'West Bengal' will now be called 'Bengal'

The West Bengal assembly today passed a resolution to change the name of the state from  West Bengal to  ’Bangla’ in Bengali, Bengal in English and ‘Bangal’ in Hindi. Now, the new names would require a Constitutional amendment to effect the change. This is being viewed as an attempt to raise stature in the alphabetical sequence of state names. This after recently, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had to speak at the very end of an event on centre-state relationship held in Delhi as the turn came in alphabetical order of the name of the state and West Bengal inevitably appears at the bottom of the list.

This has been a constant complaint of West Bengal bureaucrats and ministers. The previous Left government led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had proposed to rename the state to  ”Paschimbanga”, however the government had failed to pass a referendum on the issue. The name West Bengal came about when Bengal got divided into East and West Bengal . East Bengal then became a part of Pakistan and has now turned out to become Bangladesh. There are some who welcomed this change saying the name West Bengal has lost its relevance since East Bengal, which corresponded to the geographical territory of Bangladesh, no longer exists in India. Others, however, aren’t happy since they feel that the name West Bengal is symbolic of the history of this part of the country, especially its partition.