What’s in a name? Not much if it’s a Shakespearean dialogue, but a whole lot if it’s modern India. Desperate to “make India great again”, er, help India regain its lost glory, political parties across the spectrum tend to start by attacking the legacy of our colonial and other oppressors. Which is why Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai is now the easily pronounced Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and Camac Street in Kolkata is Abanindranath Thakur Sarani.

For a name change to become official, a nod is required from the Centre. But that technicality doesn’t seem to be stopping Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, his office or his Public Works Department minister Rao Narbir Singh. From officious Twitter posts to several signboards, including one at a police station in Sadar, the message is clear: Gurgaon is dead, long live Gurugram, the village of Guru Dronacharya.

Perhaps the confidence in the name change eventually coming through stems from the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power in Haryana as well as the Centre. It would also explain why the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, is feeling particularly determined to push through several name changes along the lines of Gurugram and Nuh.

Next on RSS’s agenda is Ahmedabad. While there is considerable dispute over whether Gujarat’s largest city is named after Ahmed Shah, RSS has struck upon a novel way of putting this question to rest. Name it Karnavati. The Solanki king Karandev I is said to have established a city on the banks of the Sabarmati in the 11th century and so, in order to be historically sound, the RSS feels Ahmedabad should be renamed Karnavati. Similarly, there’s a call to rechristen Allahabad — “the land of god” — to Prayag.

Muslim place names have long been a target, as have roads in Lutyens’ Delhi named after Mughal rulers. Khattar has also appealed to the Minister of State for External Affairs, Gen (retd) VK Singh to change Akbar Road in the heart of the national capital to Maharana Pratap Road, a proposal that has the backing of BJP’s Subramanian Swamy. On Sunday, unidentified persons took the initiative to do the renaming themselves – by pasting posters on the signboards.

The efforts to rename Akbar Road come barely eight months after another important street in Lutyens’ Delhi, Aurangzeb Road, was rebranded Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road. While it was proposed by a BJP lawmaker, East Delhi MP Maheish Girri, the move had the backing of others. New Delhi Municipal Council showed unbridled enthusiasm in modifying the signage (as did Google Maps for some reason) and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had tweeted:

Indeed, it is not always the BJP or its political allies who demand such changes. Back when it was in power along with Congress in Maharashtra, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had demanded that Mumbai’s Dadar railway station be renamed Chaityabhoomi, after Dr BR Ambedkar’s memorial in the same area. Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) was squarely against the move, but Shiv Sena was ambivalent. Some of the party members said they would not oppose the move, while others said it was a ploy to woo Dalits.

Shiv Sena itself has been at the forefront of renaming campaigns. Bombay became Mumbai in 1995 when Manohar Joshi was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. BJP’s often troublesome ally has also demanded Aurangabad, named after Aurangzeb, be changed to Sambhaji Nagar after the eldest son of Shivaji. This is another demand that has the backing of the RSS, as does the proposal to call Hyderabad Bhagyanagar after goddess Bhagyalakshmi.

Given that the BJP is not in power in Telangana, this last demand will be tough to fulfill. Indeed, it is easier to push through changes when there aren’t any political roadblocks. The renaming of 12 places in Karnataka was initiated by the JDS-BJP combine in 2006 and it took till 2014 to make the new names became official (was it a coincidence that this was a few months after a new government was formed at the Centre?).

Somewhere, though, a line needs to be drawn. Reverting to local forms of the name is one thing – people have been referring to Calcutta as Kolkata for ages, and it is not all that hard to say Bengaluru in place of Bangalore. But exactly who is likely to use Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna railway station?

The author can be contacted on Twitter @causticji