The replacement of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with VB-G RAM G deserves serious public scrutiny.
The renaming of a landmark welfare legislation that has sustained rural India for nearly two decades raises questions that go far beyond semantics. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is more than a scheme; it is a legal guarantee of dignity for the poorest. Its replacement with VB-G RAM G deserves serious public scrutiny.
A legacy well established
MGNREGA, in its full form “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” is linguistically coherent and dignified. Except for the revered name of the Father of the Nation, the entire title is in English, the language of legislation and administration.
The Act was passed on 25th August 2005 as NREGA and renamed as MGNREGA on 2nd October 2009. The scheme was launched on 2nd February 2006 in 200 most backward districts and was extended to the whole of India from 1st April 2008. For crores of rural households, it has been a lifeline, guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment and becoming a household name across the country.
Now, through an Act passed on 18th December 2025 and notified on 11th May 2026, it has been replaced nationwide from 1st July 2026 by VB-G RAM G - Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin).
The government claims the key changes are an increase from 100 to 125 days, a renewed focus on asset creation, and a livelihood component, with a 60:40 funding ratio between Centre and States. If the intent is to improve the programme, the improvement in content is welcome. But why was a change in nomenclature necessary?
A contrived and communal acronym
At the outset, the very name VB-G RAM G - Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) - is a linguistic anomaly. It is an awkward mixture of Hindi and English, neither here nor there.
One cannot help but feel that the architect of this name must have invested considerable time and ingenuity not in strengthening the Act, but in contriving the phrase “G RAM G” to be pronounced as “Ji Ram Ji” - an explicit act of obeisance to Lord Ram. The addition of “Viksit Bharat” (Developed India) is equally perplexing. What is the administrative necessity of prefixing a rural employment programme with a political slogan? India, by all global economic indicators, remains a developing nation. To call it “Viksit” is premature, propagandist, and self-congratulatory.
The earlier nomenclature, MGNREGA, was appropriate, secular, and functional. It is a proper acronym, universally understood and easy to articulate. The new one, VB-G RAM G, is neither a proper acronym nor a meaningful word. It is fishy, funny, and frankly, hilarious that an official legislation uses a hyphen, two spaces, and brackets within its abbreviation. This is perhaps the first time in legislative history that an acronym has been so deliberately disfigured just to extract “G RAM G.”
Why was it not written as a single acronym like VBGRAMG on the lines of MGNREGA? If the government was sincere about promoting Hindi, why did it not opt for a complete Hindi title such as “Viksit Bharat Pratyabhuti (or Ashwasan or any other appropriate word) Rozgar Ajeevika Abhiyan (or Lakhshya or any other appropriate word) Gramin (VBPRAAG)?” Or if it wanted to retain English, why not “Developed India Guarantee for Employment and Livelihood Mission for Rural People (DIGELMRP)” or any other appropriate word?
The selective use of half-Hindi and half-English - Rozgar, Ajeevika, Gramin - is not a coincidence. It is a calculated linguistic engineering to arrive at “RAM G.”This is nothing but a direct attempt at saffronisation of India through the backdoor of developmental schemes.
More than a name change
Is this driven by the present ruling dispensation's deep-seated aversion to the Congress Party, which was the original proponent of this rights-based legislation? It appears to be a systematic attempt to dismantle, rename, and appropriate every idea of its predecessor, reducing its legacy to nothing.
No standard abbreviation is written with a hyphen, spaces and brackets. The deliberate insertion of “G RAM G” forces every poor labourer, every Block Development Officer, and every citizen who seeks work under this scheme to chant “Ji Ram Ji” each time they invoke their legal right to employment. A secular welfare right is thus subtly transformed into a religious utterance.
This is not administrative reform. This is the ideological project of the RSS-backed BJP government at the Centre to saffronise the secular fabric of Indian Republic, one scheme at a time. When a right to work becomes a chant for a deity, the Constitution is the casualty.
S. Akho Leyri,
Upper Agri, Kohima.