From Gurgaon to Gurugram or Vice-Versa?

When we hear of Gurgaon, the business hub on the outskirts of Delhi, we generally think of Plush Corporate offices and giant IT parks. It is most often called as the Millenium City.  A recent decision by the government to rename the city from Gurgaon to Gurugram created a huge furore on Twitter which later turned in to a lot of sarcasm as well. A new term Sanskritization also emerged which I assume would be used very often now.

A night view of Gurgaon, Haryana. The name of the city was changed to Gurugram by the state government on Tuesday (Express Photo by Manoj Kumar)

The government claims that the decision has been taken owing to a long pending request of the municipal corporation. Also, the place was originally called as Gurugram as it was named after Guru (teacher) Dronacharya of Mahabharata who resided there. It is believed that this place was being gifted to him by his disciples Pandavas. Although the original essence was lost during the course of urbanisation, the move aims to regain it back with respect to the name.

There has been a lot of discussions going on the social media with a battle of arguments between people on both sides of the decision. Hashtag #Gurugram  was trending yesterday and today Gurgaon to Gurugram has been trending on Twitter. Although the name might not go well with many people, mostly youngsters. There is a general opinion that it may hamper the image of the city as a developing hub of Business in India as well as Internationally.

But it is important to note that Calcutta was renamed back to Kolkata, Bombay to Mumbai, Bangalore to Bengaluru. And we do not see much difference in their brandings post the change of name. Personally, I respect the Mythology, Traditions and Culture of India. But somewhere I still like the name Gurgaon over Gurugram.


Article by Rohit Jha