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Citizens oppose proposal to change name of Bretts Road in Salem

Photo: P. Goutham

Historical value: A view of Bretts Road, whose name many citizens in Salem do not want changed to Central Library Road. —

SALEM: What’s in a name, the Bard asked. Everything is in a name if it carries a historical and heritage value, say the citizens of Salem.

Reacting to the reports that there is a proposal to rename Bretts Road, a thoroughfare in the city as ‘Central Library Road,’ people in Salem, cutting across different affiliations, have urged the politicians and officials to retain the name.

Bretts Road connects today’s city with that of a distant colonial past.

The city, once a garrison for the British, still takes pride in preserving many signposts of that past, including buildings and churches.

It remembers its British collectors and soldiers who had laid down their lives in the battles against Hyder Ali and his son Tippu Sultan.

It also longingly retains the colonial flavour.

It even today boasts of its many thoroughfares named after those great officers of British Empire.

Harry Augustus Bretts, after whose name stands today’s Bretts Road, was the collector of the integrated Salem district between 1853 and 1862.

He was a great administrator who brought in sweeping reforms in land taxes.

He levied less tax for poor yielding lands under ‘Less Fertile’ classification.

It was he who abolished the sukavasi inam (free lands for living), a free distribution of lands to Brahmins and Muslims in the district and instead introduced samathuvapuram concept by making all people live in all places amicably.

Bretts was also responsible for bringing out the first government gazette.

He brought out The Salem Gazette in 1859. Historian Le Fanu called Bretts a man of impeccable character and straight forward in administration and deliverance of justice and architect of many people welfare schemes.

J. Barnabas, general secretary, Salem Historical Society, told The Hindu that changing the old names would deprive the generation of today of knowing their historical importance.

He and city’s elite including physicians, industrialists and social activists have also made appeals to Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam, Deputy Chief Minister M. K. Stalin and Mayor J. Rekha Priyadarshini to take steps to retain the name of Bretts for the road.

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