Where the streets have new names

A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation councillor's motion to change the name of Malabar Hill to Ramnagari has ruffled several feathers.

Anyone asking to be guided to Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Market in South Mumbai is likely to meet with blank stares, shrugs or curious looks. If they were to try 'Crawford Market' instead, directions to the heaving 144-year-old bazaar would be supplied in a heartbeat. Official documents and hoardings might accommodate the new names of city streets and landmarks but often, it takes more than mere diktats to find a place in collective imagination.

Recently, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) - defined by some as Mumbai's most prolific renaming entity - ruffled several feathers when one of its councillors introduced a motion to change the name of Malabar Hill to Ramnagari. The corporator, Dilip Lande of the Maharashtra Nirman Sena, asked for the change on two grounds - the existing name had a strong colonial association, and that a legend that Lord Rama had stopped there on his way to find Sita.

The proposal, which was expected to be tabled in the BMC on June 25, was put aside as other matters took precedence. It could be called into discussion on a later date. However, residents of the neighbourhood, perhaps the city's most exclusive, assert that Lande's move is incorrect and will not materialise.

Malabar Hill's British heritage is rich - Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone first had his bungalow built here, giving the place an upmarket appeal - but its name is not a gift of the Raj, note experts. City historian Deepak Rao says the origins of the title predate the English rule. The term 'Malabari' was used to refer to pirates coming from the coast of Kerala, then known as Travancore. According to some historical books, the pirates would stop for fresh water at the vicinity's Banganga area, formerly Srigundi. Further, Indrani Malkani, president of the Malabar Hill Residents Association says the name's formal introduction during the listing of assembly constituencies post-Independence "means the name was given by Indians."

There is no evidence to confirm Lord Rama's sojourn in the locality. While the Banganga tank on the hill has always been regarded as a holy place, giving a religious title to a district that is surrounded by a church, a Jain temple, a mosque and the Parsi Tower of Silence, would compromise its neutrality, says Malkani. Heritage conservationist Rajan Jayakar reasons, "Bombay does not have hills. This one has survived and should be preserved as it is. If they want, they could rename a temple." Lande was not available for comment.

The MNS councillor's motion may be unique as it sought to rename a geographic entity. However, the city is no stranger to similar moves. The old joke goes that roads are rechristened more frequently than they are laid. An RTI filed by NGO Hum Log found that names of 19 roads had been changed in 2010 alone. In his Maximum City, writer Suketu Mehta devoted two pages to the municipality's fixation with renaming.

People, generations of whose families thrived in the same ageing house, have woken up one morning to find the address slightly different. However, much like a catchy tune, the old identities have proved hard to shake off. More than 18 years after Bombay became Mumbai - imposed through large-scale changes in banners, maps and titles of century-old institutions - its erstwhile name has endured in parlance and on social media. "When I speak in Marathi or Hindi, I say Mumbai but in English, I always call it Bombay," says Rao, former IPS official.

British-era names have been changed in most Indian cities but Jayakar cites the example of Kolkata where both old and new names are displayed on signage. Mumbai has not been as hospitable. Some years ago, Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote, who had been urging the BMC to enforce the use of the official Gopalrao Deshmukh Marg title in place of Peddar Road, said in an interview to The Indian Express: "They must follow the rule or else our black paint will."

BMC's checklist is said to state simply that 'British names will be considered for renaming.' A rule for mandatory display of original names on heritage sites was introduced by the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) earlier this year and is yet to gain ground. Lande found some support in his latest quest but corporators are not uniformly in favour of the practice. "There are many more important issues to be dealt with like dilapidated buildings and the levelling of roads," says Makarand Narvekar, an independent councillor of A ward.

The official deletion of quaint names in the city is rued by some locals. "These are the parts of the sum that make up Bombay. Take them away and it will become just another city," says journalist Priya Sheth, a Peddar Road resident. But Rao is confident the changes will not obscure Mumbai's history. "That past will continue to exist in books, old documents and our memories," says the 62-year-old, seated in his ancestral home on Maharishi Karve Road, better known as Queens Road.