The Independent, a British daily, will revert to using Bombay instead of Mumbai when referring to the financial hub of India, to take stand against a “nastier strain of Hindu nationalism,” Amol Rajan, its Indian-origin editor said on Thursday, reports PTI.
Here’s what he told the BBC presenter.
The whole point of Bombay is of an open, cosmopolitan port city, the gateway of India that’s open to the world. If you call it what Hindu nationalists want you to call it, you essentially do their work for them,” Amol Rajan, the editor of ‘The Independent’,Amol Rajan, Editor — The Independent (UK)
Are you a regular Independent reader? Had you heard of Amol Rajan? There! That’s the big plan. Journalist Harini Calamur nails it well:
The Independent is owned by the Russian Oligarch Alexander Lebedev, and has been struggling for mind space and audiences since it launched in 1986.Harini Calamur, Media Professional
So this exercise achieved just the thing Amol Rajan wanted: eyeballs and knee-jerk responses. Let me take you through some tweets that exploded in response.
Cricket expert Harsha Bhogle, Ishaan Tharoor (journalist son of Shashi Tharoor) and Rajiv Gandhi biographer Minhaz Merchant too reacted:
The Hindustan Times had carried an article in November, commemorating the renaming of Mumbai two decades ago.
Marathi speakers had always called the city “Mumbai”, and the move was popular among that community, whereas “Bombay” was an Anglicised take on the Portuguese colonial name “Bom Bahia”, or “good bay”.Hindustan Times article “What’s in a name? Mumbai 20 years on from Bombay”
Reminded of Mumbai’s original name, the colonisers’ influences and the bounceback, Amol Rajan rebutts a Twitter user. To a tweet: “For Marathi people,it has ALWAYS been Mumbai.But those who don’t understand locals,would term me “Hindu Nationalist”, Amol Rajan says:
It’s an independent world but if each of us must have our own way, get ready for major mess ups at all places where clarity of a name is essential. I am going to follow Harini Calamur’s ‘advice’, do an Amol and call all places by their ancient names:
- Bedouins: What Saudi Arabia was earlier called by the West.
- Arabia: Dudes, the ‘Middle East’, as the West calls it.
- Chai: Well, chai is much nicer than ‘tea’. Besides, ‘tea’ is a term associated with bonded labour, forced plantations, and environmental degeneration. Time to change that too.
- Eire: Or rather, Northern Eire, sounds a lot nicer than Northern Ireland.
- Caledonia: This was the ancient name for Scotland.
And what about the United States of America? Well, here’s my answer: Refer to the USA as The Colonies or The New World – that should be the simplest!
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