Hyderabad, an IT hub city known as the "Silicon Valley of India," has put the name of U.S. President Donald Trump on a major road. In India, road names are mostly taken from deceased figures such as Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. President Trump has not visited Hyderabad during his two terms.
Because of this, debate is intensifying in India between support calling it a "savvy move grounded in the state government's economic calculus to stake everything on attracting foreign capital and technology" and opposition asking whether it is right to attach the name of the president of another country currently waging a tariff war with India to a road.
On the 24th (local time), Hyderabad named the road attached to the U.S. Consulate "Donald Trump Avenue." Hyderabad is India's fourth-largest metropolis, with a metropolitan population of about 11 million. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have Indian bases clustered there, so it is also called "Cyberabad." That day, key officials of the Telangana state government, where Hyderabad is located, unveiled a sign reading Donald Trump Avenue to coincide with a U.S. Independence 250th anniversary reception attended by Sergio Gor, U.S. ambassador to India, and Laura Williams, U.S. consul general in Hyderabad. Donald Trump Avenue is adjacent to the U.S. Consulate in Hyderabad and close to major U.S. corporations' offices.
Telangana Chief Minister Revans Reddy first floated the idea of putting Trump's name on a road in December last year and pushed it through for six months. He said he aimed to draw international attention and investment ahead of the "Telangana Rising Global Summit" to be held Dec. 8–9. The calculation is that in a city crowded with U.S. corporations, putting a road bearing the U.S. president's name forward can catch the eye of foreign investors. Telangana is also carrying out work to include global corporations or figures in road names, such as "Google Street," named after Google, and a road named after Indian tycoon Ratan Tata.
What would have ended as a city's bid to attract investment has blown up into a fight shaking Indian politics as a whole because it includes the name "Trump." India is a federal country in which the central government and each state government are formed by separate elections within one nation. It is similar to the relationship between the U.S. federal and state governments. Currently, the central government is led by Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while Telangana, which includes Hyderabad, is governed by the opposition Indian National Congress (Congress). The two parties are India's two major political forces; at the center, the BJP is the ruling party and Congress is the main opposition, but in Telangana it is the reverse. Revans Reddy, the chief minister who decided on the Donald Trump Avenue naming, is also a member of Congress.
Congress has long strongly criticized President Trump as a party. Rahul Gandhi, a national leader of Congress, has repeatedly attacked that "Trump harms India's interests." Aiming at Prime Minister Modi, who has been fostering a mood of rapprochement with the United States recently, Congress pressed that he "compromised" by not standing up to Trump over the tariff war and the attack on an oil tanker carrying Indian seafarers during the Iran war. When a state governed by Congress engraved Trump's name on a road, the BJP of which Modi is a member immediately went on the counterattack.
In India, changing a road name is regarded as a political act beyond a simple administrative procedure. In BJP-ruled areas, renamings that change names of Mughal emperors or Islamic figures to Hindu figures have continued. Shehzad Poonawalla, BJP Spokesperson, wrote on X on the 24th, "Rahul says Trump harms India's interests. Then why does his government in Telangana even change a road name to pay the highest tribute?" Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar said Chief Minister Revans Reddy "attaches any trendy name he can find."
The United States and India have long held hands to keep China in check, but relations soured quickly in Trump's second term. After the tariff war broke out, the Trump administration at one point imposed tariffs as high as 50% on Indian products. Trump pressed India to revise its foreign policy, saying the figure was calculated by adding a 25% sanctions surcharge over India's purchases of Russian crude to a reciprocal tariff of 25%. During this period, the United States also grew notably closer to Pakistan, which India regards as an archrival.
However, since February this year, the two countries have barely moved to mend ties by agreeing to lower tariffs to 18%. On the 17th, at the G7 summit in France, Prime Minister Modi met President Trump and agreed to discuss a trade deal in greater depth.