Mamata Banerjee's new government says it wants the name of this state to be changed. I cannot help seeing their argument: 'West' Bengal is silly and out-of-date, since East Bengal has become Bangladesh long ago. They also say that since the name starts with W, our state figures at the bottom of all lists when the central government considers the needs of the various states, which puts us at a quite avoidable disadvantage.
So I fell to musing about what alternative tag we might put on. Bangla, Bongo, Bongo Pradesh, Bengal 2? Or, harking back to history, Bangal, maybe, or even Gour? Do my readers have some suggestions?
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7 comments:
I agree that 'West' Bengal is indeed out-of-date, though I don't agree with their second argument -- that the alphabetic order of the state has anything to do with the Central Government considering the states needs. My suggestion to the new name would be the 'plain' Bengal. Just remove the 'West'.
There is nothing in a name.The pretty silly arguments of the new government are nonsense.All that is needed is a good government to rule a state.So the bodol (change) should be focused on ways to improve current conditions and not on just changing name of the state.
If changed the suggestive name should be BONGO.
I am not sure everybody would agree with you that there's nothing in a name, Arijit. No Muslim currently in the US would, to cite one class of examples. Nor people whose surnames are Shit, or Crook, or Savage. Nor my old boy Arkendra Sharan Sanyal (his friends discovered in kindergarten that the acronym was ASS), for as soon as he attained adulthood, he went to court and officially changed his name...
Dear Sir,
The new name has been decided upon- "Paschimbanga". Needless to say, this name disappoints me. I thought the whole idea of this exercise was to get rid of the 'West' part since it looked a little silly. I hope this is not an indication of the changes that are about to come...
Thanks,
Joydeep
Well, not exactly 'decided upon' yet, Joydeep: it must pass through the state Assembly and then through Parliament. But as you said, this is utterly silly and disappointing: making a (trivial and pointless-) change for the sake of change. 'Paschim' will be just as meaningless as 'West'; foreigners of all sorts will have difficulty writing a Bangla word in English, we Anglicized Bengalis will feel foolish every time we have to say it in public (I hail from Paschim Bongo...), and the change does not even bring us very far up the alphabetical ladder. Talk about people having nothing worthwhile to do and making a great show of doing it... my daughter exclaimed on hearing the news: "Baba, our ministers are exactly like our schoolteachers!'
I am glad to see that the editorial in today's edition of The Statesman agrees entirely: 'even as a mark of paribartan, Friday's all-party exercise has been a fizzle.'
I wonder why politicians think so differently. Is it because they are congenital idiots as a tribe, or is it because they know something that we (educated, urban, middle-class, middle-aged people) don't?
Sir,
I am inclined to think that our politicians really do know something that we, mere mortals, don't. It's hard to believe that these people are first-rate idiots, especially when they can manipulate and deceive millions of us so easily.
Thanks,
Joydeep
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