Bleak House Road, which acquired its name during the days of the Raj, achieved a measure of importance as it once housed both the consulate general of the Soviet Union and the British Council. Mr MA Khuhro, who was the chief minister of Sindh at the time of Partition, also constructed his mansion on this road. A peek into the past, however, will indicate that changing the names of signposts was regarded as some kind of catharsis and both India and Pakistan, in the euphoria of release, indulged in an orgy of obliterating as many of the vestiges of colonialism as they could find. The obvious targets were, of course, roads, streets, buildings, bridges and historical references.
And so the city fathers, whenever the mood took them, plotted the demise of the empire builders in stages. Queen Victoria was laid to rest in the late 1950s and Haji Abdullah Haroon was installed in her place. Sir Charles Drigh pegged down from natural causes after providing the only outlet to the aerodrome and was replaced by King Faisal. Lord Elphinstone bid a tearful farewell and went out with the English Cold Storage, Mexicano, Rodrigues and Co and the Abbas School of Ballroom Dancing, and a poetess named Zaibunissa was handed the key to the most famous street in Sadder. John McLeod, deputy collector of customs during the 1850s, after whom Karachi’s Wall Street and commercial hub was named, was replaced by II Chundrigar, the sixth prime minister of Pakistan and a confidant of the founder of the nation… .
So far Hawke’s Bay, named after Sir Edward Hawke, the British admiral who inflicted a decisive defeat on the French at the battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759, appears to have also survived. I could be wrong, because there have been numerous letters in the newspapers that it was time to perform replacement surgery and I haven’t kept up with developments in that wonderful picnic spot. Some goons in Lahore are also trying to change the name of the Gaddafi Stadium.
Karachi has not been alone in the quest to honour national heroes. By 2000 AD, a startling 2,500 roads and chowks in Bombay have fallen prey to national sentiments. In an article entitled “History wiped out in BMC’s road-renaming game”, published in the Indian Express on August 22, 1999, Vijay Singh stated “A precious part of vintage Bombay and the history associated with the name of a street also continues to be wiped out, while potholes multiply”. The authorities can do jolly well what they like and rename all the thoroughfares in the city. I’ll still call the roads by their original names. There’s such a thing as preserving history.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (11)
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In Calcutta we use both names, the board shows both name. We use the old name, cornwallis street, have both names. Even Calcutta is kolkatta but not asked by the citizens, telegraph still calls us Calcutta. I am a Punjabi but I respect my state of west bengal. Rab rakha
@Ali Tanoli: You ask : whats wrong to remove miserable history of occupation.......... When you choose to run away from history, miserable or otherwise, you only diminish yourself because history still remains. So is it not better to accept it for what it is, learn from it and move forwards.
@Anwer sahib, Whats wrong to remove miserable history of occupation in the name of freedom and colony we still got the language which is flourishing....
@Ali Tanoli: Thank you! If you had not made that comment @Anwer Mooraj wouldn't have responded with those couple of gems!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet;
A rose is still a rose, I guess!
In a country where Khuda Hafiz has become Allah Hafiz and one is frowned upon if one slips up..................Elphinstone to Zaibunissa is small potatoes.
An excellent article as usual, Mr. Moraaj, but you do an injustice to a masterpiece of a book; perhaps its epic length scares people away but, in my opinion, Bleak House is Dickens' finest work and the most scathing indictment of a malfunctioning legal system ever written.
@Ali Tanoli: There's no need to be personal Ali. If you made a deep study as I have have of the US states that have been named after Amerindian monikers you will discover that 24 of the states that carry the American flag have Indian roots. Space does does permit a detailed explanation. So I will just mention three. Alaska was derived from 'aleut alaxsxag'; Arkansas from 'kkaj ze' from the Quapan tribe; and Texas ultimately from 'Caddo taysha' which my friend Benjamin Cohen said meant 'friend.' Nevertheless, thanks for writing. Controversy makes life interesting.
Oh, well, we all would like to join Mr. Mooraj in his quest to preserve legends
Nothing wrong with that Grumpy, in north america or in england u cant find native indianos names???
The part of Shahra-e-Fasial near the Drigh train station is still known as Drigh Road. Some old timers, still refer to MA Jinnah road as Bundar road. We still have Dalmia Road and Napier Road, yet Ram Bagh is now known as Arambagh, Gandhi Gardens simply as the zoo and the nearby locality is just called Garden.
I am afraid that if more people find out that DJ college was named after Dewaan Dayaram Jethmal and NED university was named after Nadirjee Edeljee Dinshaw, then there may be calls to change their names as well. .