A 10-member Bengal government panel is set to review the names of Kolkata roads, bridges and public places, with Lenin Sarani, Karl Marx Sarani and Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani among the first thoroughfares likely to face renaming proposals. The panel will hold its first meeting after Durga Puja and send its recommendations to the state Assembly.
The advisory committee was constituted last Friday and is headed by Swami Pradiptananda, also known as Kartik Maharaj. Other members include former Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy, chief minister’s adviser Subrata Gupta and Kolkata Municipal Corporation commissioner Smita Pandey.
Kartik Maharaj said proposals had been received for several roads and that the committee would assess the relevance of the personalities commemorated in existing names to Indian and Bengali culture. “Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani, Lenin Sarani and Karl Marx Sarani will get new names. Proposals have come for other roads, too,” he said, according to the Times of India.
The proposed review would affect roads whose names reflect different phases of Kolkata’s political and colonial history. Dharmatalla Street was renamed Lenin Sarani in 1970 during celebrations marking the birth centenary of Vladimir Lenin. Circular Garden Reach Road was renamed Karl Marx Sarani the following year. Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani was originally named after John Herbert Harrington, a British colonial administrator and orientalist who served in Bengal.
Roy said roads named after Lenin and Marx would definitely be changed and indicated that he would submit alternative names to the committee. He suggested naming Lenin Sarani after mathematician and former Bharatiya Jana Sangh president Debaprasad Ghosh. For Karl Marx Sarani in Kidderpore, he proposed the names of Bengali poets Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Rangalal Bandyopadhyay, whose homes, he said, are located in the neighbourhood.
For Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani, Roy proposed the name of Martin Luther King. He said the road had been named after the Vietnamese revolutionary in connection with the presence of the American consulate on the street, describing the original decision as an act intended to provoke the United States. He also called for the removal of a Lenin statue at the intersection of Jawaharlal Nehru Road and Sidho Kanho Dahar and suggested that a prominent thoroughfare be named after Sardar Patel.
The panel may also consider renaming Biswa Bangla Sarani as Shri Krishna Chaitanya Avenue, according to an earlier report by the Times of India. Roy separately suggested that places named after what he described as “communal Muslims” could instead honour nationalist Muslims. He proposed replacing the name of a bus stand in Barasat named after Titumir with those of essayist Kazi Abdul Wadud, educator Begum Rokeya or writer S Wajid Ali.
The immediate administrative impact of any approved change would extend beyond road signs. Official records, civic addresses and references used by residents and institutions would also have to be updated after the recommendations are considered by the Assembly. The panel’s first meeting after Durga Puja is the next stated step in the process.
