Will renaming the city get rid of a lingering colonial hangover?
Arose by any other name will smell as sweet. Calcutta by any other name will be as chaotic." These words in the lead story of a Calcutta daily summed up the mood of an immobilised Calcutta held to ransom by a Mamta Banerjee political rally on 21 July, a day after the self-anointed champions of Bengali culture rechristened Calcutta "Kolkata", following the example set earlier by Bombay and Madras.
One would have expected that given the Bengali's well-known language chauvinism, the renaming would have generated considerable enthusiasm among the people of Calcutta. This was not the case. A few gawky Calcuttans approached by television channels on the streets said that they were happy about the 'change. But a more scientific opinion poll conducted for The Telegraph newspaper showed that 52 percent of the city's denizens are against the name-change. More significant was the fact that an overwhelming number of those surveyed were young.
Leading the charge for the 'Bengalisation' of the name of this 300-year-old city was the wellknown writer Sunil Gangopadhyay, who had been demanding the change through various newspaper and magazine articles. His write-ups attempted to rouse the Bengalispeaker to his support and were laced with polemic. A recent one stated that though the British had named the city "Calcutta" 250 years ago, the Bengalis continue to pronounce and write it Kolkata in Bengali. Only the brown sahebs call it "Khalkhata". He certainly has a point there but the revered, accomplished and progressive writer sounds almost fascistic when he says that the English-language journalists who call the Bengalis "Bongs" should be taught a lesson or when he calls for publicly ridiculing Bengali children who speak English among themselves and socially boycotting the parents who neglect teaching of Bengali to their children.