Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy on Monday reiterated that Hyderabad will be renamed as Bhagyanagar if his party is voted to power in the November 30 Assembly elections. This is not the first time that the BJP has called for changing the name of Telangana’s capital. BJP demand The BJP’s demand gained momentum when Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while campaigning for the party for the 2020 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, had raked it up during his address to a rally. Subsequently, the BJP top brass, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, referred to Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar in their various addresses. So, historically, was Hyderabad ever called Bhagyanagar? City name theories There have been multiple theories about Hyderabad’s name. The most popular belief is that the city got its name after its founder Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of the Golconda Sultanate, who ruled the city between 1580 and 1612 named it Bhagyanagar after Bhagmati, a local dancer, his beloved with whom he got married. Bhagmati converted to Islam and adopted the name Hyder Mahal, and the city was renamed Hyderabad in her honour. According to a scholar of Islamic architecture, Andrew Petersen, the city was originally called Baghnagar (city of gardens). John Everett-Heath, in his Concise Dictionary for World Place-Names, states that the city was named Hyderabad in honour of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the last Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate. According to Everett-Heath, the city was named to pay tribute to the Caliph’s lion-like valour in battles. A combination of “Haydar” (lion) and “abad” (city) formed Hyderabad, the “lion city”. However, another popular belief that the BJP has latched on to is that the city got its name from goddess Bhagyalakshmi. The theory dates back to the Nizam era, when minority Hindus started referring to the city as Bhagyanagar as the fall of the Hyderabad princely state became imminent. After the fall of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, the theory remained on the backburner till Adityanath raised it at his 2020 Hyderabad rally. Politics of name change In states it rules, the BJP has been on a renaming spree in a bid to make the names of various places “more Hindu”. In Maharashtra, Aurangabad was renamed as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar while Osmanabad became Dharashiv. In UP, the Mughalsarai railway station was renamed after Deen Dayal Upadhyay while Allahabad became Prayagraj. Recently, UP Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak said the state’s capital city Lucknow will be renamed as Lakshman Nagari. Bhagyalakshmi temple The BJP, which is seeking to make a foothold in Telangana, vigorously pushed its Hindutva agenda under its former state chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar. As part of this move, Sanjay started his statewide “Praja Sangrama Yatra” in 2021 from the Bhagyalakshmi temple, which is located adjacent to the iconic Charminar monument in Hyderabad. Top BJP leaders, including PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have also visited this temple during their trips to the city. The temple was embroiled in a controversy after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said a part of it was so close to one of the walls of the Charminar that it did not leave any space for restoration works. The BJP’s Hindutva move, coupled with its focus on the OBC groups, which make up 52% of the state’s population, is aimed at expanding its support base among the majority community in a state which has 13% Muslim population concentrated in areas like Hyderabad, Nizamabad, Kamareddy and Mahbubnagar. BRS, AIMIM pushback The ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has repeatedly hit out at the BJP over the issue. Last year, IT Minister K T Rama Rao or KTR, the son of CM K Chandrashekar Rao or KCR, in response to former Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das’s demand for changing Hyderabad’s name, had asked him to first change the name of Ahmedabad to “Adanibad”. KTR was referring to the allegations levelled against the Modi government that it has favoured the Adani group. Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM too has lashed out at the BJP leaders over the name change row. “First, ask them (BJP leaders) where did this Bhagyanagar come from? Where it has been written. You hate Hyderabad and trying to rename the city is a symbol of that hatred. Hyderabad is our identity, how will you rename it? They are just doing politics of hatred,” Owaisi said during his campaigning for the polls last Saturday.
