Mis-naming of SRIRANGAM.

[Guest guest]

Friends,

 

The voter-identity cards issued last year in Srirangam

indicated most areas of Srirangam

as 'Palaya rangam', whatever it means.

 

I posted an e-mail to THE HINDU Chennai on November 5

protesting at this mischievous and daft mis-naming of Srirangam,

but the newspaper has not picked up the letter.

 

Is any Post Office in the country aware of

a city by name 'Palaya rangam' ?

Will a letter posted with this name inscribed reach ?

Or, is this an insidious way of erasing from popular memory

the sacred name of SRIRANGAM ?

Srirangam municipal outfit was merged,

rather unwarrantedly, in the Trichy Municipal Corporation,

but the fiction cannot be extended further

as the Srirangam city does continue to exist !

And, 'Palaya Rangam' is an offensive name too !

 

The Hindu has come out with the details of the preparations for the

door-to-door voter enumeration which has commenced on November 5

and is scheduled to be held till December 4.

 

It is our sacred duty to resist the gross voter-card misnaming

of SRIRANGAM, and impress upon the authorities that

the name of this sacred city SRIRANGAM should be indicated

as such on all the voter-cards which would be issued

on the basis of the on-going voter-listing effort.

 

I believe a protest-mail campaign is warranted

addressing the Chief Minister, the Chief Electoral Officer

(Shri Mrutyunjay Sarangi) at Chennai, the District Collector of

Trichy (Thiru Manivasan), and The Hindu newspaper, of course.

 

aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan

T.S. Sundara Rajan

at Srirangam.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Voter roll. Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:49:14 +0530

Tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan <surangam

Hindu <letters

 

The Editor,

The Hindu, Chennai.

 

Sir,

 

The Hindu has come out with the details of the preparations for the

door-to-door voter enumeration which has commenced to-day (November 5)

and is scheduled to be held till December 4.

 

May I, in this context, place before the Chief Electoral Officer, Shri

Mrutyunjay Sarangi, a request on behalf of the citizens of the Temple

city of Srirangam in Trichy district?

 

Srirangam authorities earned notriety of a kind when a heap of voter

identity cards (EPICs) was discovered on the dumps a few years back, but

 

the authorities secreted to themselves the wisdom on this palpable

outrage. The more outrageous incident, in my opinion, was the manner in

 

which the cards were programme-designed and issued over the last 12

months or so. A petulant Clerk of the government asked me, Do you know

 

that the initials to a name are not to be displayed in the voter roll?

Truly speaking, I didn't. I am less offended by the presumed behaviour

 

of the Clerk than confused since I was issued my card on March 11 1995

while in New Delhi, carrying my initials and name exactly as you read it

 

at the subscription to this letter. I do not know if the Election

Commission rules have since changed so as to omit the initials. I

think the initials are a necessary part of the 'given name' and will be

one of the confirmation elements of a voter's identity and should,

therefore, be retained both on the voter roll and on the identity card.

 

It is most objectionable that in the latest identity cards, the

residences in certain parts of Srirangam have been indicated as "palaiya

 

rangam, Tiruchirappalli", and the name of Srirangam is just missing !

It is quizzical why at all such a blasphemous city non-name was devised

for Srirangam, and it is evident the postal department would have a

problem with such a daft messing up with the name of an ancient and

sacred city like Srirangam. [srirangam municipal outfit was merged,

rather unwarrantedly, in the Trichy Municipal Corporation, but the

fiction cannot be extended further as the Srirangam city does continue

to exist !] Am I to read in such non-naming an insidious and

deliberate attempt to deface and then altogether efface the identity of

Srirangam?

 

I have checked a run of ICards and find that few of the persons involved

 

in the voter list and IC process have the ability simply to copy a name

written in Tamil. When my card was earlier issued in Delhi, the voter

was requested to satisfy himself with the spelling of his name, and

approve of his own photo, both on the computer's monitor itself.

Can this not be adopted in Tamil Nadu as well?

 

'Sri' being the equivalent of 'Mr' in the style of referring to a

person,

the IC software has been so dumbly made out as to omit 'Sri'

wherever it occurs, and hence the cards show all Srinivasan-s as

'Nivasan-s'. What a bad joke !

 

May I request the Chief Electoral Officer please to issue immediate

instructions to restore the name of the city as SRIRANGAM both on the

new voter rolls and also on the identity cards which need to be issued

to those who missed it earlier? A proper streamlining of the

procedures and checks is to be ensured on the above lines so as to

establish the credibility of the whole exercise. I believe that, in a

democracy, an identity card should identify.

 

Yours sincerely,

T.S. SUNDARA RAJAN,

17-C \ 7, Rohini Apts.,

Raghavendra Puram,

Srirangam - 620006.

[Guest guest]

dear Ms Suseela,

 

Thanks for thinking on the issue, but your mail showed blank.

Must be one of those moments when we click before completing the

message.

I am still interested in knowing what you had to say.

 

By the way, hereunder the extract of the report

carried by TheHindu newspaper on November 29 2001 ~~

(Would that a lot of devotees write to

the Chief Electoral Officer, Chennai-600005, and

the District Collector, Tiruchirappalli-600001.)

 

aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan

T.S. Sundara Rajan

at Srirangam.

=================================

<< Computer changes SRIRANGAM name >>

-- by V. Ganapathy.

 

Tiruchi, Nov 28.

***The Srirangam Residents Welfare Association

has taken exception to the description of Srirangam

as 'Palaya Rangam, Tiruchirapalli'

in many electors' photo identity cards

issued by the Election Commission to residents.

 

On behalf of the association,

Mr T.S. Sundararajan ... said

Srirangam has been known the world over as a

religious, tourist and cultural centre for centuries

and the name cannot be changed by the election authorities.

 

By no stretch of imagination can Srirangam be redesignated

as 'Palaya (old) Rangam'.

 

In many photo identity cards, the word 'Sri' has been

totally omitted under the 'pretext' that it cannot be

transliterated by computer.

 

Thus, 'Sriram' has been renamed 'Ram',

Sridhar 'Dhar', Srinivasan 'Nivasan', etc.

 

Mr Sundararajan has appealed to the authorities

to ensure that such erroneous and 'outrageous' changes

are not made at least in the new electoral list and EPICs.***

[Guest guest]

SrImatyaI GodayaI Nama:

 

 

Dear Sri Sundararajan Svamin,

 

I share the outrage expressed by you regarding this issue and hope that

the authorities will see reason and correct their ways.A similar

situation occured in srivilliputtur some years back and the authorities

wanted to change 'srivilliputtur' to 'thiruvilliputtur'.The pundits

and vidwans of srivilliputtur opposed this and cited various reasons

why only the word 'Sri' can be prefixed to villiputtur and how it not just

a question of adding thiru before a name.

 

It is also very disturbing to see that sri is removed from the

name srinivasan etc.somewhat related to this i have heard from my friend

that in tamil nadu one is not allowed to use his/her surname.ie

during school admission if the name contains the surname also then the

auhorities ask the parents to remove the surname before admitting the

student.Is this true because i did not know of anything like this during

my stay in tamil nadu

 

thanks

 

adiyen Ramanuja dasan

venkat s iyengar