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    They still don't know what Siddaramaiah did on November 1

    Synopsis

    Nagaraj says the government should have honoured prominent activists and brought out a booklet on the historical importance of each of the names.

    ET Bureau
    BENGALURU: The 'low-key' launch of the new name of India's IT city, Bengaluru, has disturbed those who fought for it no end. Not only Bengaluru, the 11 other cities that changed their names to the Kannada phonetic spelling, had no fanfare or formal relaunch of their names. The culturatti is unhappy that the renaming was done without even a ceremony for itself. Chief minister Siddaramaiah announced it in his speech to mark the state's formation day, Kannada Rajyothsava. A formal notification was issued by the revenue department a day before this. And that was all.

    "Shouldn't there have been a big, celebratory ceremony that marked the fulfilment of the aspirations of thousands of activists who fought for this?" asks Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj. Celebration of the Kannada Rajyothsava should have been separate from the renaming of the cities. In every city, a grand plaque should have been unveiled, flowers should have been showered and there should have been singing and dancing."

    Nagaraj says the government should have honoured prominent activists and brought out a booklet on the historical importance of each of the names.

    Culture activists admit that they are disappointed the government did not make an effort to mark the change and point out that cities like Mumbai and Chennai had huge events and multiple programmes to popularise the name change. "It is now left to us, culture activists, to celebrate it in our own way and at our own level. We will do it, if the government doesn't," theatre person Srinivas G Kappanna says.

    There is also an element of politics in the issue. The BJP claims the change was done in such a low-key manner because it was their party government at the Centre which cleared it quickly. "This government does not want to give the BJP credit for anything," opposition leader in the legislative assembly, Jagadish Shettar, says. "Whether it is the taluks that were created in our time or this change of name that was cleared by Rajnath Singh after a phone call from Ananth Kumar, the Congress government just wants to close its eyes to it."

    Some people, however, support Siddaramaiah's view that the name change is not such a major thing or does not need celebration. Filmmaker B Suresha says: "We are not re-naming the cities, we are just making a correction and brining back their original names. There is no need to celebrate this."

    Scholar and activist M Chidananda Murthy , who was one of those along with the late UR Ananthamurthy , to recommend the name change in the first place, puts it even n the first place, puts it even more simply: "The change has happened and I am happy .

    The change is a celebration in itself."


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