West Bengal will now be called ‘Bangla’ in Bengali, ‘Bengal’ in English and ‘Bangal’ in Hindi

Kolkata: The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed a resolution for renaming the state, weeks after a proposal in this regard was put forward by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

According to news agency ANI, West Bengal will now be called ‘Bangla’ in Bengali, ‘Bengal’ in English and ‘Bangal’ in Hindi.

The proposal was approved by the special session of the West Bengal Assembly, which was convened on August 26 to discuss the renaming of the state.

“We have taken the decision. Bangla and Bengal. We had told the Centre to please accept the decision of the assembly. We would like it to be passed in Parliament next session,” Banerjee said after a resolution was passed in the assembly.

Stating that the Left had opposed the name-change, she added, “The Left also tried to get the name changed, they failed. They are now opposing the name change…Those who have opposed the move, history will not forgive them.”

Earlier, major metros like Gurgaon and Bangalore had been renamed.

The Mamata Banerjee government had earlier proposed to rename West Bengal as just “Bengal”, dropping “West” from its name.

”For the sake of the people of the state, its heritage and culture as well as to promote and protect its interests at the national level, we have proposed to rename West Bengal as Bengal in English and ‘Bango’ or `Bangla` in Bengali,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee had said then.

In Bengali, the state is currently referred to as “Paschim Banga” or “Paschim Bangla”.

In 2011, the state government had sent a proposal to the Centre for renaming West Bengal as “Paschim Bango”, but that never got the green signal.

Another reason for changing the name of the state is that whenever there is any meeting of all states, West Bengal comes at the bottom of the list alphabetically.

The renaming exercise attracted mixed reactions from authors, singers, and politicians, with some giving it the thumbs up while others frowned at the move.

For Sahitya Akademi award winning author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, the move isn’t rechristening, rather reinstating the state’s original name.

“The name West Bengal is meaningless. The state was originally known as Bangabhoomi in an earlier age. After Partition, the name of the state was changed. Many of us did not like it. I would not call it rechristening, rather going back to the original nomenclature,” said Mukhopadhyay.

After the partition of India in 1947, Bengal was bifurcated as East Bengal and West Bengal. East Bengal became a part of Pakistan. It was rechristened East Pakistan in 1956 and later emerged as the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

Bureau Report