Name-changing is not game-changing

“Instead of being a game-changing government, the BJP has turned out to be a name-changing one,” Shashi Tharoor wrote seven years ago in his noteworthy book on Modi, The Paradoxical Prime Minister. Here is a page from Tharoor’s book. 

The latest naamkaran [religious ceremony of naming a child] ritualised by Modi is that of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act which will now be known as Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G). Hey Ram! You’re dragged into this too!

The Hindu had reported that the scheme which was meant to guarantee at least some jobs to the rural poor was going to be renamed as Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana. Pujya Bapu was supposed to be Mahatma Gandhi’s bitter enemy and murder-conspirator V D Savarkar. How many deaths must the Mahatma suffer before Modi bids farewell from history altogether?

As cartoonist Manjul suggests, perhaps Modi needs to think of changing – not his name – himself.

Back in 2014, when Modi became India’s Prime Minister for the first time, Tharoor wrote in India Shastra (a volume of essays) that Modi’s rhetoric about development is diametrically opposed to the communal politics he wields in order to achieve power. Nothing has changed in this regard in the last eleven years, except Tharoor’s view of Modi.

Modi goes on appropriating everything that his predecessors created by renaming them. Of course, he has also created quite a few things: such as collapsing bridges and crumbling highways. Big temples and statues remain, however. Let us hope the gods in those temples will save us.