Oh, Kolkata!

Or to Maoists, the very people that the moderate left that is now in power helped to exterminate in the Naxalite years. quot;Let Kolkata remain a cosmopolitan city,quot; says Sunil Gangopadhyay, litterateur and prime saviour of Bengaliand Bengaliana. But we will not allow people to forget that this is also the capital of Pashchim Banga.quot; It would be difficult to ignore a sizeable inner contradiction so dear to Calcutta8217;s Marxists in that statement, as bloated as an inner tube.

Of course, it is all done in righteous good faith. In recent times, Calcutta8217;s ethic has deteriorated and to some extent the young, rich scions of immigrant families have been responsible. Also, like Mumbai, Calcutta has special problems with its past 8212; it was created, almost ex nihilo, by the British. If we are to be atavistic, the oldest name is the most authentic.

Calcutta8217;s name should therefore be changed to Sutanuti, the first village that Job Charnock8217;s arrack-addled attention settled on in the region that was to become Calcutta. Doesn8217;t ring too many bells, does it? That is the trouble with going back in time. Antiquity tends to be remote. And can the city8217;s ethic be improved by thrusting Bankim Chandra and Sarat Chandra down the throats ofrecalcitrant Marwaris and Biharis? One can visualise less dramatic methods. A better police force, for one. A political cadre that does not control every aspect of the citizen8217;s life, for another. Simple methods. Methods which will never be used, because there is no political percentage in them.

Bengalis have always been accused of a degree of cultural chauvinism. For them, a difficulty with their language is a bit like aphasia; a lack of acquaintance with Tagore8217;s works a bit like illiteracy. There is some truth in the charge, but only with respect to the elite Bengalis of Calcutta.

Similarly, the current paroxysm about language and place names is afflicting Calcutta, not Bengal. It was ideological Calcutta that dictated that Bengal8217;s children would be educated in the mother tongue in their tenderest years. It was rural Bengal, tired of having its children spurned by the job market, that forced Calcutta to bring English back on the primary education menu. Now, Calcutta8217;s cultural and political elite aretrying to force subnationalism upon an essentially cosmopolitan city and a liberal people.

We can only hope that the rest of Bengal will rise once again to the occasion. Pardon, dread lords. We meant Pashchim Banga, of course, not Bengal.