[IMC Bombay] Re: Bombay or Mumbai?

[Shekhar Krishnan]

Dear Akbar and others:

We had a meeting of the IMC today, which was poorly attended because 
of the rain and other events. But I think that many people may not 
have written it down when the invitation first went out. Please 
remember that the meetings are on the SECOND SATURDAY and FOURTH 
FRIDAY of every month. You will receive more proper notice next time!

We discussed the Bombay/Mumbai issue in the meeting and felt that we 
should stay with both, and take up Boud's suggestion to have both 
names for the web site URL when it is registered, so that it can be 
accessed at http://bombay.indymedia.org/ as well as 
http://mumbai.indymedia.org/. It seems the most inclusive way of 
naming ourselves. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? The 
minutes of the meeting will go out very soon. Since the meeting was 
only attended by seven people, we need to discuss this before coming 
to a decision.

In any case I don't think that middle-class snobs have a monopoly 
over the name "Bombay". And it wasn't the Shiv Sena-BJP Government 
that named the city "Mumbai" -- they just turned a long-standing 
political demand into a bureaucratic reality. While "Mumbai" was 
always used by Marathi speakers, the movement to rename the city goes 
back to the Samyukta Maharashtra protests to keep Bombay within the 
new state of Maharashtra, back in the fifties. That movement, unlike 
the Shiv Sena, had a progressive political message.


S.K.

>I think "Bombay/Mumbai" is a terrible name, so is 'Bombay'. Are we 
>so upper middle-class snobs that we can't accept the new name of our 
>city decided however erroneosly by a democratically elected 
>government? And we call ourself a media of the people!!! - HA!
>
>God knows I would prefer Bombay a thousand times over Mumbai but in 
>a name of an organisation we need to stick to the legal name of 
>'Mumbai' not 'Bombay'.
>
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_____

Shekhar Krishnan
9, Supriya, 2nd Floor
Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4
Dadar, Bombay 400014
India