Agencies/Bengaluru
Bangalore, India’s information technology capital, was officially renamed Bengaluru yesterday, eight years after the name change was proposed.
Indian authorities have in recent years renamed several key cities in a bid to shake off the British colonial past by replacing anglicised names of the cities with the traditional ones.
The Karnataka government issued a notification changing names of Bangalore and 11 more cities in the state effective yesterday coinciding with Karnataka’s 59th formation day.
As the fifth largest city in the country, Bangalore drew global attention over the last decade, riding on the success of its resilient IT industry, talent pool, salubrious climate and cosmopolitan culture of its 9mn people.
Other well-known cities like Mysore will be pronounced and spelt Mysuru, Mangalore as Mangaluru, Belgaum as Belagavi, Bellary as Ballari, Hubli as Hubballi and Gulbarga in the state’s northern region as Kalaburgi.
The remaining five cities - Bijapur became Vijayapura, Chikmagalur Chikkamagaluru, Hospet Hosapeta, Shimoga in Malnad region as Shivamogga and Tumkur Tumakuru.
Heralding the Karnataka Rajyotsava Day at a colourful cultural event in the city centre, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said it was a proud moment for the 60mn people of the state to pronounce names of a dozen cities in Kannada and use them officially hereafter.
He said: “We propose to rename other cities and towns in the state in due course after assessing the impact of changes to the 12 cities with a population of 0.5-1mn.”
N Mahadevappa, a college teacher, said: “Bangalore has been Bangalored! Renaming has robbed the city’s charming Anglican name and fame. It’s official. We have no choice but follow and get used to it.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry was the first politician who coined or used “Bangalored” in the run-up to the 2008 presidential poll to highlight how low-cost Indian software firms were taking away thousands of tech jobs from his country due to increasing outsourcing of services.
A Karnataka government official said: “Renaming states and cities is not new. We are behind other states like Maharashtra which made the historical Bombay into Mumbai, while Madras became Chennai, Calcutta Kolkata, Poona Pune, Baroda Vadodara and Orissa Odisha. We have done to popularise our cities’ original names and respect the people’s sentiments.”