The Indian Navy has inducted sailing vessel Tarini into its fleet. The boat, whose commissioning crew is all-woman, is expected to take up adventure from where her elder sibling Mhadei stops. The Indian Navy put much thought into christening this vessel, as it does, while naming any of its ships and even shore establishments. Since Mhadei is a minor water deity from Goa, they looked at the eastern coast this time and found a similar deity, Tara Tarini, in Orissa, revered by seafarers. Usually, the navy has at least three ships of a particular class. Often, if there are more ships in that class, they are different in terms of slightly advanced weaponry or other equipment. So when a new series is inducted, the message is sent down the commands to come up with suggestions, and the best suggestions are those which can have at least a series of three.
INS Viraat and Vikrant were the two first aircraft carriers, both bought second hand from the UK, where they were known as HMS Hermes and Hercules. When Admiral Gorshkov was being purchased from Russia, it was obvious that the biggest ship of the Indian Navy should have a name that reflected this stature. Vikrant had been decommissioned, and could have lent her name to the new ship. But this was beyond big, finally, the Indian Navy came up with the befitting name, INS Vikramaditya.
Most Indian Navy ships and bases take their names from classical, pre-Islamic India or non-Islamic heroes of the later period (INS Shivaji, Angre, Tanaji for instance.) The Kolkata base was named INS Subhash Chandra Bose and it was only after Modi sarkar came that the Porbandar base became INS Sardar Patel. It is a kind of political naming that the force tries to resist by and large.
INS Jalashwa
The names of these ships and bases are usually very evocative of the nature of their job. An old series of missile boats, all decommissioned now, had the following names: INS Chapal, Chatak and Chamak, all three indicating speed and surprise attack. A later series of missile boats had fearlessness and lethality writ into their names: INS Nashak, Nipat, Nirbhik.
The amphibious ships take their names from animals that are masters of brackish waters and comfortable on land and sea. INS Gharial and Magar need no explanation. There is INS Shardul, another name for tiger. You only need to see one documentary on the Sunderbans to understand why Shardul should be the name of a landing vessel. INS Jalashwa is the bigger of these ships, its a landing dock. There is a series named after deadly blades of various warrior communities: Khukri, Kripa'n, Khanjar. Another blade series is the Talwar class, which includes INS Talwar, Trishul, Teg, Tarksah, Tabar and Trikand.The tankers are, for some reason, usually given names that evoke the image of illumination, INS Jyoti and Deepak, for instance.
Many ships are named after Indian cities, we have INS Delhi, Mysore, Kolkata, Mumbai. Many others are named after mighty rivers—INS Ganga, Gomti, Godavari, Brahmaputra, Beas and Betwa. There was a now-decommissioned series named after mountains—Himgiri, Taragiri, Vindhyagiri and Nilgiri, which were later replaced by another hill series, the Shivalik class including INS Shivalik, Shayadria and Satpura.
The bases haves names which are sometimes even more evocative. Indian Navy Hospital Ships have, shall we say, heeling and soothing names—Asvini, Dhanwantri, Jeevanti, Kalyani, Nivarini, Kasturi and Kalyani. The submarine bases are INS Vajrabahu and Veerbahu.
INS Nashak
The air bases are named after, yes, masters of the skies, the birds. So there is INS Garuda, Hansa, Shikra and Baaz. Some bases are named after the region they are in, INS Jarawa is in Port Blair, INS Chilka in Orissa and INS Zamorin in Kozhikode. One of the most apt names is for the gunnery school in Kochi, INS Dronacharya.
Pakistani ships, interestingly, have appropriated many of the Muslim heroes of undivided India. Their have ships named after Mughal rulers Shah Jahan and Babur, and Alamgir for Akbar. They also have PNS Tippu Sultan, after the tiger of Mysore.
Now whoever said, what's in a name?
