The demand for renaming Gujarat’s city of Ahmadabad as Karnavati has intensified once again on Twitter. #WeWantKarnavati is trending on Twitter on Wednesday. Netizens said that the foundation of Ahmedabad was laid not by Ahmad Shah but by King Karnadev. Therefore, the name of the city should be in his name. Let us tell you the history behind renaming it and changing it again.
Talking about the history of Ahmedabad, it starts from the eleventh century. This was the period when King Karnadeva-I was the ruler of the Solanki dynasty. He fought with the Bhil king Ashpal or Ashaval. Karnadeva won the war and settled a city named Karnavati on the banks of the Sabarmati river. Solanki rule lasted till the thirteenth century. After this, Gujarat came under the control of the Vaghela dynasty of Dwarka.
Historians say that by the passing of the 13th century Gujarat had become a part of the Sultanate of Delhi. Then in 1411, the then Sultan Ahmed Shah settled the city of Ahmedabad near Karnavati. In 1487, Ahmad Shah’s grandson Mahmud Begara built the outer wall around the city and built 12 gates, 189 bastions and more than 6,000 battlefields.
The city was built in a planned manner from the ancient Indo-Aryan tradition. Main roads, crossroads and tributaries leading to the capital were built in it. Under the supervision of the Sultans of Gujarat, both the banks of the Ahmedabad River expanded. In the expansion, residential and business areas were built, these include palaces, houses, mausoleums, reservoirs, mosques with lakes and gardens. They were built by the sultans, courtiers and wealthy merchants of the capital.
It is said that during the time of the last Sultan Muzaffar III, the conditions in the city had become chaos. Gujarat was conquered by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1573. During the Mughal rule, Ahmedabad became one of the thriving centers of trade. The city became the center of textile industry, where it was exported to Europe. In the year 1630, famine destroyed the city. Then in 1753, the armies of Maratha General Raghunath Rao and Damji Gaekwad captured the city and ended the Mughal rule in Ahmedabad. The famine of 1630 destroyed the city by the rule of Peshwa and Gaekwad.
Now on social media, many people are calling the name of this big city of Mahatma Gandhi’s home and Prime Minister Modi’s home state a historical mistake. People are demanding from the Home Minister that the name of this city should be changed and the historical mistake should be rectified. An online petition regarding this demand has also been sent to the country’s Home Minister, in which they are being asked to change their names.
