources in Lucknow say the name change may happen before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Aligarh mayor Prashant Singhal says the renaming has been a long-standing demand. “The proposal got unanimous support from all councillors,” he says, though that claim is contested by the Opposition. “Many people tell me that before the old name ‘Koil’ and later Aligarh, the region was called Harigarh. We respect the people’s sentiments, so are taking forward the issue,” he says. Historians, though, reserve universal endorsement, many of whom see this spree of renaming as a nomenclatural erasure of any non-Hindu element in UP’s history.The story began with Mughalsarai, the small eastern town and the 156-year-old railway junction carrying its name, which were rechristened after Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the late BJP ideologue, in August 2018. Then, in October that year, came the big one. Allahabad, the city that was iconic through the freedom struggle and still houses the state’s high court, was renamed Prayagraj in 2018. That makeover reportedly cost over Rs 300 crore. A month later, Faizabad and Ayodhya went through a role reversal: Ayodhya used to be in Faizabad, now Faizabad is in Ayodhya. That is, the district is now known after the temple town, not its twin city. While proponents could more persuasively argue that core Hindu symbology is not out of place with Prayagraj and Ayodhya, the logic behind the rechristening of Aligarh is coming in for some hard scrutiny..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, professor of history at AMU, says he has never seen any reference to the name ‘Harigarh’ in the history of Aligarh. “From whatever sources we have regarding the region’s history, Kol or Koil is the only name we get. Till the 19th century, this name was in parlance till it got renamed Aligarh by the British. Earlier, some right-wing outfits had floated this demand, saying the name Aligarh tied it to a Muslim identity. Now it seems the municipal corporation members have joined the bandwagon,” he says. THE CALL: Sir Syed mosque inside the AMU campus The idea of renaming the city Harigarh took root in the 1960s-70s, says Prof. Mohammad Sajjad from the same department, though his survey of the historical archive also reveals no past name with a religious association. “Kol or Koil is the only past name of Aligarh we know of. In fact, one of the tehsils and a legislative assembly seat is still called Kol. The origins of this name are not clear. In some ancient texts, ‘Kol’ is referred to in connection with a number of things, such as the name of a tribe or caste, placemountain, and the moniker for a sagedemon,” he says. Anyway, just over 50 years, in the shadow of communal disturbances, certain Hindu organisations began to raise the demand for Harigarh, Sajjad adds. He mentions the book, Another India: The Making of the World’s Largest Muslim Minority, 1947-77, where Oxford historian Pratinav Anil writes: “When Aligarh Muslim University students decided to conduct relief work in the aftermath of a riot and participate in a dialogue with the Hindu protesters campaigning to rename the town Harigarh, they were prevented from crossing the railway tracks by their circumspect vice-chancellor. Aligarh’s [Muslim] townsmen were certainly onto something when they accused university students and staff of retreating into their ivory tower as soon as trouble struck on the other side.” The professor refers to the passage to illustrate the point that the university has at times wilted under pressure and not forcefully presented its case.BJP councillor Sanjay Pandit, among the first to make the demand in the municipal corporation in 2021, says, “I made this proposal after research. Before it got the name Koil, this region was called Ramgarh. We want the name Harigarh because of Swami Haridas, an Indian spiritual poet and classical musician who was born in the region. Hari is also another name for Lord Vishnu. We have also heard that centuries ago, it was called Harigarh.” A similar motion was passed in the zila panchayat last year, he points out. “It has to do with carrying forward our old civilisation and culture, our Hindu traditions,” Pandit adds. Prabhat Kumar, history professor at Jamia Millia University, doesn’t agree. “Every name has historical relevance. This name-changing business is actually insensitive to tradition,” he feels.It’s disputed whether the corporation’s proposal got unanimous approval. Samajwadi Party councillor Musharraf Hussain Mazhar claims the resolution was passed using “unfair means”—over half of the Opposition councillors were not present when the BJP section tabled the proposal. “They are only focused on the politics of name change, not on improving the town’s condition,” cribs Hussain. He also dismissed the Swami Haridas connection, claiming the sant was born near Vrindavan, 65 km from Aligarh.The renaming fever is infectious: there’s a surge in demand for a similar ‘makeover’ from other cities. Recently, in Agra, a lawmaker proposed moving the Taj to Agravan or Agarwal; another mooted reinventing Muzaffarnagar as Laxmi Nagar and Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar (a sage named Mayan has been discovered). Of course, none of this harms the ruling party. Says a senior BJP leader, “Religious and local sentiments can’t be ignored. The name change of Allahabad and Faizabad helped us build a narrative of commitment—of course, it helps us politically too. I am sure the name change of Aligarh will help us in the Braj region in 2024.” In India, history is a sub-discipline of political science.- EndsPublished By: Shyam BalasubramanianPublished On: Nov 24, 2023Must Watch

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Uttar Pradesh | From Ali to Hari

The Yogi Adityanath government is said to be seriously considering a proposal to rename the town of Aligarh.

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