Will ask Centre to change IIT Bombay name to IIT Mumbai: Maha CM Fadnavis

The Maharashtra CM said he would write to the Centre to rename IIT Bombay as IIT Mumbai, after Union minister Jitendra Singh's comment on the institute's name sparked a fresh attack from Raj Thackeray

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Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said his government would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Education Minister to rename IIT Bombay as IIT Mumbai.

 

His announcement came amid a political back-and-forth triggered by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh’s recent remark at the institute.

 

Speaking at an event on Monday, Singh had said, "As far as IIT Bombay is concerned, thank God it still is this name. You have not changed it to Mumbai. So that's another compliment to you. And also true for Madras. It remains IIT Madras". 

Why did Raj Thackeray criticise the Centre over the remark?

The comment set off a new round of bickering over a long-standing debate around the city’s name. Earlier on Wednesday, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray criticised Singh, calling his remark a symbol of "the government’s mindset".

 

The MNS also staged a symbolic protest, putting up a banner outside IIT Bombay renaming it "IIT Mumbai", reported PTI.

 

In a post on X, Thackeray said that attempts to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra have historically been resisted by Marathi people. "Our Marathi Mumbai remained in Maharashtra. Now, the bitterness that's been festering in their bellies for decades is starting to spill out once again," he wrote.

 

"First Mumbai, and then the entire MMR region will be seized and linked to Gujarat. Marathi people should wake up,” Thackeray said.

 

“People of Mumbai and all Marathi folks living in the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region should open their eyes now. The name 'Mumbai' irks them (Centre) because it is named after Mumbadevi, the original goddess of Mumbai. Her children are the Marathi people who have lived here for generations,” he said.

 

How did Fadnavis respond to the political criticism?

However, speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Fadnavis said on Wednesday: "First of all, everyone knows that BJP leader Ram Naik had made the biggest contribution in changing (the name of) Bombay to Mumbai. We always say Mumbai, and not Bombay. We have been consistently trying to ensure that 'Bombay' be replaced with Mumbai".

 

The city, famously known as the commercial capital of the country and home to two of India's largest stock exchanges, was renamed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995 after an years-long agitation demanding its nomenclature should revert to its original, which was a reflection of the local deity it was named after — Mumbadevi. The move was also part of a rising tide of local Marathi chauvinism, driven largely by the Shiv Sena, then led by Balasaheb Thackeray, also Raj Thackeray's uncle.

 

What political tensions does the incident highlight today?

Of late, Raj Thackeray has once again been playing the Marathi Manoos card, specifically the language. In Mumbai, particularly, several incidents of MNS members physically assaulting members of the public for not speaking Marathi have come to the fore. Last week, a teenager — himself a Marathi speaker — died by suicide after he was publicly beaten up in a train for not speaking the language.

 

Earlier this year, in response to widespread criticism of Marathi-language vigilantism following a flurry of such videos on social media, Raj Thackeray had instructed his cadre to be careful not to film such attacks.