New Delhi, December 29, 2021 (PPI-OT):After the cities in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it is the turn of the poets to be the target of Bharatiya Janata Party’s whimsical name-changing spree. According to Kashmir Media Service, the Uttar Pradesh government seems to have quietly rechristened poets hailing from Allahabad like Akbar Allahabadi, who has been passed off as Akbar Prayagraj.
Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Service Commission (UPHESC), a government body which appoints principals and professors for government-subsidised universities and colleges, on its website names poets who used Allahabadi as their pen name as Prayagrajs. Hence, Akbar Allahabadi, Tegh Allahabadi and Rashid Allahabadi have become Akbar Prayagraj, Tegh Prayagraj and Rashid Prayagraj.
“Besides Hindi literature, Persian and Urdu literatures are also studied in the city. Akbar is a noted modern Urdu poet, and Nooh Narwi, Tegh Prayagraj, Shabnam Naqvi and Rashid Prayagraj have their origin in Prayagraj,” reads the ‘About Us’ section of UPHESC’s website. The BJP government has even renamed the Allahabad High Court after Prayagraj.
In the website’s About US, there is a section of ‘About Allahabad’. All these changes in the names have been effected while describing Allahabad in that ‘About Allahabad’ section, reports South Asian Wire. Hindi daily, Dainik Bhashkar, quoted UPHESC chief Ishwar Sharan Vishwakarma, as saying that he was not aware of the development. However, the change of poets’ pen-names has drawn flak from writers and poets.
Fiction writer and Professor Rajendra Kumar called changing of Akbar Allahabadi’s name to Akbar Prayagraj an insult to Akbar Allahabadi, a “violation of privacy”. “This is not just a matter of changing names. But you are spoiling someone’s reputation and identity. It gave an impression that he had done nothing, hence the name change,” said Kumar.
He said that changing the name of a city is different from changing the name of an individual. “A city is a collective property while any person’s name is not. If a poet assumes a particular name for his pen-name, it becomes part of his identity. Changing it is like wiping out history,” he added and demanded that the UPHESC should take steps to restore the original names of the poets.
Heramb Chaturvedi, a professor at Allahabad University, said this was an act of “disruption and shows pettiness”. He added, “Fools should be forgiven”. The professor also said changing pen names of famous poets shows that “authorities have a skewed understanding of history”.
Meanwhile, BJP leader, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is also a professor of history at Allahabad University, tried to play it down by suggesting that “it can be a manual error because one cannot change a person’s pen name like that”.
Akbar Allahabadi, Tegh Allahabadi and Rashid Allahabadi are acclaimed Urdu poets. And Akbar Allahabadi is not the only one to have had his pen name, or the name they are popularly identified with, changed. All such writers or poets who used “Allahabadi” as a suffix to their names have been renamed “Prayagraj” on the UPHESC website. These include Rashid Allahabadi and Tegh Allahabadi, who have been named after Akbar Allahabadi in the list of Urdu poets from the city – they are now listed as “Tegh Prayagraj” and “Rashid Prayagraj”.
Akbar Allahabadi is well known among the people for his satirical poetry in Urdu. His original name is Syed Akbar Hussain but he is known in the world of poetry as Akbar Allahabadi. He was born in Rajasthan’s Bara on 16 November, 1846.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
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Email: info@kmsnews.org
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