It refers to justified and logical demand raised by BJP Parliamentarian Vijay Goel in Rajya Sabha on 24.07.2019 for re-spell British-distorted spelling of Delhi as Dilli. But re-spelling should be Dehli which means entrance, and was a common household name till several decades after independence. Even Dilli is the distorted name. Many other countries like Bangladesh and China have already respelled names of their capitals as per actual pronunciation.
Central government should also accept resolution by West Bengal state-assembly to re-name the state to remove confusing pre-fix West and to have a name in Bangla rather than English. Only old-timers know that since western part of pre-independence undivided Bengal came to India, the state was named as West Bengal, and East Bengal turned into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Proposed name will be one-worded and will not be able to be abbreviated like double-worded names UP, MP, HP, AP etc.
Constitution should be amended whereby names of all institutions including High Courts named after states or cities may be auto-changed with change in names of state or city. Names of Bombay High Court and Madras High Court still remain the same despite renaming of respective cities as Mumbai and Chennai decades back.
There has been gradual change in names or spellings of cities with the process still incomplete despite seven decades of independence. Distorted spellings of Jullender and Simla by British rulers in India as Jalandhar and Shimla has been rectified. Bareilly as per actual pronunciation are still to be modified. There are too many Rampurs and Bilaspurs in India which require renaming to avoid confusion. New names can be after heroic characters of Ramayan and Mahabharat.
Union Government should also adopt single name Bharat for the country abolishing British given name as India, in tune with unanimous resolution once passed by UP state-assembly. It is senseless to have two names for a country. Shrilanka and Myanmar have already done away with such British legacy when these countries are no more known as Ceylon and Burma.
MADHU AGRAWAL