On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 10:03 AM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote:
> > It is 'Kolkata', Anthony! > > Could someone explain the politics of the name to me? Is "Kolkata" Hindu > nationalist, or is it more reputable than that? > There is some nationalistic element to this, but mostly it is driven by regional, linguistic politics. (Btw Kolkata is not alone in this. Over the past 2 decades, most of the largest Indian metropolises has made a similar name change: Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru etc. New Delhi is the exception to this.) Of course Hindu nationalism taps into some of the same kinds of sentiments driving these name changes (e.g. nativists in Mumbai affiliated with the Hindu right were big cheerleaders for the name change in that city), but I'd say on the whole there is nothing sinister about the new names. The old names in many of these cases were Anglicised versions of traditional names and were very awkward or impossible to spell in the local dialects, so the new names make a lot more sense really. -raghu.
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