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.���

What is the name change really about?

Re-naming Bangalore is not simply a matter of overcoming your colonial past (this is a red-herring) and it is more than just a matter of calling a place by its correct name.�

I was challenged by one of my friends about how do I react when someone pronounces my name incorrectly � Do I always rush to correct them? Clearly not � so why should I so desperately seek to �correct� the name of a city? But this comparison is a false one � I don�t challenge everyone who pronounces my name incorrectly but I would certainly like my name pronounced correctly and if changing the spelling helps, so be it.��

Changing the name of Bangalore to Bengaluru would not make everyone in the world call it Bengaluru � there will still be people who call it Bangalore and write it as such � but at least the proper name of the city will be recognised for what it is.�

Have people stopped writing Bombay when they mean Mumbai? No. Does it matter? Not really, as long as everyone is aware that the correct and formal name of the capital of Maharashtra is Mumbai not �Bombay�. Same with Bangalore. I think �Bangalored� as a term is unlikely to be changed to �Bengalured� but that was never the point anyway.�

In the end, Bangalore to Bengaluru is more than just a spelling change to reflect the correct pronunciation. It is matter of claiming back your identity, being able to call your cities, places and other things by their proper names rather than labels that were imposed by someone a few decades ago.�

The costs, inconvenience and awkwardness is merely passing. The important thing is what the city will be known as � and that will be Bengaluru � just as it always has been except for the past few decades of mispronunciation.

As I was writing this, I was reminded of the following excerpt from Sir V S Naipaul�s highly acclaimed work, �India: A Wounded Civilisation[v]� that neatly captured my angst about fractured identities: �At dinner that evening, high up in one of those towers, a journalist touched the subject of identity. �Indian� was a word that was now without meaning, he said. He himself, he was in his thirties, of the post-Independence generation, no longer knew who he was. He no longer knew the Hindu gods. His grandmother, visiting Khajuraho or some other famous temple, would immediately be in tune with what she saw; she wouldn�t need to be told about the significance of the carvings. He was like a tourist; he saw only an architectural monument. He had lost the key to a whole world of belief and feeling, and was cut off from his past.�

If not for ourselves, at least for the sake of our future generations, let�s not cut ourselves off from our past.

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10 Responses

  1. Varahmihir says:

    I would say that this post was well laid out in terms of answering some of the arguments one finds against such name changes.
    There was controversy few years back to change Ahmedabad’s name to Karnavati. Whatever the intentions or reasons for or against it, one still finds lots of people in Ahmedabad refer to the city as Karnavati.
    However this does raise an important question, though. Upto what extent is this name changing exercise warranted? After all, by the same logic and line of argument isn’t the name of our beloved motherland “Bharat” rather than India?

  2. Apollo says:

    I think u have taken a well balanced view of the issue at hand. Most commentaries tend to lean to one end or the other.

    I think this move is largely a psychological one. The aim probably was to make sure that the city will now be increasingly recognised with the local kannadiga culture rather than as just a yuppie pubs & IT town.

    Kannadigas are a very open minded people but they were feeling increasingly marginalised in their own city. Even the local theatres played non-kannada movies, every new FM channel was reluctant to broadcast Kannada programmes, outsiders(both rich & poor) who had settled here for years sometimes born and brought up here would ghettoise themselves and refuse to learn the local language or interact with the local people. Years of such things has what has lead to this back to the roots movement.

    It is a reaction and it would hopefully mellow down once the perceived injustices are seemingly corrected or on the other hand things could get serious if some 2 bit politicos from either karnataka or neighbouring states stoke this sense of hurt for their electoral benefits.

  3. Kay Stoner says:

    Great post! It makes a lot of good points. One thing, though — “Bangalore” doesn’t necessarily have good connotations, the world over. In fact, it has some pretty negative ones, for a multitude of reasons, not least of which is the migration of IT work to that part of the world, and people’s personal experiences with being “Bangalored”. Changing the name, in a way, helps sidestep this a bit.

    I also see it as part and parcel of the local inclinations of cultures, even governments, to assert their local cultural autonomy over the rising tide of globalization. France’s official edicts that the word “e-mail” is not French and should be replaced by “couriere”, and the recent edict that the word “podcasting” isn’t French either and should be replaced by “la diffusion pour baladeur” are variations on this theme.

    Within India itself (from the viewpoint of an outsider), it strikes me that this name change is in the same spirit as the attempt to outlaw the colas that were “pesticide cocktails”, some months ago. Local governments seek to decide what is and is not acceptable for their people, and they have greater or lesser success, given the climate of global business enterprises.

    I think in this case, the name change is an example of a success, in that it reinforces local identity and standards without impacting the ability of MNC’s to make money… but the cola initiative was less simple and straightforward, because there was a whole lot of money at stake.

    In the current climate of do-business-wherever-you-like-however-you-like, name (and language) changes are a much more effective and successful way of reinforcing local identity, than trying to impose economically impactful standards on “outsiders”.

  4. Shantanu says:

    Varahmihir, Your question about where does one draw the line is a good one. I was going to address it in this post but it probably warrants an essay all by itself. The analogy with “Bharat” is apt . Increasingly though “Bharat” is being identified with the left-behind rural populattion while India represents the urban, rapidly developing populace. See “India leaves Bharat behind” http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1868119,0008.htm

    This is v. worrying…but more on this later.

    Apollo, very insightful comment. Thanks.

    Kay, Thanks for your comment. you are of course right about Bangalore’s negative connotations…and it is interesting that you feel changing the name sidesteps the issue…
    I particularly liked your final observation viz., “In the current climate…name (and language) changes are a much more effective and successful way of reinforcing local identity, than trying to impose economically impactful standards on “outsiders”. Well said.

  5. Rohit says:

    I read the essay and the responses. I feel there is a tendency of likeminded responses to appear on likeminded postings – unless, the posting is so one-sided that it evokes strong “uprisings” in the mind of the reader.

    The cost, it turns out, is not prohibitive. So, “lets get on with it”.. I maintain that its not something people care too much about – least of all the citizens of India. I agree that the citizens of Bharat who move to India must feel assuaged with the name change of an Indian city to a Baharati city. So, why not incur a bit of cost, if that’s all it takes to unite the two classes of citizens in the vast and increasingly economically divided country of ours.

    But all that is a load of crap. ‘Cause once the novelty wears off, Bengaluru will not contribute a cent to uniting the citizens. Then, ex-post, was it a cost well spent ? How about improving education – something that is cheap and costs the same order of magnitude as a city name change. Oh, but I forgot. That actually takes initiative, planning and execution. Where are we lucky enough to have governments capable of that. So, then I guess we should be content with stop-gap measures and one-time charges for one-time band-aids.

    That is not what brought us here. The five year plans – at least the early ones – were really instrumental. The Family Planning movement started in the seventies has probably been the most successful initiative in our generation-time. But where do we go now ? India is taking the country “forward”, and how do we make sure Bharat is in step ? No, that is too complex a problem to be addressed by weak, shared-power governments. So, why not change names, divest well-developed assets. Its cheap, and its easy and presents a supply for almost a whole century if you do it 1 city and 1 enterprise at a time every 4-5 years. Yes, that’s the KISS solution. Lets do it, and then lets get on with it.

  6. Neuron says:

    Dear Shantanu
    Its a good article, very well debated. But do you think its required? What if we call Banglore as New delhi from tomorrow or say we call it Gangtok.
    This is the time to be thoughtful. What ever may be the name of place,today its important to see if all citizens pay civic taxes, electricity bills,road taxes,send their clildern to school,follow traffic rules, follow the munciple corporation rules for buliding construction, practice not to give and take bribes, learn to respect each other’s religion and culture, conserve the environment, plant more trees and so on.
    In my opinion we have lost the time to sit and think about the name and discuss for or against it.
    If Banglore could go back to its old days as one of the most beautiful cities in India I am sure it will find its deserved place even if you call it Jaiselmer.
    your comments are welcome.

  7. Chandra says:

    Your last observation with relation to Naipaul’s writing, about the disconnect with our past, is getting truer by the day.

    Because of that phenomenon – product of our ultra bland education system – most are attracted to atheism and are, apparently, global citizens. And both because they are popular in the west with the definition of global usually starts at the pacific coast of US and stops at the eastern border of Germany (and it, by and large, doesn’t include India and surely not Bharatam).

  8. ASHU says:

    Yes, I agree that why Indian government is changing such nice names in such a manner.
    Earlier the name Madras was changed to Chennai.
    Madras was a name showing the locality of that place where the city was situated.
    Then Calcutta was changed to Kolkata which seems to be a tongue twister.
    So it creates a lot of confusion when names are changed,even Bengaluru creates a lot of confusion

    ASHU
    _______

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  9. Ad Mo says:

    As a Bangalorean of 6-generations, the one reason I oppose the name change is that Non South Indians will kill the pronounciation. Just wish immigrants respect and imbibe the local culture.