It's the name stupid
There has been another name change, this time of a state. West Bengal changes to Pashchimbanga. But does it serve the purpose of identifying with the people?
OUR NATION earned its much craved and venerated freedom after decades of struggle and resistance in varied forms and significant sacrifice in the guise of partition. We started with hatred of all things British despite an anglophile Prime Minister and a legacy infrastructure left behind by them. We have come a full circle today with complete elimination of foreign goods and enterprise followed by a re-entry post the liberalization of 1991.
We might be young (as an unified nation and not fragmented kingdoms) compared to most of the developed world but China formed in 1949 and South Korea settled in 1953 (following an armistice with North that was never signed) have quite sorted themselves. Their economic prowess ensures that Chinese and Korean names such as Huwaei, Haier, Lenovo, Samsung and Hyundai are known globally while their languages get a place of pride in all government, public use and corporate communications/announcements in a world ruled by English and its variants.
We have successfully changed the names of a few cities, roads and bridges but it is a far cry from shiny billboards in Indian languages. And amidst such dismal achievements, the industrially and economically faltering eastern state of West Bengal has shed its erstwhile British name, first introduced by Lord Curzon in 1905 (during the first British attempt to divide the Bengali speaking people on religious lines) and settled for a mere translation.
I apologize for the exasperated reader for coming to the issue of ‘Pashchimbanga’ after touching upon British legacy and Chinese and Korean (south) nationalism but in the context these two issues are quite relevant.
Though we (a supposed all party consensus with publicly elected members) have espoused a Bengali name for the state but sticking to the British legacy or scar of partition of west or ‘Pashchim’ in Bangla. A leading English daily had also led a popular campaign to rid the state of its ambiguous prefix.
Though it is understandable that a vast majority in the hinterland might not stomach an English ‘Bengal’ (as propounded by the English daily) but what harm did Banga or Bangla do? It would have liberated the state from a directional chum of a name and kept the pride in the language intact.
But instead of a simple and all encompassing solution, the state of West Bengal embraced Pashchimbanga under the astute leadership of Miss Banerjee. She promised change and has been serving it in copious amounts, palatable or not to all sections of the social spectrum. One apprehension however still looms large that how the ruling and in clear majority Trinamool could not carry out its primary view of renaming the state Bangabhoomi, Banga or Bangla.
Miss Banerjee has cited the fact that heartland West Bengal (now Pashchimbanga) might think differently from intellectuals in Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi or Twitterati wherever lives the Bengali Diaspora. She had used this defence to discount opinions pouring in from across the state, country and the globe.
Two distinct trains of thoughts emerge here leading to a similar conclusion. One, if the opinion of every Bengali speaking individual is important then why not a democratically elected government of West Bengal (let me call it that for now) use another election to determine such an important aspect about the people. Like the United Kingdom going to polls to decide whether to replace the Great British Pound with the Euro that resulted in a resounding nay. If Miss Banerjee is planning to transform Kolkata to London, she can start with emulating their good practices.
The other is a basic question that surfaces before naming or christening. What should the name signify? If rose by any other name would smell as sweet then why the whole fuss about baby names or even city or state names for that matter.
Etymologies of city, state or country names resoundingly assures us that it is either to do with what people live in there, who discovered it, who they want to pay their homage to, abundantly found things (like Coconuts for Coco Islands), proximity to rivers, mountains and so on. Apparently our line of thought is what people live in the state and Pashchimbangas surely do not inhabit it.
Maybe Bangas (Bongos) or Bengalis but not the former. The government of not only the state in question but across nations and cultures should have a good grab of the public sentiments and their history before embarking upon a name change exercise. Otherwise it becomes a matter of mockery on social networking sites by people whose ideas are frowned upon as being representative of a minority elite (Arabs are changing the perception, yay!) while the common man in the heartland thinks the government must have gone crazy as it announcing resolutions irrelevant to them. The objective must have been, however, to knit people from all walks of life into a common identity to start with.
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