There was a wholesale changing of street names in Montreal from English to French following the formation of the first Parti Quebecois government under René Levesque in 1976. Actually, as I recall, the trend had begun earlier, during the so-called Quiet Revolution which saw Jean Lesage’s urban-based Liberal Party replace a succession of reactionary rural-based regimes supported by the Catholic clergy. The name changes were an assertion of national identity against a history of Anglo domination. As Raghu says in relation to India, it was on the whole more of a positive than a negative development. Most former colonies of course, went through a similar process.
On Sep 8, 2015, at 11:25 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 10:03 AM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > > It is 'Kolkata', Anthony! > > Could someone explain the politics of the name to me? Is "Kolkata" Hindu > nationalist, or is it more reputable than that? > > > > There is some nationalistic element to this, but mostly it is driven by > regional, linguistic politics. > > (Btw Kolkata is not alone in this. Over the past 2 decades, most of the > largest Indian metropolises has made a similar name change: Mumbai, Chennai, > Bengaluru etc. New Delhi is the exception to this.) > > > Of course Hindu nationalism taps into some of the same kinds of sentiments > driving these name changes (e.g. nativists in Mumbai affiliated with the > Hindu right were big cheerleaders for the name change in that city), but I'd > say on the whole there is nothing sinister about the new names. > > The old names in many of these cases were Anglicised versions of traditional > names and were very awkward or impossible to spell in the local dialects, so > the new names make a lot more sense really. > -raghu. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
