'India secular country, history can't haunt present generation': SC junks plea on renaming roads, places

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea to direct the Union government to appoint a renaming commission to rechristen names of cities and places called after foreign invaders, saying India is a secular country and the history of the past can't be allowed to haunt the present generation.

"India is a secular country, this is a secular forum. We are supposed to protect the Constitution and all sections. You want to re-agitate things which should be buried and not create disaffection," a bench of Justices K M Joseph and B V Nagarathna told petitioner advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

The top court took an exception to the petitioners "naming" a particular community as "barbaric foreign invaders".

Also Read | SC to hear on March 21 pleas challenging tenure extension of ED director

"Don't dig up the past which will only create disharmony. We can't have the country on the boil," the bench said.

"Hinduism is a way of live not just a religion. We have assimilated all cultures. Let's not break it up by such kind of petitions. Have the country in mind not just religion," the bench further told him.

"Hinduism is a way of life and there is no bigotry in it. You or this court should not become instrument to create havoc," the bench further told the petitioner.

The court said all sections of society have to live together here.

"History of India can't haunt the present and future generations. The present generation can't be prisoner of past," the bench added.

The petitioner sought a direction to the Union Home Ministry to set up a “renaming commission” to find out original names of ancient historical cultural religious places, called after "foreign invaders".

The plea contended that this was necessary in order to maintain sovereignty and to secure ‘right to dignity, right to religion and right to culture’ guaranteed under Articles 21, 25 and 29 of the Constitution.

On January 29, 2023, the Mughal Garden at Rashtrapati Bhawan was renamed as 'Amrit Udyan', "but government did nothing to rename the roads named after invaders like Babur Road, Humayun Road, Akbar Road, Jahangir Road, Shahjahan Road, Bahadur Shah Road, Sher Shah Road, Aurangzeb Road, Tughlak Road, Safdarjung Road, Najaf Khan Road, Jauhar Road, Lodhi Road, Chelmsford Road and Hailey Road. etc," the plea said.

Giving examples of names of hundreds of such cities, and places, the petitioner also sought a direction to the Archaeological Survey of India to research and publish the initial names of ancient historical cultural and religious places, for securing ‘right to know’ to the citizens under Article 19 of the Constitution.

The petitioner, who contended there was not a single place in Delhi named after characters of 'Mahabharat', was disallowed to withdraw his petition, in view of his pending representation to the Union government on the issue.