Yet here we are in West Bengal, debating whether the state should be renamed Bengal (Bangla in Bengali). However, since Pakistan’s eastern wing was called ‘East Bengal’ till 1955, the ‘West Bengal’ nomenclature in a neighbouring part of India made some sense and pre-empted confusion. Opponents of renaming ‘West Bengal’ to ‘Bengal’ have also often invoked the spectre of diplomatic confusion. The prefix, ‘West’, in West Bengal is itself a relic of 1947, a cartographic scar left by Partition. Can it be that the resistance to renaming West Bengal as ‘Bengal’ or ‘Bangla’ is not a matter of bureaucratic hesitation but of ideological discomfort?

Source: The Telegraph March 16, 2026 01:27 UTC