Be it ‘Shrimant Madhav Rao Scindia Marg’ or the ‘Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Marg’, naming streets after royalty and political figures and prefixing titles before their names is respecting public sentiments. So says the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and surprisingly the civic agency is dismayed if anyone raises “wilful objections” or questions the names of the streets.
In response to a query by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, NDMC justified prefixing title before the names of prominent figures after whom streets have been named. Mr Agrawal had in an RTI query sought to know why titles are prefixed before the names of figures who represent monarchy and why ‘Shrimant’ and ‘Rajmata’ were prefixed to ‘Madhavrao Scindia Marg and ‘Vijayaraje Scindia Marg’ respectively.
He had also asked as to why the prefix ‘Samrat’ was not added before names ‘Ashoka’ and ‘Prithviraj’ roads if prefix was added before the above public figures. “At the outset, it is informed that the NDMC vide resolution dated February 26, 2002 has resolved to name ‘I Avenue, Sarojini Nagar, New Delhi’ as ‘Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Marg’ and Canning Road as ‘Madhav Rao Scindia Marg’. The decision to pre-fix ‘Shrimant’ was taken subsequently,” said NDMC.
The civic agency also said that the query was placed before the Council in its meeting held on August 27. As per a provision of NDMC Act, Chairperson of NDMC may with the sanction of the Council determine the name or number by which any street or public place vested in the Council shall be known. But the NDMC does not like the query, it seems.
In its response, it goes on to say, “Keeping in the above mandate, the NDMC...has expressed its dismay over the nature of captioned grievance (RTI query) citing that in view of the delicate sentiments involved, it should not be open to anybody to raise wishful objections to the road naming activity.”
“Further, while naming roads and buildings after important personalities, due caution is exercised so that popular titles by which those personalities are known in public domain are prefixed before their names,” it said.
Responding to this, Mr Agrawal said: “If NDMC believes it is about respecting public sentiments and titles by which people knew certain figures, then why not add 'samrat' before Ashok road or Prithviraj road because otherwise, there must be thousands of men by the name of Ashok. Also, how does NDMC get to know of public sentiments and add titles. First they renamed Canning Road ‘Madhavrao Scindia Marg’ in 2002 and in August, 2014 added the prefix ‘Shrimant’. What made them realise public sentiments? NDMC is justifying monarchy titles and encouraging sentiments of former rulers.”
Besides this, Mr Agrawal also highlighted how one street has two names like the ‘Parliament Street which is also known as ‘Sansad Marg’. “It is basic rule of English that proper nouns cannot be translated. Then how is Parliament Street also called Sansad Marg. Also, it is to be noted that Parliament Street was so named even before there was a Parliament in place here.” To another related query, the NDMC informed that as per a 2000 notification it is mandatory to write the name of a street in English, Hindi and Urdu.
