Indian renaming controversy
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The Indian renaming controversy is a result of a movement to rename cities and other locations to regional or pan-Indian names.
The debate is not unique to India as other former colonial territories also seek to reclaim part of their heritage by opting for traditional names. However, given that India is very multi-cultural, and was a British colony until relatively recently, the debate is particularly energetic and somewhat divisive there. Major cities that have been renamed in recent years are Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Chennai (Madras), Khambhat (Cambay), Kolkata (Calcutta), and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).
On December 11 2005, chief minister Dharam Singh announced that the state government accepted Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy's suggestion to rename Bangalore to its Kannada name, Bengaluru. The new name will be effective from November 1, 2006.
In many cases the older names continue to be used informally, or survive in the names of universities and other institutions. The Bombay High Court and Madras High Court were named after the erstwhile Bombay and Madras presidencies, and have not been renamed.
In certain cases, the effort has extended to buildings and institutions named by the former colonizers. For example, Mumbai's Victoria Terminus railway station has been renamed Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Many colonial-era street names, particularly in Delhi, have been changed, but many, particularly in southern cities, continue to have British-era names.