Centre plans to rename Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan; Congress asks to withdraw move

THe u.s. Congress company on th said that the telephone exchange regime must withdraw its decision to rebrand the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) to “MY Bharat Kendra” adding that removing Nehru’s name from prominent institutions will not erase his “towering” legacy. “No matter how much the Sangh Parivar tries, removing Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s name from prominent institutions will not erase his towering legacy”, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The development comes in wake of the Union government’s decision to rename the NYKS, a nationwide network of youth centres established in 1972, an official announcement of which is yet to be made. The new name “MY Bharat” — wherein MY stands for “Mera Yuva” (My Youth) —has already been adopted on the websites and social media handles of the organisation’s regional units, including district centres at Karwar (Karnataka), Damoh (Madhya Pradesh), Patna (Bihar), Lakshadweep, and Valsad (Gujarat). Also Read:Let the building be called by original name, says Karan Singh on renaming NMML A formal announcement is expected soon, though internal communications within the ministry of youth affairs and sports have already started using the new name, officials told HT, requesting anonymity. A proposal to change the organisation’s name was first moved in 2017, but it was delayed as alternatives were being debated, officials said. A retired NYKS official said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had pushed for the change, citing feedback from local centres that favoured a name untethered to the “Nehru-Gandhi dynasty”. “The RSS argued that Nehru’s legacy had overshadowed the work being done on the ground, which now revolves around the Prime Minister’s schemes,” the retired official said, also declining to be named. The move comes two years after the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) was renamed as Prime Minister’s Museum and Library in 2023. The Sangathan was launched as Nehru Yuva Kendra in 1972 to support rural youth in education and leadership training for the non-student youth. It became an autonomous body in 1987 under then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, expanding its reach to 311 districts. It was registered as a society by the name of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sanghathan in the same year. The NYKS currently operates in over 600 districts across the country. A ministry of youth affairs official said the renaming acknowledges Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies. “In India, everything is named after Nehru-Gandhi family. The name change is a positive decision. The ministry wants that these centres reflect the true nature of India and not just Nehru’s legacy. These centres promote initiatives like Swachh Bharat and youth entrepreneurship programmes. The name ‘MY Bharat’ reflects public ownership of these efforts,” the official added. Reacting to the rebranding, Venugopal said the current ruling dispensation is hell bent on destroying established institutions to fulfil its political agenda of erasing one of the nation’s founding fathers. “The ‘MY BHARAT’ program is nothing, but a rebranded version of the popular Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) set up across India’s villages since 1972. This shows that the regime is hell-bent on destroying established institutions to fulfil its political agenda of erasing one of the nation’s founding fathers because inclusive, progressive icons like Gandhiji and Nehru ji deeply irk them”, he said. “The Centre must withdraw this decision to rebrand the NYKS” he added. When HT visited the Delhi office of NYKS, officials there refused to comment. Some of them, however, confirmed they were aware of the rebranding. HT also reached out to the office of Union minister of state for youth affairs and sports Chirag Paswan but did not get a response. CPI(M) lawmaker AA Rahim wrote a letter to Union minister for youth affairs Mansukh Mandaviya and expressed his strong objection to the renaming of NYKS. “Removing Jawaharlal Nehru’s name from this esteemed institution appears to be part of the Union government’s continuing renaming process without making any structural changes in the institutions,” he said in the letter, he was quoted to as saying by news agency PTI.