Cooking gas in the rural areas would remain what it is, and as useful, if called Grameen LPG Vitrak Yojana. This common sense is not acceptable to the government of India, which has to prefix the name of Rajiv Gandhi to the scheme. There is something juvenile about this propensity to affix the name of some member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to various government-funded schemes. It ill befits a nation that has been independent for over sixty years and a republic for over fifty. It shows an unhealthy obsession with a particular family. No one denies that members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty have made substantial contributions to public life in India. But this does not mean that they should be memorialized in the names given to schemes launched by the government. In fact, such actions do the leaders a great disservice by belittling them.
Take the example of Rajiv Gandhi. He became India’s prime minister much against his and his family’s wishes under tragic circumstances. He channelled his personal grief into an endeavour to build a young and vibrant India. The vision was as grand as it was noble. His life was cut short by a suicide-bomber. The best tribute that can be paid to him by those who are his admirers is to try and actualize his vision. This cannot be accomplished by naming a clutch of schemes after the late prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi’s name has now become attached to crèches, to chowks, to the supplies of breakfast, electricity and drinking water, to educational institutions, to airports and so on. All these, and more, were part of Rajiv Gandhi’s vision for India, but to name every single item that made up the vision after him is surely an embarrassment of riches for him and his descendants. Something must be terribly wrong and rotten if people in power believe that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi will be remembered only if government schemes and institutions are named after them. Acolytes would do well to know that the memories of these individuals will be cherished because of their achievements, not because of the number of things named after them.
There is perhaps a wider point involved here. Indians love to cling to great men and women, who are invariably turned into icons that are beyond human criticism. A part of this process of iconization is to have places and things named after them. A simple survey of the way roads are named in Indian cities will confirm this impression. Every city or town in India has its Mahatma Gandhi Road. What this tendency does is to initiate a competition among political parties. Today a Congress-led government in New Delhi is naming schemes after Rajiv Gandhi. In Lucknow, Mayavati is erecting statues of her own heroes. The makers of modern India, irrespective of their creed, would perhaps have preferred a little more maturity, rather than blind adulation.
