British names go as India erases colonial past

Islands retitled to honour rebel who fought alongside Nazis and Japan during the Second World War

THREE Indian islands have been given new names as part of a campaign by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to dissociate the country from two centuries of British rule. On a visit to the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, the prime minister announced the renaming of Ross, Neil and Havelock Islands – named after colonial figures – to honour Subhash Chander Bose.

Mr Bose, a radical Hindu nationalist, raised a rebel army of Indian soldiers during the Second World War to fight the British with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

His Free India Army was defeated and he died in mysterious circumstances in 1945, two years before India won its independence.

Ross Island, named after a marine surveyor, will now be known as Subhash Chander Bose Dweep (island). Neil Island, commemorating a British military officer, becomes Shaeed or Martyr Dweep.

Havelock Island, that honoured the British army general who crushed the 1857 mutiny by Indian soldiers against British rule, has been renamed Swaraj Dweep – Independent Island.

“When it comes to heroes of the freedom struggle, we take the name of Bose with pride and that is why the government has issued a notification changing the islands’ names,” Mr Modi declared. He added that renaming the islands fulfilled a demand Bose made in 1943, when he visited the Andamans, then occupied by his Japanese allies.

Opposition parties have accused Mr Modi’s BJP party of “seeking revenge on India’s history”.

They also claim it is an attempt by Hindu nationalists to extend their cultural and political influence.

With a general election due in May, Mr Modi suffered a string of setbacks in December, when the BJP lost power in three key states.

However, he insisted yesterday that his party was on course to retain power. “No reason for morale down. We are confident and are moving ahead,” Mr Modi said.

In October, the BJP launched a campaign to rename the colonial government’s summer capital of Simla in the Himalayas to free the town from the “oppressive” mental slavery of the past.

After weeks of agitation to rename it Shyamala after a Hindu goddess, the move has for now, been deferred.

The Mughalserai railway station in Uttar Pradesh state has been renamed after Deendyal Upadhya, an associate of the Hindu ultra-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or National Volunteer Corps.

The RSS is devoted to keeping Hinduism “pure” from influences such as Islam and Christianity, a goal that the BJP has been avidly pursuing.

Sharad Yadav of the National Democratic Party said that by changing names, the BJP was deflecting attention from its inability to rejuvenate the flailing economy, create jobs and improve India’s crumbling infrastructure.

“It is a feeble attempt by the BJP to try to hide its failures” he added.