Trolling via road nomenclature

The naming of streets is a tricky business. In the old days, streets got their names off occupations. There could be named after a Baker, a Butcher, a Shoemaker. Or, after prominent landmarks, like Church Street. In India, we have our own versions, such as Chikoo-wadi, Parathe-wali Gali, Dariba Kalan or Chandni Chowk.

The naming of streets after people is a relatively recent phenomenon and quite a politic decision. To name a street after a person, with the assumption of perpetual visibility, is to say that this person is significant, and must remain in public memory. And therefore, we have streets named after monarchs, politicians, scholars, artists and very prominent businessmen. Very, very rarely do we have a street named for an activist. There is of course, Mahatma Gandhi; several Indian cities have an M.G. Road by way of acknowledging the father of the nation. One could say he was an activist-politician. However, the more confrontational and anti-establishment an activist is, the fewer the chances that his/her name will be enjoined to a street sign.

Unless, of course, it's someone else's activist. Those are easier to champion.

Recently, Dutch activists went about “renaming” streets after Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager who was imprisoned for hitting an Israeli soldier. What makes it a fine act of diplomatic trolling is that one of these street named for Ahed leads to the embassy of Israel in Amsterdam.

I do not know whether The Netherlands officially supports such a renaming but, at any rate, the state seems not to be in a hurry to punish the activists who made the change.

Such trolling of another state via renaming of the street on which the embassy stands is not new. Iran did this masterfully way back in 1981.

Bobby Sands was a member of the Irish Republican Army which was opposed to British rule. Sands was in prison and had undertaken a hunger strike along with a handful of other IRA activists. He withstood the strike for 66 days before he died at the age of just 27.

In May 1981, news of his death filtered out to the rest of the world. He had many supporters, even as far as Teheran. The Iranian government decided to honour his memory – and stick their tongue out at the British – by renaming the street on which the British Embassy stood.

The UK officials, naturally, was not amused; they thought of the IRA as terrorists. So they responded by turning their backs on the new Bobby Sands Street. The front entrance was moved around to the back, so that the opposite street could be given out as their official address. Some reports suggest that, as late as 2004, the British were trying to lobby Iran to change the name of Bobby Sands Street.

Teheran seems quite adept at responding to other states in this manner. Saudi Arabia, with whom its relations remain fragile, was similarly taunted. The street on which the embassy stands was reportedly named after Sheikh Al-Nimr, a Shia cleric who was executed by the Saudi Arabia.

The USA also tormented its rival, the former USSR, in 1984 when it decided to name a public square after Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet dissident who was put in jail. More recently, there have been moves to challenge Russia through naming a plaza after Boris Nemotsov, an opposition leader who was killed in 2015.

There seem to be fewer such challenges to the power of rival nations in India, nor public reminders of the abuse of state power. This is always a tricky thing to do, of course. Because once we do start reminding each other of the abuses of power in each other's backyard, we're going to start running out of streets to rename.

First published here: 

http://www.thehindu.com/society/trolling-via-road-nomenclature/article23583525.ece