Renaming MGNREGA: Erasure, Rebranding, or the Politics of Memory

In the theatre of Indian democracy, names are not neutral. They are repositories of history, carriers of moral weight, and instruments of legitimacy. To propose renaming the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is therefore not a bureaucratic adjustment but a symbolic rupture. It unsettles the delicate balance between policy and philosophy, between delivery and dignity. Gandhi’s name is not a decorative prefix; it is a normative compass. To erase it is to risk dislocating the moral architecture of one of India’s most significant social legislations.

Social science teaches us that institutions are not merely rules on paper; they are embodiments of collective memory. MGNREGA, enacted in 2005, was designed as a rights-based intervention: a legal guarantee of wage employment, not a discretionary dole. It operationalised Article 41 of the Constitution’s Directive Principles, making the right to work tangible for rural households. In political theory terms, it was a radical democratisation of welfare—transforming the poor from passive recipients into active claimants of entitlements. To rename such a law is to tamper with its symbolic capital, to dilute the Gandhian grammar of dignity embedded in its design.

The government’s invocation of Gandhi in cleanliness campaigns, notably Swachh Bharat, illustrates the paradox. A cess was levied, drains were built, toilets inaugurated, yet the persistence of filth in public spaces revealed the limits of performative governance. The sociological insight here is clear: symbolic politics without substantive delivery breeds cynicism. Gandhi’s spectacles in logos cannot substitute for Gandhi’s ethic in budgets. The same logic applies to MGNREGA. If the programme falters in timely payments, asset quality, or budgetary adequacy, the remedy lies in institutional strengthening, not nominal tinkering. Rebranding without reform is surface over substance.

Political science frames this as the politics of erasure versus appropriation. Renaming MGNREGA could be read as an attempt to claim lineage without bearing lineage’s burden. It risks becoming an erasure disguised as efficiency. In a polity where names are contested terrains—statues, airports, schemes—the act of renaming is a political confession. It confesses a discomfort with Gandhi’s moral gaze, a reluctance to be measured against his standards of transparency, accountability, and last-mile justice. It confesses the triumph of announcement over audit, of spectacle over substance.

The social contract embedded in MGNREGA is fragile yet profound. It promises up to 100 days of wage employment, creating assets that conserve water, soil, and commons. It has functioned as a shock absorber in crises—from the drought of 2009 to the pandemic of 2020. Empirical studies show its role in reducing distress migration, stabilising rural consumption, and empowering women workers. To rename it is to risk muffling this echo of Gandhian philosophy. Hind Swaraj spoke of swaraj as self-rule beginning with self-restraint and service. MGNREGA operationalises this by dignifying labour, by making the last person visible in the republic’s ledger. Renaming it risks severing this philosophical lineage.

The harder questions are empirical. Does the poorest woman in the last hamlet receive her wage on time? Do gram sabhas plan assets that meet local needs? Do social audits function without fear? Does budget allocation match demand? These are the metrics of governance. They are the “tough stuff” of political economy, the slow arithmetic of justice. Renaming cannot answer them. Only reform can. Social science insists on distinguishing between symbolic politics and substantive policy. The former may win headlines; the latter sustains legitimacy.

Gandhi’s politics was a discipline of work, not a theatre of words. Untouchability was confronted at the threshold of homes, not in rhetorical flourishes. Cleanliness was practised in drains and habits, not in selfies. Poverty was met with dignity, not pity. To borrow his name is to borrow his burden. To keep his glasses on national letterheads is to keep his gaze on national budgets. If the government truly seeks to honour Gandhi, it must strengthen MGNREGA’s delivery mechanisms, not rename them.

The renaming debate thus crystallises a larger tension in Indian democracy: between memory and modernity, between appropriation and accountability. Names matter because they anchor policy in history. To un-name Gandhi from MGNREGA is to risk dislodging the moral anchor of a law that secures the dignity of work. The plea, therefore, is simple yet profound: keep the name, improve the law, widen the reach, pay on time, punish corruption, empower gram panchayats, respect workers. If performance is the goal, let it be added as a prefix; let personality not erase philosophy.

In the end, governance is judged not by the cleverness of rebranding but by the courage of reform. Gandhi’s path is narrow: it forbids shortcuts, mocks spectacle, and rewards only the patient arithmetic of justice. If we cannot keep his name where it most belongs—on a law that guarantees dignity to the poorest—then perhaps we should stop quoting him in speeches and start reading him in silence. For in silence lies the hardest truth: names are not ornaments; they are obligations. To erase them is easy; to live up to them is the real test of politics.