India is known for its ethnic and cultural diversity since time immemorial. It has been accommodative of people belonging to different religions, cultural backgrounds, and locale. This paper tries to locate how the recent trend undertaken by various state governments across the country’s landscape to rename cities, iconic places and the practice of erecting statues of stalwarts with political mileage has been perceived by people across the country. The paper also tries to find out how these changes have had an impact or consequence on the lives of people residing in a particular place where the change has taken place. On analyzing the responses collected through an online questionnaire the paper concludes that most of the respondents perceive these measures as ineffective in reviving India’s past glory but rather as a potential source of harm to the society.

Keywords: Renaming cities, Culture, History, Political mileage, Nationalism

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