It's easy to change the name of a road, but what
of those boys and men called Aurangzeb, or for
that matter Afzal Khan, and their many troubles
for all the wrong historical reasons? Yogesh
Pawar explores the chauvinism behind name
politics as he talks to some whose lives changed
forever and others who bear their appellations
with pride and conviction.
Sudhir Shetty dna
Historical whim or politically motivated? Even as
the jury is still out on what necessitated New
Delhi Municipal Council's decision to rename
tony Aurangzeb Road in Lutyens Delhi after the
late APJ Abdul Kalam, it has brought to fore the
baggage of bigotry some names carry even
hundreds of years after the original name-
bearers have gone.
Just ask Aurangazeb Zafarullah Khan who
resides 1,400 km away in the distant Mumbai
suburb of Kalyan. "Since the news broke, my
close friends haven't stopped ribbing me about
how 'unpopular' my name is," smiles the 39-year-
old. "Just because a few people are trying to
change the name of a road in Delhi, why should I
feel ashamed?"
The self-employed computer hardware engineer
refuses to consider his name a cross to bear.
"Both my parents are teachers. They chose this
name after careful deliberation because of
Emperor Aurangzeb's qualities of fearlessness,
persistence and piety."
The vilification of the Mughal emperor, in his
view, stems from communal prejudice. "If we
borrow a contemporary phrase like 'human rights
excesses' to describe what transpired in those
times then no ruler will emerge smelling of roses.
In those times, all of them were guilty of the
same in one way or the other. To merely isolate
the Mughal emperor and uncontextualise what he
did from his times and circumstances is not only
unfair but comes across as ill-informed."
Unlike the Kalyan resident, Aurangzeb Alamgir
Mansoor Syed, the 36-year-old resident of
Behrampada in Bandra East, nearly 50 km away,
says he's grown up in dread of his name. He
begins chortling, shyly at first and then
uproariously, mopping his eyes with his sleeves
as he remembers the gigantic movie hoardings of
the Arjun Kapoor-starrer Aurangazeb at the
Mahim church signal which he clicked on his
phone for memory. When he catches his breath,
he remembers how friends would make fun of
his name adorning hoardings.
"Finally I'd felt vindicated about my name after
so many years," remembers the taxi driver as he
lovingly feeds morsels from his own lunch to his
only child Zoya. "I'm out the whole day at times
on my taxi and all I can think of is her," he says,
holding the three-year-old close.
He was named by a pir (holy man) in his native
village who told his parents it meant the 'pride
of the throne'. His parents thought nothing of it.
That was till he began going to school. He
remembers Classes 4 and 6 being the worst
years of his life. "We were staying in Chembur
then. In school, the history books showed
Emperor Aurangzeb as an anti-Hindu tyrant.
Since most of my classmates and the teacher
were Hindu, I'd regularly be subject to jibes in
class and teasing in the breaks over this. This
led to many nasty fights."
Aurangzeb's description only as a temple
vandaliser, as someone who enforced the
punitive jiziya tax on Hindu pilgrims, his
imprisonment of Shivaji and finally his torture
and slaying of Sambhaji had such a detrimental
effect on the young Aurangzeb Alamgir that he
dropped out of school.
"After the first round of riots in December 1992,
our Hindu-majority locality became unsafe. We
moved in with my maternal uncle's family in
Behrampada. Later, my father invested in a small
kholi where I still live."
According to the Class 7 drop-out, the break in
schooling during the riots came as a relief from
the teasing and fights at school over his name.
"I was determined not to allow it to happen
again and braved both my ammi 's shouting and
my abba 's beating to stay away from the local
school they put me in." Tired, they let him
apprentice at a local garage for a few years,
before he began driving a cab. "I realise that it
was in my fitrat not to work for anyone. The taxi-
line has its problems but I'm at least on my
own."
Not just Aurangzeb
If the name Aurangzeb can get you into trouble
for all the wrong historical reasons, can someone
called Afzal Khan fare any better? "It wouldn't
perhaps be as bad with either the name or
surname, but together it was devastating. I went
through school cringing at barbs, many
poisonously communal," says garment trader
from the Tata Colony chawls at the Bandra-Kurla
complex named after the medieval general killed
by Shivaji.
"Every time I complained, I'd end up being
punished along with those who teased me," says
the Class 12 dropout. The Aurangabad native
changed many jobs and businesses before
settling into garment retail. As a satellite-van
driver for a leading TV news channel, he
recounts what he describes as a hilarious
incident during a communal flare-up in Pratapgad
– where Afzal Khan battled Shivaji in 1659 –
when Hindu organisations were objecting to an
"encroachment by the Afzal Khan Trust".
"I was driving the OB van which went to the site
with the reporter and camera person. The Satara
collectorate under which the fort falls was
making security passes for media to go to the
fort. A clerk was asking us details and writing
them down. When he asked my name he began
smiling, but almost fell off his chair laughing
when told that the OB van engineer was Shivaji
Patil. ' Ekdum Afzal Khan aani Shivaji jodiney aalat
(So Afzal Khan and Shivaji are travelling
together),' he'd laughed."
History in black and white
Many like historian Dr Shailesh Srivastav find it
strange that history books dwell so little on
humanising the much reviled sixth Mughal
emperor. "While his tyranny against the Sikhs
and Marathas is often brought up, the fact that
he refused to use any money from the royal
treasury for his personal upkeep is often just
brushed off as side-note just like the fact that he
sewed prayer caps and wrote handwritten copies
of the Koran from which he met his own
expenses. It's almost like Indian mythology,
where the more you demonise one character the
more you lionise and deify the other. Even if
there are slip-ups by Ram they are always
rationalised. But anything that Ravan does has to
be painted in the darkest of blacks so that the
aura around Ram glows extra bright."
Underlining Aurangzeb's role in Maratha history,
he adds, "While it's true that Sambhaji was slain
at the behest of Aurangzeb on 11th March 1689,
his son Shahuji spent his entire childhood and
youth, from age seven to age 25, in the custody
of the Mughals. It was there that Aurangzeb and
his daughter who was very fond of him, ensured
the young prince learnt to run court,
swordsmanship and the art of warfare from a
very young age. When he became free and took
over reins as Chattrapati at 26 he led the
Maratha empire to glory like never before. Since
he was well-acquainted with the way Mughals
thought and strategised, he was able to keep
them on the run after the death of Aurangzeb in
1707 and the Maratha kingdom spread almost
across the subcontinent."
What about Ashoka?
Jaipur-based historian Biswajeet Pande wonders
whether Delhi's civic authorities will also change
the name of Ashoka Road – also part of
Lutyen's Delhi and housing many colonial era
bungalows as well as the headquarters of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "However much
one defends Ashoka and demonises Aurangazeb,
what's clear beyond any doubt is that Ashoka
killed lakhs of more innocents in his quest for
unchallenged power -- he killed his brothers, had
execution chambers, which remind of Hitler, and
converted almost all of Hindu India into
Buddhism. Will they rename Ashoka Road and all
other buildings and roads after his name?"
He also suggests that Ashoka Road be renamed
after the late prime minister VP Singh, "the
greatest champion of equality in post-Partition
India, known for extraordinary honesty, in public
and private life."
"Apart from being one of the best finance
ministers of India, he ended the dacoit menace in
Uttar Pradesh and also donated a big chunk of
his land to Vinoba Bhave during the Bhoodaan
movement," he adds.
Dr Srivastav in fact takes this a notch higher.
"The renaming of the road in Dr Kalam's name is
also a direct signal to the community to fall in
line. While his missile-man identity was in
keeping with the narrative of India as a
superpower, you can't discount how he never
asserted his religious identity, was open to
visiting temples and even played the veena . The
signals are right there."
…and Meera?
Interestingly, its not only Muslim names which
face this problem. Borivali resident banker
Jaydev Singh Rathod remembers how elders in
his Agnihotri Rajput family had baulked at his
Tam-Brahm wife Padma's suggestion for a name
for his first-born. "She suggested Meera thinking
it'd have the right Rajput ring to it and come
across as an olive branch to my parents who
were bitterly opposed to our marriage," says the
33-year-old.
It was left to his aunt to explain that nobody
names their daughters Meera in their community.
"I learnt, its still used to disparagingly discipline
young girls who show signs of a crush," he
points out. " Kyon ri bawli? Badi Meera ho gayi tu?
(Are you crazy? Have you become Meera?), is a
rebuke young girls often hear."
Curious, we want to know what he's called his
daughter. "I have to deal with my folks only when
I go to Udaipur. But my wife I have to live with.
In the interests of peace at home I have gone
with her suggestion," he smiles with a knowing
wink.
Still wonder, what's in a name?
that matter Afzal Khan, and their many troubles
for all the wrong historical reasons? Yogesh
Pawar explores the chauvinism behind name
politics as he talks to some whose lives changed
forever and others who bear their appellations
with pride and conviction.
Sudhir Shetty dna
Historical whim or politically motivated? Even as
the jury is still out on what necessitated New
Delhi Municipal Council's decision to rename
tony Aurangzeb Road in Lutyens Delhi after the
late APJ Abdul Kalam, it has brought to fore the
baggage of bigotry some names carry even
hundreds of years after the original name-
bearers have gone.
Just ask Aurangazeb Zafarullah Khan who
resides 1,400 km away in the distant Mumbai
suburb of Kalyan. "Since the news broke, my
close friends haven't stopped ribbing me about
how 'unpopular' my name is," smiles the 39-year-
old. "Just because a few people are trying to
change the name of a road in Delhi, why should I
feel ashamed?"
The self-employed computer hardware engineer
refuses to consider his name a cross to bear.
"Both my parents are teachers. They chose this
name after careful deliberation because of
Emperor Aurangzeb's qualities of fearlessness,
persistence and piety."
The vilification of the Mughal emperor, in his
view, stems from communal prejudice. "If we
borrow a contemporary phrase like 'human rights
excesses' to describe what transpired in those
times then no ruler will emerge smelling of roses.
In those times, all of them were guilty of the
same in one way or the other. To merely isolate
the Mughal emperor and uncontextualise what he
did from his times and circumstances is not only
unfair but comes across as ill-informed."
Unlike the Kalyan resident, Aurangzeb Alamgir
Mansoor Syed, the 36-year-old resident of
Behrampada in Bandra East, nearly 50 km away,
says he's grown up in dread of his name. He
begins chortling, shyly at first and then
uproariously, mopping his eyes with his sleeves
as he remembers the gigantic movie hoardings of
the Arjun Kapoor-starrer Aurangazeb at the
Mahim church signal which he clicked on his
phone for memory. When he catches his breath,
he remembers how friends would make fun of
his name adorning hoardings.
"Finally I'd felt vindicated about my name after
so many years," remembers the taxi driver as he
lovingly feeds morsels from his own lunch to his
only child Zoya. "I'm out the whole day at times
on my taxi and all I can think of is her," he says,
holding the three-year-old close.
He was named by a pir (holy man) in his native
village who told his parents it meant the 'pride
of the throne'. His parents thought nothing of it.
That was till he began going to school. He
remembers Classes 4 and 6 being the worst
years of his life. "We were staying in Chembur
then. In school, the history books showed
Emperor Aurangzeb as an anti-Hindu tyrant.
Since most of my classmates and the teacher
were Hindu, I'd regularly be subject to jibes in
class and teasing in the breaks over this. This
led to many nasty fights."
Aurangzeb's description only as a temple
vandaliser, as someone who enforced the
punitive jiziya tax on Hindu pilgrims, his
imprisonment of Shivaji and finally his torture
and slaying of Sambhaji had such a detrimental
effect on the young Aurangzeb Alamgir that he
dropped out of school.
"After the first round of riots in December 1992,
our Hindu-majority locality became unsafe. We
moved in with my maternal uncle's family in
Behrampada. Later, my father invested in a small
kholi where I still live."
According to the Class 7 drop-out, the break in
schooling during the riots came as a relief from
the teasing and fights at school over his name.
"I was determined not to allow it to happen
again and braved both my ammi 's shouting and
my abba 's beating to stay away from the local
school they put me in." Tired, they let him
apprentice at a local garage for a few years,
before he began driving a cab. "I realise that it
was in my fitrat not to work for anyone. The taxi-
line has its problems but I'm at least on my
own."
Not just Aurangzeb
If the name Aurangzeb can get you into trouble
for all the wrong historical reasons, can someone
called Afzal Khan fare any better? "It wouldn't
perhaps be as bad with either the name or
surname, but together it was devastating. I went
through school cringing at barbs, many
poisonously communal," says garment trader
from the Tata Colony chawls at the Bandra-Kurla
complex named after the medieval general killed
by Shivaji.
"Every time I complained, I'd end up being
punished along with those who teased me," says
the Class 12 dropout. The Aurangabad native
changed many jobs and businesses before
settling into garment retail. As a satellite-van
driver for a leading TV news channel, he
recounts what he describes as a hilarious
incident during a communal flare-up in Pratapgad
– where Afzal Khan battled Shivaji in 1659 –
when Hindu organisations were objecting to an
"encroachment by the Afzal Khan Trust".
"I was driving the OB van which went to the site
with the reporter and camera person. The Satara
collectorate under which the fort falls was
making security passes for media to go to the
fort. A clerk was asking us details and writing
them down. When he asked my name he began
smiling, but almost fell off his chair laughing
when told that the OB van engineer was Shivaji
Patil. ' Ekdum Afzal Khan aani Shivaji jodiney aalat
(So Afzal Khan and Shivaji are travelling
together),' he'd laughed."
History in black and white
Many like historian Dr Shailesh Srivastav find it
strange that history books dwell so little on
humanising the much reviled sixth Mughal
emperor. "While his tyranny against the Sikhs
and Marathas is often brought up, the fact that
he refused to use any money from the royal
treasury for his personal upkeep is often just
brushed off as side-note just like the fact that he
sewed prayer caps and wrote handwritten copies
of the Koran from which he met his own
expenses. It's almost like Indian mythology,
where the more you demonise one character the
more you lionise and deify the other. Even if
there are slip-ups by Ram they are always
rationalised. But anything that Ravan does has to
be painted in the darkest of blacks so that the
aura around Ram glows extra bright."
Underlining Aurangzeb's role in Maratha history,
he adds, "While it's true that Sambhaji was slain
at the behest of Aurangzeb on 11th March 1689,
his son Shahuji spent his entire childhood and
youth, from age seven to age 25, in the custody
of the Mughals. It was there that Aurangzeb and
his daughter who was very fond of him, ensured
the young prince learnt to run court,
swordsmanship and the art of warfare from a
very young age. When he became free and took
over reins as Chattrapati at 26 he led the
Maratha empire to glory like never before. Since
he was well-acquainted with the way Mughals
thought and strategised, he was able to keep
them on the run after the death of Aurangzeb in
1707 and the Maratha kingdom spread almost
across the subcontinent."
What about Ashoka?
Jaipur-based historian Biswajeet Pande wonders
whether Delhi's civic authorities will also change
the name of Ashoka Road – also part of
Lutyen's Delhi and housing many colonial era
bungalows as well as the headquarters of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "However much
one defends Ashoka and demonises Aurangazeb,
what's clear beyond any doubt is that Ashoka
killed lakhs of more innocents in his quest for
unchallenged power -- he killed his brothers, had
execution chambers, which remind of Hitler, and
converted almost all of Hindu India into
Buddhism. Will they rename Ashoka Road and all
other buildings and roads after his name?"
He also suggests that Ashoka Road be renamed
after the late prime minister VP Singh, "the
greatest champion of equality in post-Partition
India, known for extraordinary honesty, in public
and private life."
"Apart from being one of the best finance
ministers of India, he ended the dacoit menace in
Uttar Pradesh and also donated a big chunk of
his land to Vinoba Bhave during the Bhoodaan
movement," he adds.
Dr Srivastav in fact takes this a notch higher.
"The renaming of the road in Dr Kalam's name is
also a direct signal to the community to fall in
line. While his missile-man identity was in
keeping with the narrative of India as a
superpower, you can't discount how he never
asserted his religious identity, was open to
visiting temples and even played the veena . The
signals are right there."
…and Meera?
Interestingly, its not only Muslim names which
face this problem. Borivali resident banker
Jaydev Singh Rathod remembers how elders in
his Agnihotri Rajput family had baulked at his
Tam-Brahm wife Padma's suggestion for a name
for his first-born. "She suggested Meera thinking
it'd have the right Rajput ring to it and come
across as an olive branch to my parents who
were bitterly opposed to our marriage," says the
33-year-old.
It was left to his aunt to explain that nobody
names their daughters Meera in their community.
"I learnt, its still used to disparagingly discipline
young girls who show signs of a crush," he
points out. " Kyon ri bawli? Badi Meera ho gayi tu?
(Are you crazy? Have you become Meera?), is a
rebuke young girls often hear."
Curious, we want to know what he's called his
daughter. "I have to deal with my folks only when
I go to Udaipur. But my wife I have to live with.
In the interests of peace at home I have gone
with her suggestion," he smiles with a knowing
wink.
Still wonder, what's in a name?
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