With the Haryana government recently approving requests for changing the names of several villages, a number of villages have approached the government with an aim to get rid of their supposedly 'weird' or bad meaning names.
Data accessed by The Statesman reveals that more than a dozen requests have been received by the state government for changing the names of various villages just because the villagers feel embarrassed due to the existing names.
List of such strange names of the villages were brought to the knowledge of the government includes, Kinner, Ganda, Kutiyawali, Kuttabarh, Bhondsi, Jhimri Khera, Durjanpur, Pindari, Baal Ranghran and others. Interestingly, the residents of these villages have preferred soft names, mostly religious or naming after some saints.
During the past three months, the state government has already requested the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) for its nod for renaming the Ganda village in Fatehabad district as Ajit Nagar named after eldest son of 10th Sikh master Guru Gobind Singh, Kinner village in Hisar as Gaibi Nagar named after a saint Gaibi Baba and Chamghera village in Mahendragarh district as Dev Nagar.
While concerned district administrations have been asked to send proposal against the requests received for changing names of Rohtak's Garhi Sampla village as Sir Chhotu Ram Nagar, Hisar's Kutiyawali as Shahzadpur village, Kuttabarh as Pyar Nagar, Rewari's Gothra Tappa Kheri as Gothra Aheer, Karnal's Jhimri Khera as Jolly, Gurugram's Bhondsi as Bhuvneshwari, Jind's Pindari as Pandu Pindara, Bhiwani's Durjanpur as Sajjapur, Sirsa's Makhesyoraj as Makhosarani, Faridabad's Ballabhgarh as Balramgarh and Karnal's Baal Ranghran and Baal Rajputan.
After coming to power, the Manohar Lal Khattar led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already renamed Millennium City Gurgaon as Gurugram based on the historic connection of the city with Guru Dronacharya while Mustafabad in Yamunanagar was renamed as Saraswati Nagar saying that old dried-up riverbed of river Saraswati existed near the village.
Earlier, in June 2015, during the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led Congress government, Sirsa's Sanghar Sarita village was renamed as Baba Bhooman Shah.
Changing names of villages is not new in Haryana as during the Bhajan Lal led Congress regime in the state Hisar's Kurdi villages was renamed as Arya Nagar while former Chief Minister Bansi Lal had also renamed Bhiwani's Nakta village as Bhangarh, Galkata as Ajeetpur and Khusra as Prem Nagar.