Bangalore to Bengalooru: Politics of name change

Bangalore, the IT-capital of India is all set to get a new name Bengalooru. A formal announcement on this will be announced today, on the occasion of Suvarna Karnataka, the state Golden Jubilee year. Besides 6 other cities of the state- Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Shimoga, Belgaum and Hospet will get renamed to Mysooru, Mangalooru, Hubballi, Shivamogga, Belagaavi and Hosapete respectively.

Bangalore is the colonial name for the city, which British settlers found easier to pronounce. Bengalooru is the older name for the city, which is said to be derived from benda kalooru, or boiled beans. Story has it that an exhausted King was restored by a meal of boiled beans fed to him by a villager on the spot where the city now stands.

English spelling of the new name is however still to be finalized. Daijiworld reports:

The English spellings still have to be finalised, with the department seeking linguistic opinion on whether it should be Bengal-u-ru or Bengal-oo-ru. The department is inclined to follow the stand taken by Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy that it should be Bengal-oo-ru, to account for the elongated syllable in Kannada.

The name change is the latest in a series of such revisions of Indian cities: Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, Madras to Chennai in 1996, Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001 and Pondicherry became Puducherry this September.

I believe the real motive behind all these name changes is to get cheap political mileage. This easily appeals to the regional pride of the local people and hopefully results in some vote in elections. This also helps to divert attention of the people from other pressing issues faced by people and hide incompetence of government authorities. There are many other issues including crumbling city infrastructure in Bangalore which hardly gets any government attention besides occasional lip service.

But can we totally erase the name Bangalore? Definitely not, for long we will know two names for the city. One is Bangalore and the other is Bengalooru. More then 10 years after Bombay became Mumbai prime landmarks of the city have retained the old name: Bombay High Court, Bombay Stock Exchange, IIT Bombay. Not to mention University of Calcutta, Calcutta Telephones, IIT Madras, Madras Medical College.

So Bangalore is here to stay, not withstanding government approval. And you can still get Bangalored.