India's IT centre renamed Bengalooru

Bangalore, the centre of India's booming software industry, is to be renamed by provincial politicians alarmed that its cosmopolitan nature is submerging local culture.

The city's anglicised name will be replaced by Bengalooru, the correct pronunciation in the state language Kannada, in a cultural trend that has seen Bombay change to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai and Calcutta to Kolkata.

Bangalore is India's most successful IT centre with Microsoft, Tesco and Google among the 1,5000 companies drawn to its temperate climate. It was also once home to a young, bored Winston Churchill, who sipped gin and tonic in the Bangalore Club.

Ironically it is the city's large English-speaking, affluent and educated population that attracted the big-name companies and that in turn led to a backlash from local politicians concerned over a loss of regional identity.

The name change, which is likely to be rubber-stamped by central government later this year, comes on the 50th anniversary of a reorganisation of Indian states that saw Bangalore become the capital of Karnataka, a province created by carving up the old British Bombay and Madras presidencies along linguistic lines.

Historians say Bengalooru is derived from Bendakalooru, meaning "town of boiled beans", as the place was named when it was created in the 14th century.

"It is identity politics in the realm of culture, rather like Peking being renamed Beijing by the Communists in China," said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political commentator. "[The change] is rather less bloody than the Russification of Soviet names ... It is also the will of the democratically elected government. So there are upsides."

The campaign to promote the local Kannada language has seen shops and businesses in Bangalore replace English signs with Kannada versions. There have also been attempts to force primary school children studying in English to switch to the state language. Only 30% of people born in Bangalore count Kannada as their mother tongue.

The move will affect many of the state's smaller cities, which have also benefited from Bangalore's boom. The port city of Mangalore will change to Mangalooru, while Mysore, home to the British Raj's fearsome adversary Tipu Sultan, is likely to become Mysooru.

Technology companies were initially dismayed but are now resigned to the name change. "At a personal level it is a bit sad and one feels nostalgic for the old name. Most Indians here, however, speak four or five languages including Kannada so I cannot see it being a problem," said Mohandas Pai, a director with Infosys, a billion-dollar Indian software company.

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