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Mis-naming of SRIRANGAM.

From the Bhakti List Archives

Tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan • November 17, 2001 


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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject: Voter roll.      Date:  Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:49:14 +0530
   From:  Tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan 
     To:    Hindu 

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.






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