Of Bangalore, Bengaluru and Fractured Identities…
A few days ago, I got into a passionate debate about the merits of the name change of Bangalore to Bengaluru with a few friends.
They were arguing that this was a populist measure, that there was no basis at all to go ahead with this re-naming of the city and that money would be better spent on things such as improvements in infrastructure.
I mentioned that while all these points were valid, they were missing an important, in my view, critical part of the debate – which is the question of identity. I argued that it is very difficult to put a price on identity and if the name change makes people feel more aware of their identity and proud of their heritage, these are strong enough grounds for considering changing place names.
Several points came up during the debate on which I felt we needed more clarity. E.g. costs – how much exactly would it cost? Was there a popular demand for name change? Was there enough backing for the decision? Would it affect Bangalore’s (now globally recognised) brand etc?
This essay is an attempt to delve into some of these issues (and a large part of the credit must go to “Libran Lover” whose points I have extensively used[i] in this essay (see also a related post from Libran: Bangalore Vs Bengaluru).
Let me start by countering some of the most common arguments in this debate.
Argument # 1:The name is a made-up name and means nothing. On the contrary, the historical part of the city has always been traditionally known (to the locals) as Bengaluru, and the Kannada language media has always written and pronounced “Bangalore” as “Bengaluru.”
Argument # 2: Instead of such measures, the government should focus on real priorities (see e.g. Amardeep Singh[iii]’s post on this issue)This argument assumes that there is mutual exclusivity between re-naming Bangalore (or any other city) and measures to improve living conditions for residents of a city. This is clearly not the case although a sub –argument can be raised that the cost incurred could be better spent on other things. I will deal with this in a moment.
Argument # 3: This is something cooked up by politicians to divert attention from the real issues:See the response to # 1 above. And note that the idea did not come from a desperate politician but the respected writer and Jnanpith award-winner, Dr U R Ananthamurthy. It became popular amongst the general Kannadiga public, and was subsequently taken up by the government and politicians.
Argument # 4: People in general do not care about this issue; In fact many are opposedNot true. At the grass-root and “person on the street” level, this idea is very popular amongst Kannadigas. See e.g. “Locals welcome Bangalore’s proposed name change”
Argument # 5: This will be a waste of taxpayers money which can be more beneficially employed elsewhere, such as to improve the infrastructure of Bangalore. See answer to # 2. In addition, bear in the mind that any costs involved (estimates have ranged from Rs.12crore~60crores) are one time only and can be easily minimized by doing this in phases and changing things (such as stationery) only at the next replacement cycle. The costs involved in this are far less as compared to the costs of maintaining/improving the infrastructure of a city.
Argument # 6: Bangalore is a well-established brand and changing the name will dilute brand identity Those who know or value the brand “Bangalore” (e.g. for its IT skill-base and companies such as Infosys) would not devalue the city or its skill-base just because the name is now spelt slightly differently. Bangalore’s brand value is in the skills of its residents which will not change just because the spelling became slightly different. And I cannot see any future business deals being made or broken just because the city is called Bangalore vs. Bengaluru.
