The Bhopal Municipal Corporation has approved a resolution seeking to rename three well-known city institutions that currently bear the name of Sir Hamidullah Khan, the final nawab of Bhopal.
The targeted institutions are Hamidia Hospital, Hamidia College, and Hamidia School.
According to Corporation President Kishan Suryavanshi, the resolution was passed in June and later forwarded to the municipal commissioner for further action. “We have formally sent the proposal to the commissioner, and the state government will also soon take a call on the name change,” he told Indian Express. “We have been demanding this for the past two years, and finally, the moment has arrived.”
Explaining the motivation for the move, Suryavanshi added, “There is a history behind this. These institutions are named after Hamidullah Khan, the last nawab of Bhopal, who did not want Bhopal to be part of India. He had to reluctantly hand over Bhopal after a massive agitation from the local community. Why should institutions be named after such a man?”
The Opposition in the civic body has challenged the decision, taking the matter to the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Leader of Opposition Shabista Zaki alleged that the resolution was passed without transparency. “There was no proposal in the agenda. We have given a complaint to the Chief Secretary. There was no debate, and they just secretly passed this. There is no legality to it,” she said.
Hamidia Hospital, now a multispeciality tertiary care teaching facility affiliated with Gandhi Medical College was originally established as the Prince of Wales King Edward Memorial Hospital for Men. In its early years before 1927, it functioned with just 25 beds in a building that later became the city kotwali. It was subsequently expanded and relocated to the Fatehgarh Fort, with further developments taking place in later decades.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.