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The 'Indian renaming controversy' is a result of a movement to change the names of Indian cities from the names used during the British imperial period, back to regional or Indian names. Beginning in 2006, the ruling Congress Party in India pushed through the renaming of Indian cities to their "pre-colonial" names and pronunciations. On December 11 2005, chief minister Dharam Singh had announced that the Karnataka state government accepted Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy's suggestion to rename ten cities to their Kannada names. The new names became effective from November 1, 2006. In most of these cases the 'new' names are simply the names by which these cities have always been known in the native language. Thus, local Kannada language newspapers announced that "Bengaluru (Bangalore) is to be renamed as Bengaluru". The two cited reasons behind renamings were to remove an imperial name, or to change pronunciation and spelling to fit local custom. Opponents point to the multi-cultural nature of India as well as that nation's changing role in the global economy. Other major cities that have been renamed include Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Chennai (ex Madras), and Kolkata (ex Calcutta).

Contents

Controversy

Usage of new and old names

Proposed future changes

See also

References

External links

Controversy

While local politicians and some historians praised the move, others, particularly in the business community of the affected cities, felt that it was a step backward in building a global reputation. ^[1] Nowhere was the controversy greater than in Bangalore, renamed as Bengaluru. The reason was that Bangalore had become, in the past 15 years, home to more than 1,500 information technology companies and was nicknamed "India's Silicon Valley". So many American companies had moved their operations to the Indian city that a worker whose job was lost to outsourcing called it being "Bangalored". Others feel that Bengaluru is too provincial, when Bangalore is recognized worldwide as synonymous with high tech. Critics across India complained of the cost of changing signage, pointing to better uses for money, such as the improvement of urban infrastructure.
Earlier, Bombay (a pronunciation of Portuguese origin) had successfully been renamed Mumbai. The new changes concentrated on eliminating the pronunciations from the days of British India, and were carried out in response to the demands of the Hindu Nationalist Shiv Sena party. 'Mumbai' has long been the name of the city in Marathi and Gujarati, whilst Hindi-speakers called it ''Bambai''.^[2] However, some argue that as the renaming was part of the Shiv Sena's ''Bhumiputra'' (son of the soil) policy, it is an attempt to erase evidence of the city's cosmopolitanism and multi-lingual character.^[3]

Usage of new and old names

In many cases the older names continue to be used informally, or survive in the names of universities and other institutions. The Bombay High Court and Madras High Court were named after the erstwhile Bombay and Madras presidencies, and have not been renamed. The Indian Institutes of Technology at Chennai and Mumbai continue to be called IIT Madras and IIT Bombay.
In certain cases, the effort has extended to buildings and institutions named by the former colonizers. For example, Mumbai's Victoria Terminus railway station has been renamed Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus after the 17th century Maratha Emperor. Many colonial-era street names, particularly in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai have been changed, but many, particularly in southern cities, continue to have British-era names.

Proposed future changes

Other name changes that have been proposed include Ahmedabad to Karnavati, Lucknow to Lakshmanpuri or Lakhanpur, Patna to Pataliputra, Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar, Allahabad to Prayag, Faizabad to Saket and Delhi to Dilli, Hastinapur or Indraprastha. Several of these name changes would reflect a change not from British to Indian, but from Muslim to Hindu. Ahmedabad, Allahabad and Faizabad are all Muslim names; Aurangabad is named for the Muslim Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

See also

★ List of renamed Indian public places

References

1. City of Boiled Beans prepares to change its name

2. Samuel Sheppard ''Bombay Place-Names and Street-Names'' (Bombay: The Times Press) 1917 pp104-5
3. Sujata Patel "Bombay and Mumbai: Identities, Politics and Populism" in Sujata Patel & Jim Masselos (Eds.) ''Bombay and Mumbai. The City in Transition'' (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 2003 p4; Suketu Mehta ''Maximum City. Bombay Lost and Found'' (New York: Alfred Knopf) 2004 p130

External links

★ The Politics of Name Changes in India

★ Bangalore to become Bengalooru: The politics of renaming cities

★ City of Boiled Beans prepares to change its name