In 2001, during peacetime, for two full days, a Pakistani journalist wandered the bustling lanes of Delhi, searching for Shradhanand Marg. Locals shrugged, rickshaw drivers feigned ignorance. Even seasoned city dwellers drew a blank.

Then, in a whisper, the journalist quietly confessed to a passerby what he was really looking for - a red-light area. Guidebooks listed Shradhanand Marg as one.

“Arrey haan (Oh, yes!), GB Road,” someone replied instantly.

Within minutes, a cycle-rickshaw was taking him toward Ajmeri Gate and even guided him to the brothels. The journalist realised that people didn’t know that the name of GB Road had been changed to Swami Shradhanand Marg.

The state had changed the signboards in 1996, but not the memory.

A similar story unfolded in Lahore in 2005, when an Indian visitor landed in the city with a singular goal: To eat at the famous Butt Karahi restaurant. A friend in Islamabad had told him to head to Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Chowk, where the eatery was located.

The search proved hopeless.

Taxi drivers were confused, pedestrians shook their heads, and auto-rickshaw drivers had never heard of the place.

Finally, the visitor called his friend again. “Just ask for Laxmi Chowk,” came the response.

The taxi driver burst into laughter. “Aisa hi bolo na (Then say it like this),” he said in characteristic Lahori style. “Yeh Zafar Ali Khan Chowk kahan se aa gaya Lahore mein?” (Since when did Lahore get a Zafar Ali Khan Chowk?)

Minutes later, the traveller was seated before a steaming karahi.

The identities of both the Pakistani and the Indian are being withheld for security purposes.

Politics of Naming

Official records may describe the intersection as Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Chowk in 2019 but in the collective consciousness of Lahore, it remains Laxmi Chowk.

These stories reveal a simple truth: Governments can rename places, but they cannot easily rename memory.

Across the world, states have long used maps, monuments, and place names as instruments of power. Roads, cities, railway stations, airports, and public buildings become political canvases onto which ruling governments project their preferred versions of history.

Renaming is one of the least expensive political exercises available to governments. A few notifications, new signboards, updated records -- and an ideological message is sent.

“Renaming is a low-cost exercise but sends a clear signal of ideological positioning,” Professor Ajay Jhulka of Ashoka University in New Delhi told Sapan News.”It honours the part of history that suits the politics of the time.”

India offers numerous examples.

After 2014, Aurangzeb Road became Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road. Mughalsarai Junction became Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction and Rajpath became Kartavya Path. The Hall of Nations at Pragati Maidan, an architectural symbol of post-independence India, was demolished in 2017 and eventually replaced by Bharat Mandapam, inaugurated ahead of the G20 summit in 2023.

Bangladesh underwent a similar exercise after independence in 1971. Jinnah Avenue in Dhaka became Bangabandhu Avenue. Ayub Gate was renamed Asad Gate.

Pakistan also experienced a sweeping renaming drive during the 1970s and 1980s.

“It was during the eras of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq that Pakistan witnessed a major ‘Islamisation’ of public space,” Lahore-based oral historian Faizal Naqvi told Sapan News over the phone.

“Names associated with Hindus and Sikhs were replaced. People who had lived through Partition often welcomed these changes. But today there is a growing feeling that Pakistan should reclaim its history rather than erase it.”

Heritage Versus Ideology

For Delhi-based heritage conservationist Sohail Hashmi, the phenomenon is universal.

“Renaming places is political positioning,” he said  to Sapan News in New Delhi. “It is often presented as correcting historical wrongs or overthrowing an oppressive past.”

Russia discarded names associated with the Tsars. Post-colonial nations removed symbols of empire. India replaced numerous colonial-era names after independence.

But Hashmi argues that the logic often changes over time.

“What begins as historical correction frequently becomes ideological selection,” he says.

He points to Delhi’s Pragati Maidan, a convention centre that opened in 1972 as an example.

Built during Jawaharlal Nehru’s era and home to the Nehru Pavilion, an exhibition hall and museum inside the Pragati Maidan complex, it represented a particular vision of modern India. Its demolition in 2017 and replacement reflected not merely urban redevelopment but also a shift in symbolic priorities.

“In this cycle of naming and renaming,” Hashmi says, “people who made major contributions are often replaced by figures who are politically useful in the present.”

The pattern is visible across the region.

Names associated with medieval dynasties, Islamic rulers, colonial administrators, and pre-partition histories are increasingly being reconsidered. In their place emerge names drawn from mythology, nationalism, religion, or contemporary political icons.

The contest is not merely about geography. It is about which memories deserve permanence.

Defying the Eraser

Ironically, while India continues to rename roads and institutions associated with its medieval and colonial past, Pakistan’s Punjab province has begun moving in the opposite direction.

The provincial cabinet met in May of this year and approved the Lahore Heritage Area Revival Project, aimed at restoring several older place names.

Lahore’s Babri Masjid Road is set to revert to Jain Mandir Road. Rahim Gali will once again become Ram Gali. Fatima Jinnah Road will recover its colonial-era identity as Queen’s Road.

For many Lahoris, these changes simply formalise what never disappeared.

Author and journalist Ashraf Sharif recalls that after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India in 1992, a section of activists in Lahore demolished the city’s Jain Mandir and renamed the adjoining road.

“But within a few years the temple was restored,” he says. “People continued calling the road Jain Mandir Road anyway.”

The official name changed, but popular usage did not.

Professor Irshad Ahmed of Punjab University believes this resilience is deeply rooted in Lahore’s cultural character.

“People here never took renaming drives too seriously,” Ahmed said from Lahore. “The original names remained part of the local lexicon regardless of what appeared on official records.”

In Lahore, memory proved stronger than bureaucracy.

On Different Tracks

The divergence between India and Pakistan is striking. In India, recent renaming exercises largely reflect a broader project of cultural and political redefinition. Islamic and colonial references are being replaced with names rooted in Hindu mythology, indigenous traditions, or figures associated with contemporary nationalist narratives. 

Pakistan, meanwhile, appears to be rediscovering parts of its pre-partition inheritance.

Professor Jhulka sees this as part of a wider repositioning.

“Pakistan wants to be seen as reclaiming a larger South Asian identity,” he says.

“There is a growing confidence in acknowledging histories that existed before 1947 rather than viewing them as inconvenient reminders of another era.”

The shift, he argues, is also tied to Pakistan’s efforts to project itself differently on the international stage.

Sohail Hashmi interprets it more simply.

“It is a sign of maturity,” he says.

A nation, he argues, cannot selectively amputate parts of its past without impoverishing its future. Whether it is Mohenjo-Daro, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Bhagat Singh, Buddhist heritage, Sikh history, or pre-partition urban culture, these inheritances remain part of Pakistan’s story.

The same principle applies elsewhere in South Asia.

History rarely conforms to contemporary political boundaries. It spills across borders, communities, and generations.

“It takes only two generations to forget what has been named and renamed,” Hashmi warns.

Yet the stories of GB Road and Laxmi Chowk suggest another possibility.

Governments may alter maps. They may replace signboards and rewrite official records. But ordinary people often carry a different archive, one preserved in memory, language, habit, and everyday conversation. And sometimes, when you ask for directions, that archive quietly reveals itself.

(The author is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. She is also engaged in India-Pakistan Track II peace initiatives and reconciliation efforts. By special arrangement with Sapan)