[lbo-talk] Mumbai bombings

[ravi]

At around 15/7/06 3:24 pm, Sujeet Bhatt wrote:
> On 7/15/06, ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Didn't we go over this a while ago? Aditya or Sujeet or Ulhas
>> probably have better info, but here's my 2c: the rename is part of
>> the right-wing driven effort to "re"claim Bombay as a Marathi city
>> (Bombay is part of the state of Maharashtra, though there is a
>> large Gujarati population). I think this is also part of the
>> ongoing process of renaming Indian cities to their "original"
>> names, which has led to such silliness (IMHO of course) as Madras
>> turning into Chennai (In the case of Madras, as opposed to
>> "Trivandrum" which is a British corruption, the name Madras, short
>> for Madraspatnam, is as valid a name for the city, and the usage by
>> locals has always been to refer to it as Madras in English and 
>> Chennai in Tamil).
> 
> Renaming in most cases is actually only a de-anglicization of names -
>  it has nothing to do with right-wing politics. As Ulhas points out, 
> Bombay has always been referred to as Mumbai by most of its
> population - whether Marathi or Gujarati. It was the British who
> renamed it to Bombay because tehy couldn't pronounce the word.
> "Mumbai" is therefore a de-renaming - a restoration of the original
> name. Ditto for Kolkata/Calcutta.
> 

I agree (generally) about the de-Anglicization (hence my reference to
Trivandrum, and also mention of "original names"). I was told by my
family from Pune that Bombay->Mumbai has an additional component of Shiv
Sena driven Marathi identity politics. Also, note that the official
renaming can be independent of what the people have always called it. My
example of Madras->Chennai is such a case. People have always (in recent
history) called it both.

Here is some info from Wikipedia and other sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_renaming_controversy


> In the case of Bombay and Madras the derivation of the name was from
> Portuguese, not English. Furthermore the politics of some of these
> name changes are questionable, those in Bombay being in response to
> the demands of the Hindu Nationalist Shiv Sena party. 'Mumbai' is
> probably derived from the temple of Mumba-Devi in Bombay, and
> although there is no evidence that it was the name of a settlement
> before the arrival of the Portuguese, who called it Boa Baia (good
> bay), it has long been the name of the city in Marathi and Gujarati,
> whilst Hindi-speakers called it Bambai.[1] However, some argue that
> as the renaming was part of the Shiv Sena's Bhumiputra (son of the
> soil) policy, it is an attempt to erase evidence of the city's
> cosmopolitanism and multi-lingual character.[2]
> 
> Arguably the 'original' name for Bombay would be 'Colaba' or
> 'Kolaba', the southernmost island of the group now making up the
> Bombay peninsula, derived from the name of the Kola fishermen who
> originally lived here.

Also:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~easwaran/papers/india.html

A Google search provides links to other pages that make arguments in
favour of Mumbai being an original name.

http://www.mumbainet.com/renaming.htm

It seems to me that there is some credibility to the idea that the
rename involves an element of mischief by the Shiv Sena, yes?

	--ravi

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