In August 2018, the fourth largest railway junction in India, Mughalsarai, was renamed after the politician Pandit Din Dayal Upadhyay, who was a pioneer of the Hindu nationalist BJP. The name of the city of Allahabad was also changed. The area in which the city is located is of great symbolic value for religious people, as it is where the holy river Ganges and its tributary Yamuna converge. In the 16th century the Muslim Grand Mugul Akbar I founded the city of Allahabad (“seat of Allah”) there. The government of Uttar Pradesh changed the city's name to Prayagraj (“place of sacrifice”). This was the name of an old village next to Allahabad, which today has become a part of it. The Hindu BJP wants to change the iconography of India with the new names and above all hide the role of Muslims in the nation's history. Prime Minister Modi, who had started with a reputation as a “Game Changer” and wanted to spark a rethink, is now mocked as “Name Changer”, who tries with the renaming to distract from the weakening value of the rupee, missing investments and rising poverty.
Translated from Spanish by Timo Berger