Renaming was fine till Ram entered the picture

 

MGNREGA is now G Ram G, and once again the country is arguing as if a change of name has altered the moral axis of the Republic. We behave as though schemes are sacred texts, not administrative tools — to be judged by outcomes, not by the saints or surnames attached to them.

Those with long memories will recall that employment and food schemes did not descend from heaven in 2005 along with Mahatma Gandhi’s name. Long before MGNREGA, there was the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, launched with solemn promises and modest results. Before and alongside it came the National Rural Employment Programme, the Employment Assurance Scheme — all variations of the same idea: give work to the rural poor, preferably before hunger gives way to anger. Names changed as governments changed, and each regime behaved as if it had invented compassion afresh.

Even kitchens have not escaped this obsession. Annapurna Rasoi Yojana, meant to feed the hungry, was renamed Indira Rasoi Yojana in some states, as if hunger responds better to dynastic branding. The rice remained the same, the dal remained thin, and the queue remained long. But the signboard changed, and with it came political satisfaction. No one then accused the government of assassinating Annapurna, the goddess of food. Apparently, only some names qualify for outrage.

MGNREGA itself was once simply NREGA. The “Mahatma Gandhi” prefix was added later, not by divine instruction but by Cabinet decision. Corruption did not disappear with the addition. Fake job cards did not bow before the Father of the Nation. Gandhi’s spinning wheel did not spin muster rolls into honesty. A noble name proved no substitute for strict administration.

Now comes G Ram G — Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Employment and Livelihood, Rural — and suddenly history is under siege. The same political class that freely converted Jawahar into Indira, and welfare into memorials, now claims exclusive custodianship of national icons. One wonders where this reverence was when schemes failed, payments were delayed, and rural workers migrated despite “guaranteed” employment.

The real discomfort is not about Gandhi or Ram. It is about control, accountability, and the slow choking of leakages. When schemes become harder to misuse, morality is invoked. When states are asked to share responsibility instead of merely sharing credit, federalism is discovered to be under threat. Principles, like scheme names, are often adjusted for convenience.

Gandhi spoke of dignity of labour; Jawahar spoke of socialism; Indira spoke of poverty removal; today’s rulers speak of development. The slogans differ, the posters change, but the worker’s question remains brutally simple: will I get work, and will I be paid on time? If G Ram G answers that better than Jawahar Rozgar Yojana or MGNREGA ever did, it will earn legitimacy the hard way. If it does not, no invocation of Ram or remembrance of Gandhi will rescue it.

India’s poor do not live in the past tense of schemes. They live in the present tense of hunger. They remember not names, but results. History, too, has a similar memory.