When governments decide to rename cities, it almost never goes well. Just ask the citizens of Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Given a choice, most of them would much rather refer to themselves as residents of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore respectively. The change is seldom welcome. It was a similar story on Tuesday when the Haryana government announced the decision to rename the districts of Gurgaon and Mewat, which will now be known as Gurugram and Nuh respectively.
Announcing the decision on Tuesday evening, an official spokesperson for the state government said the decision to rename Gurgaon as Gurugram was made as people "had long been demanding" the change. He said that a Gurgaon was a historic land of the Bhagvad Gita, and that the place had been a centre of learning and known as Gurugram since the times of Guru Dronacharya. According to literature posted on the government's official website, the name was distorted to Gurgaon over the years.
As for Mewat, the spokesperson said that it was is a geographical and cultural unit, not a town, that spread beyond Haryana in the adjoining states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The headquarters of Mewat district is at Nuh town, he said, and that the people of these areas had been demanding the name change.
The decision to rename the corporate hub of Gurgaon in particular did not go down too well with its citizens, but it also induced plenty of characteristic humour on social media. Here's a selection:
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