Kolkata to drop Marx, Lenin names from road names for Indian icons

Soon Karl Marx, VI Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, or, for that matter, Prince Anwar Shah, the grandson of Tipu Sultan, would go off Kolkata roads, giving way to Desi exemplars like Debaprasad Ghosh or Michael Madhusudan Dutt and even Ram Kothari, one of the brothers who were killed in Ayodhya police firing.

The 10-member committee constituted by the State Government has already started functioning, with Kartik Maharaj, or Swami Pradiptananda of the Bharat Sevashram Sangha, among its members. Among others on the committee are former Bengal BJP president and ex Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy and Subrata Gupta, the Chief Advisor to Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

The monk, who has already been allocated an office at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, has started his work in earnest on the road rechristening project, one was told.

“There are many roads of Kolkata which were arbitrarily named after people who neither visited Bengal or India or left any contribution for this country… so where is a need to lug their so-called legacy by us,” the Swami said, adding the panel has already received names of a few roads for consideration, including Biswa Bangla Sarani (named by former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee) and Ho Chi Minh Sarani — “names which are not connected either to Bengal’s culture or history.”

Recommendations had been sent on a few roads: “the members will consider their connections with Bharatiya Sanskriti (Indian culture) and that of Bengal and draw up a proposal after careful consideration,” he said, adding that the proposal will then be recommended to the State Assembly. Wondering, “what Lenin or Karl Marx did for India or why the names like Prince Anwar Shah will have to be continued for nothing … what contribution do they have for India or Bengal… even in their own countries they are not remembered today,” said BJP MLA Sajal Ghosh.

While Karl Marx was a German philosopher, social and political theorist, and revolutionary socialist, Lenin was the father of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and Ho Chi Minh was the Vietnamese communist revolutionary and statesman who founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and became its first president.

The road-renaming exercise is not new to Kolkata; previously, roads like Amherst Street were renamed Rammohan Roy Sarani, Lansdown Road was rechristened Sarat Bose Road, and Bidhan Sarani was called College Street. Similarly, today’s Lenin Sarani was called Dharamtalla Street, whereas Karla Marx Sarani was known as Kidderpore Circular/Garden Reach Road.

According to sources, members have suggested renaming Ho Chi Minh Sarani (avenue) after Debaprasad Ghosh, a mathematician and former president of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Proposals have also come to rename the Karl Marx Sarani Kidderpore/Circular Garden Reach Road after prominent Bengali poets Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Rangalal Bandyopadhyay. Parallel names have also been suggested for Ho Chi Minh Sarani (formerly Harrington Street), according to which it should be renamed after US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

On the other hand, Kartik Maharaqj has reportedly suggested that the Biswa Bangla Sarani — arguably the busiest street in Kolkata- be renamed after Bhakti saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Apart from this, the Chief Minister himself has suggested the naming of a Kolkata thoroughfare after Kar Sevaks Ram Kothari and Sharad Kothari, who were killed in police firing in Ayodhya. Recently, he asked Kothari Smriti Sangh at Burrabazar to suggest a road to be named for the Kothari brothers in Bengal, just as there is one in Lucknow. “There should be awards in their names in our colleges. Give this nationalist double-engine government suggestions, and we will fulfill them,” he reportedly said.

Incidentally, Purnima Kothari, the younger sister of the Kothari brothers, had earlier appealed to the State Government to rename a metro station or a road in the memory of the Kothari brothers.

Reacting to the BJP’s logic, CPI(M) leader Shatarup Ghosh said, “Perhaps the most number of roads in other countries have been named after Mahatma Gandhi, who may have no contribution to that country… we have Raja Rammohan Roy’s statue in England… had the BJP been ruling there, they would have thrown that statue away.”