Who is Narendra Modi Yedla?

BHAINSA: He is the namesake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What happened to the not-so-popular middle name, Damodar Das? It has disappeared, naturally so, because the one who christened the three-month-old after Modi, did not give him the middle name. The boy, however, inherited the surname of his family, Yedla.

Without knowing the ideology or political school of thought pursued by Narendra Modi, the infant became Modi himself. One will not know, at least for now, whether this modicum of taking the name of Modi is to his liking or not.

After all, what's in a name? Isn't it the basic identity of the boy? Quaint are the ways of the nature that a newborn would be deprived of choosing his/her name. Essentially, it is a deprivation of a human right (not enshrined as fundamental right in the Constitution). Maybe, he will retain the name and take pride in it. Or he may opt to change it using the legal provisions available to him at some stage of his life.

Usually, parents who christen their offspring follow a certain procedure, if they are religious. In this case, the couple, Yedla Mahesh and Naga Jyotsna, from Korvagalli in Bhainsa, a communally-sensitive town in Nirmal district, wanted Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar to name their son. Presenting their boy to Sanjay, they requested him to name the infant after Narendra Modi.

Sanjay, with a wide grin on his face, obliged the couple and fulfilled their request.

In the same breath, Sanjay, while addressing the inaugural meet of Praja Sangrama Yatra 5.0, announced that he would change the name of Bhainsa to "Maisa", whatever that means. He asked the crowd whether they wanted to have "Maisa" or "Bhainsa" as their town's name. While "Bhains" means a He-buffalo, 'Maisa' is a skewed derivative of "Mahishasura", a demon in the shape of a buffalo, killed by the Goddess according to the legend.

Politicians have a penchant for changing the names and nobody is an exception. Name a political party, they would have done it at least once, if not a hundred or more times. It's all about a practice in vogue from time immemorial, not a shibboleth that's forgotten.