In light of some recent incidents around the suicide of a student at Viqarunnisa Noon School, some people have been coming up with the rather odd suggestion that the school should undergo a change in name.
With three teachers having already been subjected to a crass media trial owing to their alleged role in the tragedy of the student’s suicide, with the minister for education summarily announcing a cancellation of their MPOs and with one of the teachers hauled away to prison and denied bail, this new suggestion -- or call it demand -- is reason for worry. The worry borders on outrage.
And it is because of the whispers involved, after so many long decades, around the name Viqarunnisa Noon that our worry is there. It is being bandied about that the name dates back to the Pakistan era. Of course, it does, but what is being conveniently forgotten in the process is the good reputation which Noon, wife of Feroz Khan Noon, one of Pakistan’s prime ministers in the 1950s, has universally enjoyed.
We will only be embarrassing ourselves if we now convince ourselves that all the problems Viqarunnisa School has been confronting of late improbably have to do with the enlightened woman whose name has been borne by the institution all these years.
To be sure, renaming places and institutions at certain points of time becomes a historical necessity, which is why we have in our times seen our Bengal of heritage getting to be known as the two provinces of East and West Bengal following the departure of the British colonial power from India.
At Partition in 1947, we became inhabitants of East Bengal, which would soon turn into East Pakistan before eventually emerging as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Following December 1971, organizations such as the State Bank of Pakistan logically were rechristened as Bangladesh Bank. With Pakistan International Airlines gone along with what remained of Pakistan after Bangladesh’s War of Liberation, it was only natural that we would have a new airline for ourselves. We called it Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
There are people who will point out to you that avenues in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad still bear the names of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq. The implication here is obvious: Why do we in Bangladesh not go for reciprocity? If you recall, we did have Jinnah Avenue and Liaquat Avenue and Ayub Gate here in Dhaka.
We certainly would have had no reservations about keeping those names had the Pakistan Army not brutalized our people for nine terrible months in 1971. Ayub Gate was of course with alacrity turned into Asad Gate at the height of the agitation against the self-styled field marshal, and all for the right reasons. It would, therefore, be absolutely wrong to remember men and women who once went out on a limb to humiliate us through unbridled firepower.
Naming and renaming places have occurred with frequency in Bangladesh. Chandrima Udyan, the beautiful term given to the park beside Crescent Lake in the Jatiyo Sangsad area, was changed into Zia Udyan every time the followers of the nation’s first dictator achieved political authority.
One expects such name games to draw to an end because if they do not, it is the larger national issues we stand to lose focus on. One can cite here the irritating battles around the naming of the airports in Dhaka and Chittagong, with finally Hazrat Shahjalal and Hazrat Amanat Shah appearing to have put an end to the issue.
And now consider the inanities involved in the naming of certain public spots. We have a stadium named after Moulana Bhashani. You tend to wonder if the late politician had anything to do with sports. Why couldn’t we have named the place after a renowned sports personality of the country, preferably someone of the stature of Brojen Das?
We have all these organizations which have come up to advance the cause of science, and yet there is hardly any instance of these bodies being named after any reputed scientist.
Back in the initial days of freedom, some charming renaming was done in the matter of the erstwhile President’s House and Governor’s House. A clear sense of aesthetics underscored the terms “Ganobhaban” and “Bangabhaban.”
Add to that the heritage-dappled renaming of our banks -- Sonali, Rupali, Pubali, Agrani. But when General Ershad decided to name the new army stadium built on his watch after himself, we resented the idea.
His fall from power then became the biggest opportunity for us to rename the Ershad Army Stadium as Bangladesh Army Stadium, though one cannot say the same about the Ayub Stadium in Pakistan’s Quetta.
No, we ought not to raise clouds of controversy around the reputed academic institution which Viqarunnisa Noon School has been for decades. If we do, we lower ourselves in our self-esteem.
Not everything must be given a new name, for if that becomes the norm, there can be no knowing where it will pull itself to a stop. The Adamjees do not any more operate their businesses in Bangladesh, but should that be a reason for Adamjee Cantonment College to have a rebirth under a new name? Should we rename Curzon Hall? Must Fuller Road be given a new name?
Let there be sobriety in our thoughts. Emotions in excess often lead to grief.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor-in-Charge of The Asian Age.