Ok, but Burma is definitely Burma.

Entertaining as Hitchens can be, he's a barely closeted imperialist.

This:

"Hitchen's uninformed argument is exactly the kind of thing that screwed the United States in Iraq. Letting a belligerent pundit who ultimately has little local knowledge divide the world into Manichean slices of good and evil is a terrible way to approach foreign affairs." -Tim Fernholz

Is exactly right.

Why anyone continues to listen to Hitchens, much less take him seriously, is beyond me. He knows very little about the subjects he writes about, but that doesn't stop him from adopting the tone of an expert educating the ignorant masses.

He's a jackass. I couldn't believe what I was reading when Sullivan excerpted Hitchens' drivel and immediately announced that because of it he would henceforth be using the term "Bombay." As if you could trust anything Hitchens said.

Hitchens bases this opinion on a passage from an old Salman Rushdie book.

Salman Rushdie has a new book out called "Buddah, You Fat Fuck"

Except that most INDIANS still call the city Bombay.

The name change is still a very controversial issue. Yes, the city's name in Gujurati and Marathi was "Mumbai." However, in every other Indian language as well as English, the city was known as "Bombay." Even most Marathi and Gujurati speakers would call it Bombay half the time.

As it is, the city's population is not even majority-Marathi-speaking. If you watched TV coverage, most of the Indians kept calling it "Bombay."

Moreover, the city never existed before the British. There was a small fishing village on the site called Mumbai.

The vast majority of Indians don't give a damn about British names. Half the people continue to call the Bombay/Mumbai train station, Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, by its old name, Victoria Terminus.

And yes, the other renamings (Calcutta -> Kolkata; Madras -> Chennai; Bengalore -> Bengaluru) are ALSO very controversial and most Indians continue to call them by their old names. Typically its rural voters, whipped up by ethnic-chauvinist political parties, that change the city names, often with massive opposition form the city residents themselves.

At this point, Mumbai is an accepted term, especially in formal settings and in media. But colloquially, Indians will call it Bombay far more often. Seriously, call it whatever you like.

OK, Hitchens is a jerk.

But don't you think there is some value in keeping the traditional names that places have had *in English* for hundreds of years, just to avoid confusion? Or must we start calling Germany "Deutschland?"

Purists on both sides of this issue are getting annoying. Yes, you can call it Mumbai out of sensitivity for Indian history. Yes, you can call it Bombay because that name is now part and parcel of the English language. Same thing for Nihon/Japan, Eire/Irland, Jeanne d'Arc/Joan of Arc, etc. No need to bring out the thought police.

My impression from Indian friends is pretty much what Akash says: it's not at all a clear cut situation one way or the other and is tied up to a reasonable extent with Hindu nationalism.

I feel so sorry for people who just find it so confusing trying to keep up with geographical name changes. How did you people handle the split of Czechoslovakia, or the break-up of Yugoslavia? Do you still call the capital of China Peking? For that matter, how do you ever keep your little address books up to date when your friends marry, move, get a new phone, or divorce?

Do you still call the capital of China Peking?

Nope, Peiping.

Do you still call the capital of China Peking?

Nope, Xian

I dunno, I still call Torino "Turin" and Koeln "Cologne". Hell, I even call one of the most famous philosophers by his anglicized name - Platon has become Plato!

Point is, a name in another language is just the place's name in the other language. We don't even pronounce a SINGLE CITY in China's remotely right because the language is tonal.

Ezra,

Is your support for saying placenames in the local language restricted to India, or is it universal? For example, must I call Naples Napoli, Wales Cymru, and Hungary Magyarország? These, too, are the terms of the people who live and vote and die there.

Everyone I've known who grew up in Bombay has always called it Bombay. They were all highly-educated folks who spoke in English the vast majority of the time. As others have pointed out, I think it is not a totally clear cut situation and depends a lot on class and educational attainment. Graduates of private schools who go to university in the US or England probably call it Bombay. Marathi-speaking Mumbaikars call it Mumbai.

So there you have it. Bombay is the term of the colonialist oppressors.

Which is probably why Hitch used it in the first place.

I think some people are missing the point. It's not that the city must be called Mumbai because Bombay is the name given by imperialists; it's that people like Hitchens, who insist that to call it Mumbai instead of Bombay is to give in to Hindu fascists, are fucking idiots who don't know what the hell they are talking about.

I don't think there's anything wrong with calling Mumbai "Bombay" in English. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with calling the city by its official name, "Mumbai." Did Hitchens go around bashing NBC because it called the site of the 2006 Winter Olympics "Torino"? Actually, don't answer that. He's enough of a knob that he probably did.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam

Why they changed it, I can't say

(People just liked it better that way)

Take me back to Constantinople

No, you can't go back to Constantinople

Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople

Why did Constantinople get the works?

That's nobody's business but the Turks'

Either name appears completely legitimate to me. Fernholz is right that anyone trying is assign evil motivations to the preference of one over the other is ridiculous (which, since we're talking about Hitchens and Sully, should be surprising to exactly no one).

He's just sick of having to use the term "Mumbai Sapphire Gin" when ordering up his daily fifth at the liquor store.

Calcutta as a single entity did not exist before the British arrived and built a fort (and eventual city) there in the late 17th century. There were three tiny villages in the area.

Ugh, the last sentence of this totally made me cringe. The Shiv Sena are not "the people who live and vote and die there." That's akin to saying if the Republican party changed the name of Washington D.C. to "Freedomtown," it would be the will of the people.

But furthermore, Sullivan's commenter is totally off-base (which explains why he/she quotes wikipedia as an authority):

The Sena's changing it to suit the pronunciation of Marathis is exactly the point. They're a Marathi nationalist political party that advocates rioting and beating up workers who come from other, poorer provinces of India in search of upward mobility. So to call it Mumbai in place of Bombay says much more about national and ethnic identity, not religious chauvinism.

Yes, the Sena is a Hindu nationalist party, but that's not the point with Bombay. It's about who the city belongs to.

:deep breath:

Two more things:

1. I've never seen a convincing argument that anybody but the Koli fishermen, who spoke a creole of Marathi and Portuguese, were devotees of Mumbadevi or referred to any pre-colonial place as Mumbai. Certainly "Mumbai" as a place-name is not part of any Gujarati heritage. That's just ridiculous.

2. In my (admittedly short) 6 months living in Bombay, I never heard a single Indian refer to it in conversation as anything buy Bombay. "Mumbai" was just an anomaly that they tolerated as the official name, but everybody over there, except the Sena, calls it Bombay.

A great trading metropolis should be proud to have as many names in as many different languages as possible. It's petty chauvinism to try to enforce any placename on others, in the same way that you can ask them to spell your own name correctly. But when in doubt (Livorno or Leghorn?), the local name is always OK. The world's second highest mountain is Ketu to me.

Mad props to Kylie.

Akash is right. Indians (and Indian Americans such as myself) switch back and forth, and probably use the "imperialist" city names more often. My family in Calcutta says "Calcutta" not "Kolkata." My family in Madras says "Madras" not "Chennai" and my family in Bombay says "Bombay" not "Mumbai." Those are simply the names we all got used to growing up.
Hitchens is still a jerk, though.

Isn't "Turin" what the people around Turin say, as opposed to the people in Rome who call it "Torino"?

We should defintely change New York back to Nieuw Amsterdam!

Isn't "Turin" what the people around Turin say, as opposed to the people in Rome who call it "Torino"?

Apparently, the city's name in Piedmontese is "Turin", but I believe most of the people in the Piedmont speak Italian most of the time, nowadays.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the insistence by the Ukrainians (a people whose language has no definite article) that speakers of English (whose language has a definite article)stop calling their country "the Ukraine", as the Ukraine has been called in English from time immemorial. That sticks in my craw.

You know, I still don't have an opinion on which name to use, although as a linguist by training I'm fascinated by the various justifications used by each side.

Though I will note that Hitchens' reason is, essentially, because he's an imperialist twit.

Sorry, Ezra, you're wrong. Many Indians and Indian-Americans make a point of calling it "Bombay," not just because of tradition but because of the political charge behind the name change.

This is stupid.

Bombay sounds so much cooler than Mumbai.

Therefore I shall call it Bombay.

"My family in Madras says "Madras" not "Chennai""

That seems strange. Traveling in India, I've heard Bombay and Mumbai, and I've heard Kolkata and Calcutta. But in two weeks in Chennai, I did not here a single person say Madras. Not one. Granted, I was hanging out among the lower classes. But even the US Consular officials said Chennai.

"Bombay sounds so much cooler than Mumbai."

Now there's a valid reason. My reason for calling it Mumbai is because it pisses off the British. The more British I meet, the less I like them. It's reached the point that I now actively try to annoy them.

The more British I meet, the less I like them

Also a very physically unattractive people. For Christ's sake, they thought Princess Diana was a great beauty, and her oldest son is apparently a heartthrob.

Well, let's start calling Jakarta by the name of Batavia, then, too.

Ever been to the Balkans? Half the cities there have a few different names. Calling it by anything other than the name the home country calls it by implies a statement of imperial designs on the city by the person using the non-standard name.

Hitch is just trying to play the role of romantic neo-Victorian alcoholic imperialist by taking an angry stand in favor of "Bombay." You know what? It's not my city. Under most circumstances, it's fair to defer to the preferences of the state's preferences when it comes to rendering the name of the city into English.

I can't stand the name Mumbai. On the other Bombay is a very cool sounding name - also the other new Indian city names are far worse sounding then the originals.

Mumbai is the term of the people who live and vote and die there.

Piling on here. My husband traveled there almost once a month when we lived overseas. About the only people calling it Mumbai were we earnest Americans. The Indians (both in India and the expats) mostly called it Bombay.

Hey: Batavia is an awesome name.

Nikil Saval also writes about the Mumbai/Bombay topic in n+1.

Remember Larry Wilmore's parody of condescending white liberal guilt on the Daily Show? Did he read this post before writing it? Ezra, do you know any actual Indians or Indian-Americans? Because from this post, it sounds like you just walked out of "Stuff White People Like." Really, this is embarrassing.

Also, citing Wikipedia is stupid, especially on controversial subjects.

I have a question.

When you approvingly quote this:

"Letting a belligerent pundit who ultimately has little local knowledge divide the world into Manichean slices of good and evil is a terrible way to approach foreign affairs."

. . . and then a few lines later write this:

"So there you have it. Bombay is the term of the colonialist oppressors. Mumbai is the term of the people who live and vote and die there."

How does your head not just explode right there and then?

I personally like how Hitchen's bombast rankles those with inferiority complexes who find time to comment on websites all day.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

What its called in India is one thing, the question is what to call it in English.

What do Americans care what its called anyway, unless there's some calamity that has happened there? I reckon we ought to defer to the Ozzies, who give a damn what its called on a regular basis because of the cricket tests that are played there on a regular basis, who call it Mumbai.