A few months ago Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh renamed Allahabad to Prayagraj. Soon after that the government renamed Faizabad as Ayodhya.
Why are governments obsessed with the name changing exercise? Is it just to gain political mileage or is there a deeper significance behind these actions?
Changing names gives power. Medieval alchemists believed that giving names to things gives power over them and dominance to inflict change and control natures and habits. This what we saw when European came to the subcontinent and popularized the word India among the world orders. It gave them mysterious power over the people. Until the Europeans arrived term Hindu was just a socio-cultural identifier. As George Orwell puts it, “Who controls the past, controls the future.”
Hence, renaming is just a first in complete metamorphosis and power grab.
