The Bard of Avon famously posed the question, "What is in a name?"
Plenty if one were to read the current violence in Konaseema, Andhra Pradesh. In April 2022, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government embarked on changing the names of various districts or creating new districts in the state. This was part of the electoral promises he had made before forming the government, ostensibly to woo certain communities who form the majority in various regions.
However, his plan ran into stormy weather when Konaseema, a newly created district in the East Godavari region, was named after BR Ambedkar. Other newly formed districts were named after prominent personalities like NT Rama Rao, Satya Sai and Annamayya, which did not lead to any controversy. The government maintained that the decision to rename Konaseema after Ambedkar was taken after requests from the large Scheduled Caste (SC) population in the district, whose headquarters, Amalapuram, is an SC-reserved constituency.
The decision led to violence, police vehicles were damaged and the houses of the ruling party MLA and MP (Dalit) were burnt. This reflects the planning behind the arson and the sheer disregard for state functionaries.