A name can be easily changed. But history cannot be altered. The past in that sense is definite and inert. The name, West Bengal, has a very important and tragic piece of history attached to it. The adjective West before Bengal immediately denotes a separation, since it suggests that it has or had a complement to it called east Bengal. The name, West Bengal, gestures towards incompleteness. The first political attempt to divide east and west Bengal was made by Lord Curzon in 1905, when he tried to divide the province of Bengal through an administrative fiat. The move backfired because it gave rise to the first mass movement against British rule and its policies of divide and rule. The move to erect a barrier between a Muslim majority east Bengal and a Hindu dominated west Bengal was resisted and Curzon’s order had to be rescinded by Lord Hardinge. If the partition of Bengal was resisted, the partition of India was not. Thus in 1947, what had previously been referred to as east Bengal became East Pakistan, and in 1971, Bangladesh. The name, West Bengal, contains within it this piece of history. West Bengal was born because east Bengal was given away to another country. A line drawn on a map became an international border. Any attempt to change the name of West Bengal, under whatever pretext, is an attempt to overlook and tinker with this bit of history.

This is the political side of the story. What is undeniable is that in times past, there existed a cultural distinction between west and east Bengal. This should not suggest that there was no cultural exchange and interaction between the two regions of the same province. In the 19th century, people from east Bengal — east of the river Padma — were often the butt of ridicule in Calcutta. But the jokes lost their humour once people from east Bengal, from Dhaka, Bikrampur and elsewhere, began to dominate the professional world of Calcutta. The sense of cultural superiority that the people of west Bengal had cultivated vis-à-vis their peers from the east became a caricature of itself. The cultural distinction, in fact, did not provide grounds for the political division of the province. The creation of East Pakistan and therefore of West Bengal was an arbitrary act.

Apart from the fact that neither history nor culture provides reasons for changing the name of West Bengal, there are other reasons for maintaining the same name. The frequent renaming of cities, streets and states is a futile and time-wasting exercise. Dropping the word West from the name of the province will entail elaborate legal steps and will have to be followed by alterations in various places, from government lists to stationery. All this to what purpose? The previous government of the state spent enough energy and money in the useless exercise of changing names. Mamata Banerjee has better things to do. The people of the province will remain what they are with or without the West.