I. ABSTRACT:

India is a country always known for its unity among various religions and it gave us a historical appearance throughout the world. Also, it is not only possible because of some schemes, policies or efforts from the central or state government to unite us, but the citizens are also very much responsible to make this possible in practical life. It is very important for a country like India to maintain unity among all for being in a race of developing to developed one which is a true need of our country, again for this it is necessary to look out each and every single area and aspect of any country, not only some major unhidden issues but also hidden ones. If a sensitive matter cannot be dealt with proper care then a question arises that, how a country can become a developed one. Development does not mean any temporary act rather it is the continuous activity of any work done to maintain the status of any upliftment program which leads to the development of any country. 

This research work highlights the recent issue of ‘name-game covering the sphere of over-privileged religious belief’, describing the constitutional perspective over this topic followed by the consequences and conclusion. We all know how much sensitive we are with our religious sentiments and this is one of the reasons why we allow ourselves to be used by some strong parties to destroy the unity of our nation. All it leads to the internal disturbance between different beliefs. As playing the role of citizens it is necessary to protect ourselves from being used by this poison because on the opposite of this parties injecting poison in, are already using their strength silently against the unity of our country. 

Keywords: Religion, Over-privileged, Politics, Name-game, Development.

II. INTRODUCTION:

“Man is by nature a social animal”[1] stated by Aristotle, it means humans are social beings who live in a society. When it comes to society “it is a system of human organizations generating distinctive cultural patterns and institutions and usually providing protection, security, continuity, and a national identity for its members.”[2] Men and society are incomplete without each other. Like marriage and family, religion is another important social institution. It is also one of the earliest institutions of human society. Since during ancient days’ religion has been influencing human life and human society both. It is not an easy task to give a definition of religion which will satisfy everyone.

According to Ogburn, a definition of religion should be based on the characteristics of all religion, not just the one we profess. He says, “Religion is the attitude towards superhuman powers.”[3]

Here I am relating the meaning and of religion used in sociological concept and not used in religious books, because the motive is to touch the society and not any religious belief. In sociology, the word religion is used in a wider sense.

According to A.W. Green, “Religion is a system of beliefs and symbolic practices and objects, governed by faith rather than by knowledge which relates man to an unseen supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the controllable.”[4]

According to Malinowski, “Religion is a mode of action as well as a system of belief and a sociological phenomenon as well as a personal experience.”[5]

Religion seeks to interpret and control man’s relations to the forces of his physical and social environment.[6] Religion is a highly personal thing, yet it has a social aspect and social role to play, it has been proved as a powerful agency in society and performed many important functions. Therefore, the matter of religion is something personal which depends upon groups believing it and thus is very much sensitive among all of us irrespective of religion, caste and community. The common psychology we hold is that we never think about the religious background, especially this new generation and it hardly matters. But whenever the matter of dispute comes in between societies regarding our religious belief then everyone wants to raise and put one’s belief over others, so we can definitely say that we are super sensitive towards the matter of religion and that opens the gate to our enemies to use this weakness against our unity and they are doing it so intensely sometimes silently and now open to everyone in our states. As a result of this, many times people don’t know how they are being used by the enemies for their personal or political gain. Now a quick thought will strike in our mind about who are these enemies and the answer for this is sometimes or we can say all the times, we are being used by some strong communal or political leader/leaders.

The theme related to my research work limited to that, we all are very much aware of the conditions during the election period, how the chosen candidates who are fighting from different-different parties tries to bribe the voters to steal their valuable and precious votes actually. Sometimes through fake promises of developing their cities or villages or through provoking to their religious sentiments for promoting their religious beliefs.

So the boundaries of this work are:

1. Combination of religion and dharma.
2. Impact of “Name-Game.”
3. Constitutional Perspective.
4. Conclusion with the support of suggestion.

III. COMBINATION OF RELIGION AND DHARMA:

First of all, we should not forget the values of ‘Religion’ and ‘Dharma’ and should never clash these two while performing political functions. Religion is already explained above and it is like, religion is something a set of ritualistic acts performed by some particular believers to get salvation or personal benefit. These specific acts which define our religious belief should not be used for discrimination, it is a holy thing. When we talk about the meaning of ‘Dharma’ though it runs parallel to ‘Religion’ but like parallel lines, it never collides with it. Coming towards the meaning of ‘Dharma’ it means, ‘a social custom regarded as a religious and moral duty’[7].  Again I would like to draw the attention towards the term “moral duty” is used here. It is linked up with the characteristics of ‘Dharma’ because morality is concerned with good and evil. This is completely about ‘what in fact exists and what in fact ought to be.’[8] If one word used, to sum up, the term ‘Dharma’ it is ‘Humanity’. Therefore, I can say that the ‘dharma’ is right and justified acts performed by any person irrespective of any religious belief.

Nowadays, working of political leaders seems that their duty comes under the category of ‘Religion’ instead of ‘Dharma’. In support of this statement, I would like to quote that, our country is a secular state, respecting all but not supporting any of the particular religion. And as we follow a ‘Grundnorm’ that is our Constitution, all should maintain the objective of it even including the political leaders also. But then comes to some political leaders who clash the values of both religion and dharma with each other and always attempts to regulate the system with their specific and limited religious beliefs irrespective of considering other’s belief, and nowadays this is happening in our country openly nothing is hidden from any eye. Therefore, I want to quote this condition that, ‘our country does not need any enemy outside form its territory; we have our owned enemies here.’

IV. IMPACT OF “NAME-GAME”:

In this article, I will cover mainly the important headline of this year of 2018 impacting the whole nation, and that is the “name-game” played by The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mr. Yogi Adityanath (not only performing but practicing and professing his faith strictly in a particular religion). The very recent situation of our nation made by Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh has set a great example of that to understand. And I personally call it “name-game”, the term itself clarifies each and everything related to the news and now about the objectives of this article.

As we all know about the news that, The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on the month of October adopted a proposal to rename the historic city of ‘Allahabad’ to ‘Prayagraj.’ The move came just after three weeks and again Mr. Yogi declared the changing of the name of ‘Faizabad’ to ‘Ayodhya’. Earlier this government has also changed the name of ‘Mughalsarai Junction’ to ‘Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction.’[9] During his tenure of MP in Uttar Pradesh, many names were changed like, ‘Urdu Bazaar’ to ‘Hindi Bazaar’, ‘Humayunpur’ to ‘Hanuman Nagar’, ‘Islampur’ to ‘Ishwarpur’, ‘Mian Bazaar’ to ‘Maya Bazaar’ and ‘Alinagar’ to ‘Aryanagar’.[10] Strangely, the new names were not decided officially instead they all were declared in his political rallies and his supporters accepted and made sure that they were used. Yogi Adityanath and his supporters mean that particular religious believers, they themselves only accepted these changed name and even making all the possible ways to make it successfully official to be accepted by all.

A day before Yogi Adityanath was named as CM of Uttar Pradesh, he clarified about his intentions and mood to change many more names by stating, “abhi toh aur naam badalne hain (many more names to be changed now),” he had said this in a Television interview, reported by Economics times.[11] In an interview with India TV, Yogi has defended his actions by arguing that, “these places were renamed only after an invasion by Mughals and now it’s the time to give them back to their original identity”[12]. In the same interview he proclaimed that if required he will not hesitate to change to change “Taj Mahal to Ram Mahal”; he also proposed that the ‘Article.1’ of The Constitution be amended to replace the word “India to Hindustan”; also the Hindu Yuva Yahini, a right-wing outfit floated by him has demanded that “Azamgarh” in eastern Uttar Pradesh should be renamed as “Aryamgarh”.[13]

By collecting all the above statements and data of what actually Mr. Yogi wants and is doing, no doubt right now impacting the state of Uttar Pradesh and soon it will impact the whole nation, evident from the statement given by him on many interviews. Definitely, it will impact the whole nation, Adityanath’s bold wish to change even the name of our precious historical monument that name is included under the list of 7 wonders of this world, will impact our image worldwide by this. Though it is not happening right now but gives us a clear image of Adityanath’s intention that how desperately they are working to put their religious belief over other’s and proving to the nation that choosing someone as their political leader who is possessed by a spirit of celebrating religious discrimination using it for their pride is dangerous to all. Here we can see that how one state of our country is closely connected with the other states, impacting all at ones. It cannot be possible that the state of Uttar Pradesh is carrying only those people who carry the same level and religious belief as Mr. Yogi Adityanath’s. Therefore, the act of changing names and putting one’s religious belief over others will definitely fill the minds of people with a lot of religious discrimination, leading to a dangerous environment of our nation as defeating the purpose of brotherhood and unity.

This is not only about Mr. Yogi Adityanath but in the year 2012; the Samajwadi government changed the names of a total eight districts which has been renamed by the previous Mayawati regime. The names of ‘Bheem Nagar, Prabuddha Nagar and Pancheel Nagar’ have been changed to ‘Bahjoi, Shamli and Hapur’ respectively.[14]

Similarly, names of ‘Kanshiram Nagar, Mahamaya Nagar, Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar, Rambai Nagar and JP Nagar’ have been changed to ‘Kasganj, Hathras, Gauriganj, Kanpur dehat and Amroha’ respectively.[15] By this, we can easily understand how the politicians are using their powers for just show off things.

V. CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE:

Article 3 of The Constitution of India talks about, “Formation of new states and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing states.”[16] This constitutional provision empowers to change the name of any existing state. A coin has its two faces likewise for every statute or law; there is always two faces; one to use it positively and another one is to use negatively for the nation but for selfish gains. The “Name-game” matter is a true reflection of this. Using this positively was the motive of the framers of the constitution but in this decade it is very much capable to ruin the unity and brotherhood spirit of the nation, especially where a country holding different-different religious believers and non-believers also. Again we should not forget that the Preamble of our Constitution has provided the boundaries to the implementation and making of laws, orders, schemes and policies for this country and no one has that right to act arbitrarily upon that or to infringe that. This only Constitution of India which provides the boundary of “Secularism” that is the idea of a secular state. Secularism refers to the concept of independence of the state from the religions prevailing in that state. This simply states that the state shall not interfere with religious affairs and vice-versa. This concept of secularism focuses upon the equality of all the religions and ensures equal and fair treatment to all.[17] India is a secular state and so it has neither it has its own religion nor it supports any, but it respects all the religions.

VI. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION:

On one hand Bhartiya Janta Party’s government recently held a record when inaugurated “The Statue of Unity” in the remembrance of a great leader known for his dedicated and struggled work to unite our country, “Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel” and the other side the leader of same Bhartiya Janta Party’s leader is playing “Name-Game” in Uttar Pradesh, like it is the favourite pastime. And this is resulting in a negative impact on our country’s unity among its people only. Though we follow the idea of a secular state, even then politicians are busy in putting their religious belief over others and hurting them with such discrimination.

The main point is that the religious discrimination and political means is not only limited to the changing of some names but actually the intention behind this. The intention is an important element in everything what a person does in his lifetime and here also, whatever the schemes and policies are made by the government for the benefit and development of citizens related to their matter it shows their intentions of uplifting them socially, educationally and in every manner, they need to. This is a positive intention or good faith of political leaders but it is just opposite of upliftment, benefit and development when used negatively. And the intention behind this changing of names can be clearly recognized in the interviews participated by CM Yogi Adityanath. It needs to understand that by changing the names of places, crimes cannot be ended by it. Rather it is the best thing to pay complete attention towards the maintenance of peace and order instead of paying attention to rename.

Political leaders are openly injecting this poison of religious discrimination to everyone and this leads to the death of unity and brotherhood spirit of our country. Being in a secular state religious matter should be respected by leaders and even common people also. If the leaders will not follow the boundaries of the Constitutional laws, then what next to be expected from the people of that country. We all know that India is struggling in between the status of developing and developed one; it is must handle with care the most sensitive matter of our country that is ‘Religion’. By this, what we can say? Is politics the main responsible body for our separation/division and unity? And the answer is, politics is a great tool to control many important things and also to make important decisions in any country, to regulate many laws for peace and order. In that case, if political bodies start their functions as a true politician to unite, then definitely many negative impacts can be cancelled out from our country. Yes, because this reflects the status of unity and internal development.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/183896-man-is-by-nature-a-social-animal

[2] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/society

[3] Vidya Bhusan and D.R. Sachdeva, An introduction to sociology, page. 668

[4] https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/religion-meaning-definitions-and-components-of-religion/6151

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/dharma

[8] ibid

[9] https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/uttar-pradesh-govt-renames-faizabad-as-ayodhya-gets-everyone-talking-online-543637/

[10] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/allahabad-becomes-prayagraj-how-yogi-adityanath-decides-names-of-places/articleshow/66255821.cms

[11] https://www.scoopwhoop.com/not-just-mughalsarai-renaming-places-is-on/#.7nco0tf3e

[12] ibid

[13] ibid

[14] ibid

[15] ibid

[16] Khetrapal’s, Constitution of India, Edition:2016, Page.03

[17] https://www.indiacelebrating.com/essay/secularism-essay/