What’s in a name? On India renaming cities and landmarks

A gazette notification can rename a state, a station, or a road overnight. Kerala becomes Keralam. A Delhi metro stop gets a new board. But a name is not just a label. It is an entry in thousands of systems, and every one has to catch up. Maps, land records, railway tickets, postal routes, bank files, Aadhaar, passports, voter IDs, school certificates. Estimates put the cost of renaming a large city anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand crore. The Supreme Court metro station change alone News Source: Times of India was pegged at 40 to 45 lakh per station. And even after the paperwork updates, public memory does not. Banaras survives in speech. Allahabad slips back into daily talk all the time. The old name and the new one live side by side, one official, one remembered. The real nuance is that renaming is a costly affair. The exercise, if at all should be done with caution and respect for the tax payer money.

The exercise, if at all should be done with caution and respect for the tax payer money.