The Biz of Coding

Bangalore renamed Bengalooru, Long Live Bangalore!

by Ujwal Tickoo on November 6th, 2006

I want the Bang back in my Bangalore, there is no "Bang" in Bengal(ooru). USA Today has covered the name change of Bangalore to Bengalooru on Karnataka’s 50th formation day in its article "Bangalore latest Indian city to dump English name". The government plans to change the name of 12 cities in Karnataka for boosting the "pride" of Kannadigas. Removing foreign names it seems is the best method to boost pride! But wait — its not completely official yet.

The government has now formally proposed this change to some other god in the hierarchy of The Bureaucratic Republic of India. This is classic politically correct activity. Do something useless but of high PR value that the masses can’t say NO to for emotional reason. But avoid spending money to tangibly improve the lot of the people in the state.

Flip Side of name change

USA Today closed its article while quoting a Bangalore based blogger – a professor at Indian Institute of Science.

"When ‘getting Bangalored’ has acquired a strong negative connotation becoming Bengaluru can only be a good thing for this city."

With all due respects to Prof Abinandanan and USA Today — this is a poor reason. Because globally jobs and capital will keep moving to economically competitive places. Soon Bengaloorued could become a negative word. Land, Labour, Capital and entrepreneurship will continue to optimize themselves to become more productive and improve output. This is Economics at play.

Cost of the Name Change

A few days ago, I was surprised to hear a Karnataka state government official (or perhaps a bureaucrat) on a national news channel admitting that no financial study has been done to find out the approximate cost of changing Bangalore’s name to Bengalooru. And I guess what this gentleman had on mind was the cost that government will bear.

There will be costs that private orgainzations will have to bear. This money could have been disbursed as bonuses at year end to employees or earmarked for a social causes. But of course that wouldn’t help India’s politicans. Besides, the cost of Brand losses are yet to be measured.

I personally would have had no problem with a Kannada name if that were the original name of Bangalore. I only have a problem with name changes that destroy well established Brands. Bangalore is a global Indian brand. Long Live Bangalore.

Besides, the name change will not resolve any of the infrastructure problems of Bangalore — for several years to come. This is just a lack of focus on real priorities. Amardeep Singh, Assistant Professor at Lehigh University, expresses the anger that several of us — common Indians — feel when we see demented politicans and shallow bureaucrats find ways to hijack the system for doing no good at all but moving more files around:

a city, like a country, is a much larger, a much more complex construct than a lane or a plaza….what a ‘Calcutta’ or a ‘Bombay’ signifies is a typically subtle Indian way of eating your cake and having it too. What the old names say, which Mumbai and Kolkata don’t, is: ‘yes, we come from a colonial history, but also, yes, we have overcome that colonial past and are confident enough to keep whatever is useful from that past, whether it be the English language, our railway network…

I would challenge the bureaucrats and politicans of India to now throw away the Indian Railway Network because even that was started by the British. There is no end to this madness! Please stop somewhere.

POSTED IN: Bangalore, IT, India, Indians