The politics of names: Will Hyderabad become Bhagyanagar?

The Politics of Names

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national executive meeting in Hyderabad recently, attended by the party’s top guns led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indicated a new resolve by the outfit to rule directly over South India. Especially on target was Telangana which, ever since the state was formed in 2014, has been ruled by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). Voiced in the meeting was the demand to rename Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, as Bhagyanagar. The contention is that Bhagyanagar was the original name of the city, and as proof of this, the temple of Bhagyalakshmi that shares a common wall with the Charminar is adduced. Charminar is the defining landmark of Hyderabad and was erected by Quli Qutb Shah, the founder of the city, in 1591.

As an indicator of the importance of the temple of Bhagyalakshmi (and Bhagyanagar), many nationally important BJP leaders – such as Union Home Minister Amit Shah -- visited the temple while campaigning in the municipal elections in Hyderabad in December last year. After the polls, the newly elected BJP corporators were also taken to the Bhagyalakshmi temple to pay their respects to what was called the ruling deity of the city.

So, are the people of Hyderabad overjoyed by the demand to rename the city Bhagyanagar? The matter has not been put to vote, but it does not seem so. Many claims that the name Bhagyanagar is derived from Baghnagar, the name by which Hyderabad was hailed in medieval times because it had an abundance of ‘bagh’s (gardens) then. The Bhagyalakshmi temple is a latter-day addition and, as evidence, many point out a 1959 picture in an important national daily that shows that there was no temple on the side of the Charminar where it is now! In fact, a cobbler used to do business at the site in the 1950s, it is claimed by some old-timers. They suggest that the temple is a latter-day addition not by the BJP but by proponents of Telangana state in the 1960s.

Telangana was earlier part of the composite Andhra Pradesh state. But the demand for a new state of Telangana began to be voiced in the 1960s: It is said that the temple came up around that time.

Hyderabad was a princely state, ruled by the Nizam in the 19th century and up to 1948, when it was annexed by the newly-created Indian State. After the Nizam was deposed, the map of the state was redrawn. Many parts of the erstwhile Nizam’s state went to Maharashtra and Karnataka. This was even as the Andhra region – which was part of Madras Presidency under the British raj -- was decoupled and added to the remaining part of the Nizam state (roughly present-day Telangana). The new state was called Andhra Pradesh with Telugu as its main language.

In fact, Andhra Pradesh served as the basis of the establishment of linguistic states in the country and ultimately led to many more linguistic states. But that’s beside the point. The formation of Andhra Pradesh led to angst amongst the people of the Telangana region. This was because the two regions did not have parity in terms of development: the Andhra region was more developed, and its people trained much more in modern mores.

Within a decade the people of Telangana, feeling discriminated against in Andhra Pradesh, wanted their own state and started a fight for this. The movement was, however, quelled by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It was at this time that the Bhagyalakshmi temple came up, almost surreptitiously. Nobody knows what the precise reason for establishing the temple was. At that time, the memory of the Nizam’s raj, which was undemocratic and autocratic, was fresh in the minds of the people, and the fact that he was a Muslim could have led to the establishment of the Bhagyalakshmi temple on the sides of the Charminar.

As the situation now stands, about 11% of Telangana’s population is Muslim, but Hyderabad city has nearly 40% Muslims. In the old city of Hyderabad, where the Charminar stands, the percentage of Muslims is decidedly higher, though there are no firm estimates of their numbers. The Majlis-Ittehadul–Muslimeen (MIM) lords over these parts and also has control of the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat through its Member of Parliament, Asaduddin Owaisi. The MIM has an easy alliance with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in the state. Telangana state was created with the help of the Congress party, which had good ties with not only the MIM but also the TRS. However, once the state was created, the TRS, headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao, now the Chief Minister of the state, jettisoned the Congress and its leader Sonia Gandhi. The latter could do nothing but watch on. The BJP was almost a non-player then.

The BJP, although present in the state with four Lok Sabha seats, is now looking for a bigger presence post the 2023 polls. Cognizant of the anti-renaming sentiment amongst a large section of the state, the BJP is still not going full throttle with its demand to rename Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar. But at its recent national executive meeting, even Prime Minister Modi spoke of Bhagyanagar. Maybe a final view on whether to rename Hyderabad will be taken closer to the Assembly elections and the 2024 national elections. The BJP has, in recent times, renamed many cities in the name of reviving old heritage. This includes Allahabad, now called Prayagraj, and many other lesser-known cities. But Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, which is the biggest stronghold of the Modi-Shah BJP, continues with its old name though it was proposed to be renamed Karnavati by party functionaries!

(The writer is a senior journalist and author)