What's In A Name!

Till yesterday, William Shakespeare’s impregnable impact was felt in the rich literature books but now it hasn’t spared the geography books either. The phrase, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” from Romeo and Juliet which enjoys cult status has been taken a little too seriously by the administrative bodies of our country. Everything in India seems to have a remarkable history, be it rich or controversial. There has been a lot of talk about the changed names of places in India and let us make it clear that all of that talk hasn’t been a healthy one. Be it a Bombay turned Mumbai or a Bangalore turned Bengaluru, none of the older names were tongue twisters to be honest. So what thinking goes into changing the names? As one would expect, the reasons are bountiful. Let’s take a closer look at them.

A few thought that it would be a good idea to shrug off the British legacy in terms of names too. By the time the British left the nation, they had defined a lot of places and their names in the country. According to a survey, a decent group of people in the country wanted a name which was more Indian than anything else. That leaves you startled. A name that has been carried forward for ages becomes a thorn in the eye suddenly. Strange!

Another set felt that it would be a good idea to stick to the Lingua franca, the common language of the common people. Many advocated in favour of the Desi feeling attached to the names but that could only be justified if the name reflected the cultural identity and the aspirations of the inhabitants of the place.  There’s  a  rich  cultural heritage  attached to  almost every  place,  hence  people  believed  that sticking to a particular historical thing of that particular place would bring out a native name. But as we all know, there’s certainly no survey done amongst the people of a particular place to zero down upon a new name. So, how would a changed name really speak the mind and heart of an inhabitant? Strange!

And there is another group which feels the importance of being well positioned in terms of the alphabetical order. Recently, a few assembly members and government officials of states like Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal  put  forth  their stance  on the disadvantages of  being alphabetically challenged. In every government meeting, the delegates of the states get to speak according to the initials of the names of their states. So, quite understandably when a person from West Bengal speaks at the last, many other delegates are done with their speech already and might just have lost interest or apparently walked out of the place as well, leaving the last speaker feeling unimportant. Many would believe that this is an exalted version but that is how the government officials feel. Strange!

Whether the reasons have been looked after or not while changing the names is the most pertinent query. In almost all the cases, it’s been proved to be a thankless job, i.e. it is impossible to please everyone with the change in name. Let us take a look at a few famous changes here.

• Bombay turned into Mumbai: By far the most popular  and glamorous city of the country, Mumbai was not called the name until in 1996 when the government decided to revamp its name after one of the popular deities, Mumbadevi. It took the efforts of the Associated Press to make the name of Mumbai, official and popular when they decided to use the new name in 2006. However, given a consensus is done, Bombay would still give a close fight to Mumbai as many still refer to the city by its old name.

• Madras turned into Chennai: One of the rarest cases among all in the discussion, the new name Chennai is not only nationally accepted but also globally accepted. There is a lot of rumor and hence no certainty on the history of the name but it is believed that Chennai comes from the town Chennappatnam, which in turn was named after the father of one of the early rulers. Madras got its new name the very same year in which Bombay was renamed as Mumbai.

• Calcutta turned into Kolkata: A clear case of removing the Anglicized version, Kolkata was named so in the year 2001. But much prior to this change, the local people always referred to Calcutta as Kolkata in the regional language and hence it wasn’t too tough for the change to be accepted. Although, foreigners who regard Calcutta as one of the finest and largest cities of the world, believe that the older name was the better name and continue to call it so.

• Bangalore turned into Bengaluru: Perhaps the city which faced the maximum flak for the name change, Bengaluru is finding it hard with the youngsters not ready to accept the change. The elder generation believes that it was always Bengaluru and Bangalore was only a cosmetic name while the youngsters feel that the extremely regional feel to the name has damaged the brand image.

The latest change on the block has caused a furore in the country. Yes, we are talking about Paschim Banga. Without an iota of doubt, this change has sparked off maximum speculations since the reasons it showed and the solution it came up with were never in sync with each other. The government officials complained about the alphabetical order and how West Bengal came last in the government meetings. Unfortunately enough, Paschim Banga was never the solution as it only pushed the state up the order by seven positions whereas Bengal or Bangla would have made it fourth on the list.

The argument didn’t end there since many historians didn’t find a clue to why the administrative body had to retain Paschim anyway. A valid argument to this point is if Punjab could exist on either side of the border without adding an “East” or “West” to it, then why would Bengal need a West/Paschim, especially when the other part of the erstwhile Bengal is Bangladesh now. Eventually, neither did it solve their prime concern nor did it help them in any other way.

However, the biggest concern amidst all this is the fact that the name changes are decided over an all-party meeting in a closed room without reaching a consensus with the Aam Janta. Does this really do justice to the billions who are going to accept the change? One wonders!

International changes:                                                                                                        

Kampuchea is now Cambodia
Ceylon is now Sri Lanka
Holland is now The Netherlands
Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe
Peking is now Beijing

Changes in India:
Orissa is now Odisha
Benares is now Varanasi
Baroda is now Vadodara
Pondicherry is now Puducherry
Calicut is now Kozhikode
Panjim is now Panaji

All that the change brings about is a fresh speculation and argument. More useless work for umpteen clerks who bang their heads while updating all the administrative processes. Right from changing the maps to creating new domains, to changing all existing files to tossing out all the present textbooks. On a personal level, all of us who have grown up saying Bombay and West Bengal all these years are seen fumbling and slipping up at times, eventually saying it by force of habit. How did the change help us then?

With name changes being the latest trend.. Ab Dilli (Delhi) dur nahin!

This article was written hours after West Bengal got itself renamed to Paschim Banga.