NEW DELHI: Eight states and a Union territory have changed the name of their governor/lieutenant governor’s house from ‘Raj Bhavan/Raj Niwas’ to ‘Lok Bhavan/Lok Niwas’ following a directive from ministry of home affairs (MHA) to shed the earlier nomenclature associated with colonial era.In a letter to principal secretaries or secretaries to state governors and lieutenant governors of UTs, the home ministry cited the suggestion made at the conference of governors held last year “to rename ‘Raj Bhavans’ as ‘Lok Bhavans’ as the word ‘Raj Bhavan’ smacks of colonialism.”“Accordingly, it is requested that offices of governor and office of Lt governor may be named as ‘Lok Bhavan’ and ‘Lok Niwas’, respectively, for all official purposes,” said the MHA directive.Taking cue from the MHA letter, states/UTs have started shedding the word ‘Raj’ from the nomenclature of governor/lieutenant governor’s residence-cum-office. West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Gujarat and Tripura have effected the change and renamed ‘Raj Bhavan’ as ‘Lok Bhavan’. Ladakh’s Raj Niwas, the official residence and office of LG Kavinder Gupta, has been renamed as ‘Lok Niwas’.The Modi govt has been working on shedding the vestiges of India’s colonial past; it had earlier renamed Rajpath as Kartavya Path and has been using ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’ in many official communications. Govt websites now first show content in Hindi, though there is an option to view it in English. The band at the Beating Retreat ceremony now no longer plays English hymns like ‘Abide with me’.
