More than 20 years after Bombay was officially renamed Mumbai, the editor of the British newspaper The Independent has decided to make a political statement from halfway across the world. Amol Rajan on Wednesday said that his newspaper would revert to using the colonial name “Bombay” instead of “Mumbai” while referring to India’s financial capital.
Rajan, who was born in Kolkata, told the BBC: "If you call [the city] it what Hindu nationalists want you to call it, you essentially do their work for them...I'd rather side with the tradition of India that's been open to the world, rather than the one that's been closed, which is in ascendance right now."
Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1995 after the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party won the assembly elections in Maharashtra, of which the city is the capital. Their victory came against the backdrop of bloody religious riots that left more than 900 people dead, the majority of them Muslim. The official inquiry committee set up to investigate the violence named several Shiv Sena leaders among those responsible for the deaths.
As with the renaming of other metropolitan cities such as Madras, Calcutta, and Bangalore, the decision to is still hotly debated.
Meanwhile, on social media, there were tongue-in-cheek reactions to the British editor's announcement.
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