the epic Mahabharata, who is viewed as a villain by India’s Dalits.

Last month, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh proposed to rename airports in the towns of Bareilly, Kanpur, and Agra. The proposed new names of two of the three airports have apparent Hindu overtones. Bareilly is to be renamed Nath Nagri, after the Hindu Nath sect. The Hindu politician Yogi Adityanath, the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, known for his brazen Islamophobia, belongs to this sect. The Agra airport, on the other hand, is to be renamed after the Hindutva ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, just like the Mughalsarai Railway Station.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP, also demands many other places with Muslim names, including the cities of Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Aurangabad,to be renamed.

Renaming places, re-writing histories

Renaming of cities, streets or landmarks is not an act exclusive to India or the BJP.

The city that was known as St Petersburg in imperial Russia was renamed Petrograd in 1914 at the start of World War I because authorities thought its original name sounded too German. In 1924, following the formation of the USSR and the death of Lenin, the name of the city was changed once again, this time to Leningrad. The city’s name was reverted back to St Petersburg in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

India also renamed several cities long before the BJP took power. In 1995, it restored the names of the cities of Bombay, Bangalore, and Calcutta to their indigenous versions – Mumbai, Bengaluru, and