Topic owner: Sampriti Ahuja: The name change for Calcutta/Kolkata is a complictaed issue on indentity grounds of themselves, but the broader political context is disturbing:
However, in response to the name changes in West Bengal, the BJP has proposed some name changes of its own. The obvious choice, paralleling the restoring of Bengali pronunciation to the name Kolkata, would be to rename Delhi as Dilli, to match Hindi pronunciation. However, the proposal has been to rename Delhi as Indraprastha, which was the name of the capital city of the Pandava brothers in the Mahabharata, one of the two great Hindu epics. There was in fact an ancient town named Indraprastha on the site of modern New Delhi, but the name Delhi, or a variant of it, has been used in all languages since the medieval period.19 It is unclear where the name came from, but Indraprastha has never been more than just one region of the city.
However, in response to the name changes in West Bengal, the BJP has proposed some name changes of its own. The obvious choice, paralleling the restoring of Bengali pronunciation to the name Kolkata, would be to rename Delhi as Dilli, to match Hindi pronunciation. However, the proposal has been to rename Delhi as Indraprastha, which was the name of the capital city of the Pandava brothers in the Mahabharata, one of the two great Hindu epics. There was in fact an ancient town named Indraprastha on the site of modern New Delhi, but the name Delhi, or a variant of it, has been used in all languages since the medieval period.19 It is unclear where the name came from, but Indraprastha has never been more than just one region of the city.