What Will Mamata Rename Next?

Mamata Banerjee has gone on a spree of naming and renaming roads, bridges and towns in Bengal.The trouble is, none of the new names make sense

‘Ma’ has been quite a disappointment. ‘Roddur-brishti’ (sun and rain), too, has often been a letdown. Nothing is ‘uttam’ about Uttam city. Disharmony reigns over ‘Agnibina’ (a collection of songs by Bengali poet-philosopher Kazi Nazrul Islam). Gitanjali (as Tagore named his Nobel-winning collection of poems) lacks a proper toilet.

Confused? Well, blame West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for it. She has been christening public utilities with extreme and baffling whimsicality. ‘Ma’, for instance, is the new flyover that connects Eastern Metropolitan Bypass to Park Circus which the mercurial Chief Minister inaugurated just before the Durga Pujas. On a whim, she named the city’s longest flyover ‘Ma’ (mother). The flyover has, far from easing traffic congestion on the arterial road that most people who land at Kolkata airport take to reach the city, only added to traffic woes since two of its ramps remain incomplete.

‘Roddur-Brishti’ is the name Mamata Banerjee gave to a chain of government-run shops selling everything from rice and cereals to toiletries at concessional prices. Setting up these shops were her brainchild, and the avowed objective was to make many items like the fine and aromatic ‘tulaipanji’ and ‘gobindobhog’ varieties of rice that are expensive available at moderate prices. But stocks often run dry at these shops, leaving customers very disappointed.

A few months ago, Mamata renamed six towns in the state that would be converted to ‘smart cities’. Thus Siliguri in North Bengal became ‘Teesta’, after the river that passes close to it. Bolpur, adjacent to (Tagore’s abode) Shantiniketan, was christened ‘Gitabitan’ (a popular compilation of Tagore songs) while Asansol-Durgapur became ‘Agnibina’. Kazi Nazrul had no connection whatsoever with Asansol or Durgapur, and hadn’t visited these places ever.

Gajaldoba, a small town in North Bengal’s Jalpaiguri, was renamed ‘Mukta Tirtha’ (‘liberated pilgrimage’ would be a literal translation), but without any rhyme or reason. Gajaldoba itself means nothing in Bengali, and has no pilgrimage sites to boast of. Mamata Banerjee wants to turn it into a ‘mega tourism hub’ complete with a golf course, in which case it would be a coveted destination for golfers. But it still won’t attract pilgrims, and there’s a difference between pilgrims and tourists. But such subtleties are obviously lost on Mamata.

Garia, in the southern fringes of Kolkata, has become ‘Uttam city’, leaving its residents flummoxed. The raging debate there is whether Mamata Banerjee named their area after Bengali matinee idol Uttam Kumar or wanted it to be a prime (uttam) city. Such debates, however, do not contribute to making it the ‘smart city’ that the Trinamool government wants to convert it to. Kalyani town, which was conceived and founded by former Bengal chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy, is another proposed ‘smart city’ that Mamata has renamed as ‘Samriddhi’. She intends to make it an analytics hub. But whether that would automatically make that quiet town, which is chosen by many to settle down in after retirement, prosperous (samriddha) remains to be seen.

Rajarhat New Town, the brand new township coming up on Kolkata’s eastern fringe, has been renamed Bishwa Bangla by the chief minister and the smooth road that slices through it as Bishwa Bangla Avenue. Bishwa Bangla can be loosely translated into ‘global Bengal’, but what it means and why Mamata chose this name will remain an abiding mystery. She has also named a chain of premium stores set up by her government’s MSME (medium, small and micro enterprises) department that sell handicrafts, muslin, linen, toiletries, eatables and other products of Bengal as ‘Bishwa Bangla’ and the products sold there also sport the ‘Bishwa Bangla’ logo that Mamata had designed herself. The logo is an image of the globe with the Bengali alphabet for ‘B’ superimposed on the globe. It does boost Bengalis’ ego, but does little else.

Mamata’s penchant for naming places on a whim is not new. She created a controversy by naming some new stations on a newly-commissioned stretch of Kolkata’s Metro Rail after some famous Bengali personalities during her stint as the Union Railway Minister. Tollygunge thus became ‘Mahanayak Uttam Kumar’ (the matinee idol) and the other stations on the new route were not given the names of the areas they came up in as is the usual practice.

‘Netaji’ was the station that came up in Kudghat, ‘Masterda Surya Sen’ (a freedom fighter) was what Bansdroni station came to be called, Naktala’s station was named ‘Gitanjali’, the one at Garia Bazar was christened ‘Kabi Nazrul’ (after Kabi Nazrul Islam), the next at Briji Road became ‘Shahid Khudiram’ (after Khudiram Bose, a young revolutionary who was sent to the gallows by the British) and the last station on that stretch at New Garia was named ‘Kavi Subhas’ (after Subhas Mukhopadhyay, one of the foremost Bengali poets of the last century).

Commuters faced a harrowing time figuring out which station to get down at to reach their destinations. Helpfully, the Metro Rail authorities started announcing the names of the areas the stations are located in after Mamata ceased to be the Railway Minister.

In 2012, a year after she became the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee renamed four railway stations in the state’s Hooghly district after personalities like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Railway authorities then stepped in and prevented her from further madness. And anyway, naming or renaming railway stations is never the prerogative of a chief minister. She incurred the wrath of Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi during her tenure as Railway Minister when she wanted to change the name of Silchar railway station (Silchar in in Assam) to ‘Bhasha Shaheed station’. This was a populist move by Mamata to endear herself to the Bengalis of Barak Valley in Assam, who had led an agitation in 1960-1961 against the Assam government’s move to make Assamese the sole official language in the state. This was resented by the Bengalis, who were in a majority in Barak Valley. The agitation led to police firing on peaceful agitators at Silchar railway station, killing eleven of them. Gogoi protested Mamata’s move, saying it would reopen old wounds and create communal disharmony. Mamata had to shelve her proposal.

Mamata’s penchant for renaming places has often led to piquant situations. In January 2014, after yesteryears’ Bengali screen idol Suchitra Sen passed away, she announced the renaming of what was popularly known as Ballygunge Circular Road in south Kolkata as Suchitra Sen Sarani. But she didn’t know that the 2.5 kilometer road had already been named after Pramathesh Barua, the first ‘star’ of Bengali cinema. Ultimately, only a 350 meter portion of this road was left as Pramathesh Barua Sarani and the major 2.15 kilometer stretch named in memory of Suchitra Sen. Nonetheless, this road continues to be referred to as Ballygunge Circular Road.

Since she became the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee has renamed more than 25 streets and roads in Kolkata, and many more in other towns, after personalities. And not only prominent Bengali personalities—Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ram Manohar Lohia and (industrialist) R.P.Goenka, among others, have streets named after them. Last year, during a visit to the Sunderbans to explore the tourism potential of the mangrove delta, she named three islands ‘Doodh Sagar’ (sea of milk), ‘Bhor Sagar’ (sea of dawn) and ‘Roop Sagar’ (beautiful sea), forgetting that they were islands and not waterbodies or sea beaches she was christening.

Few are impressed, or happy, with her renaming spree. Students of West Bengal University of Technology have, for instance, been agitating since December last year when Mamata decided to rename the university after Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Residents of Dhakuria in south Kolkata petitioned local authorities against the renaming of a flyover in that area as ‘Sri Chaitanya Setu’ (after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 16th century Vaishnavite saint and social reformer). The saint, they said, had nothing to do with Dhakuria. But that didn’t stop her from continuing with her favourite pastime and she continues to name and rename roads, bridges and institutions with gay abandon. The latest being ‘Ma’.

Many now wonder if Mamata takes inspiration from Sukumar Ray’s endearing collection of children’s poems titled ‘Abol Tabol’ (meaning weird or nonsensical). ‘Abol Tabol’ by Ray, father of renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray, is considered a great work in the genre of literary nonsense. Mamata’s christening spree also evokes mirth, but has little literary merit.