In the name of...

Ranbir Singh

THE name-changing spree of the present Haryana Government began with its decision to change Gurgaon to ‘Gurugram’. This change was justified because its ancient name, indeed, was Gurugram. It is believed to be the place where Dronacharya had trained the Pandavas in warfare. It is also claimed that there is historical evidence in the form of a pond at Gurgaon village, popularly called Panch Chhokra (five boys). But name changing has reached a new level, with the state government deciding to rename the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) as the Haryana Sehari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP). The reason: HUDA sounded similar to the last name of former Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda.  

When in power, Hooda would claim that HUDA was Haryana Urban Development Authority, HARDA was  Haryana Rural Development Authority and he was HOADA — Haryana Overall Development Authority.  

The acronym HUDA takes me back to the 1980s and the nineties when I used to teach at the department of political science in Kurukshetra University. The then HoD, Prof VS Budhraj, had once told me that HUDA had not returned his money. I misunderstood him, thinking that Dr Ram Phal Hooda, the then Registrar of the university, had not returned the money that he had borrowed from him.  I asked Prof Budhraj when he had lent the money to Dr Hooda. He cleared the misunderstanding, saying it was HUDA which had not returned the earnest money that he had deposited with it while applying for a residential plot in the Urban Estate of HUDA at Kurukshetra.

The government’s decision also reminded me of another story. Dr Tarsem Lal, the then Chief Administrator of HUDA, was on a visit to Kaithal to get first-hand information about people’s problems and complaints against HUDA. He desired that public representatives should be invited for this purpose. One of the invitees was told that ‘HUDA’s saheb’ wanted to interact with him.  The gentleman thought he was going to talk to some ‘Hooda saheb’. Therefore, he repeatedly used the word ‘Hooda saheb’ in his conversation with Dr Lal. This annoyed the Chief Administrator and he snubbed the local leader, saying he was not Hooda!  

This change of acronym to HSVP also transported me to 1962, to the ‘political thought class’ in the department of political science, Panjab University, where that doyen of teachers, Prof JC Anand, had told us: ‘The ghost of Rome haunted the Middle Ages’. 

It also reminded me of a popular saying about the Jat clans of Haryana — Malik bhai ka (Malik stands by Maliks), Dahiya ashnai ka (Dahiya stands for his friends) and Hooda jamai ka (Hooda stands for his son-in-law)!