The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : No Rajyotsava gift for Bengaluru, Mysuru and other cities

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Thursday, Nov 01, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

No Rajyotsava gift for Bengaluru, Mysuru and other cities

Special Correspondent

Union Home Ministry may clear plan to change the names in November
Writers, scholars welcome decision to rename cities

BANGALORE: Although the official change of the anglicised names of Bangalore, Mangalore, Belgaum, Mysore, Bellary, Tumkur and other major towns as pronounced in Kannada will not come into effect on Rajyotsava Day as promised, the Union Home Ministry is likely to clear the proposal pending with it in November, according to sources in the State Government.

The Government had decided to change the anglicised names to Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hosapete, Ballary, Shivamogga, Belagavi, Kalburgi and Hubballi. It had also obtained no objection certificates from the Central establishments such as the Indian Space Research Organisation, National Aerospace Laboratories and HAL and forwarded a proposal to that effect to the Union Government seeking its clearance. The former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had made a personal request to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil to clear the proposal for facilitating it as a Suvarana Karnataka gift to the people of the State. It was expected the Union Government would consider the proposal barring a town, said to be Belgaum, in October, the sources said.

The then Minister for Home, M.P. Prakash, had clarified to the Union Government that it had only decided to restore the original names of those cities and towns before the advent of the British. It was the colonial rulers who distorted the original names of many cities and towns for their convenience.

Hailed

Welcoming the Government’s decision to rename anglicised cities and towns, many writers and scholars had said that that renaming the Mumbai Karnataka region as “Belagaavi” Karnataka and the Hyderabad Karnataka region as “Kalburgi” Karnataka would be significant and apt on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee year of the reorganisation of the State.

Reasoning out his suggestion to rename the city as “Bengalooru,” Jnanpith award winner-writer U.R. Ananthamurthy had said that the uvular “u” in Kannada was a “highly enabling independent sound” that can convert and metamorphose umpteen numbers of foreign terms into Kannada words. For instance terms such as bus, car, rail and bore when pronounced with uvular “u” become Kannada bassu, caaru, railu and boru so are “Bengalooru and Mysooru,” he substantiated.

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