Former summer capital of India likely to be renamed to end 'mental slavery' of British colonial era

The Telegraph
Updated
The hilltop city of Simla, or Shimla, offered the British colonial government a cool break from the Indian summer - Hindustan Times
The hilltop city of Simla, or Shimla, offered the British colonial government a cool break from the Indian summer - Hindustan Times

The British colonial government’s former summer capital of Simla in India’s northern Himalayan region is likely to be renamed in a bid to free the town from the "oppressive" mental slavery of the past.  

The local branch of prime minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, wants to rechristen the picturesque hill town established by the British in 1864, after the Hindu goddess Shyamala Devi.

“Before the British arrived Simla was known as Shyamala” Himachal Pradesh state chief minister Jai Ram Thakur said over the weekend. "My government will seek public opinion on the demand to revert to this name," he added.

Other hard-line right wing organisations aligned with the BJP like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council, are also demanding Simla’s renaming.   

“Sticking to names (of places) given by (British) oppressors is a sign of mental slavery” said state VHP head Aman Puri. "Changing their names is a small but significant step in renouncing it (servitude)," he added.

Opposition parties said the local government should focus on alleviating Simla’s chronic water shortages and rising unemployment - Credit:  AFP
Opposition parties said the local government should focus on alleviating Simla’s chronic water shortages and rising unemployment Credit: AFP

In recent years the federal and provincial BJP governments have launched a countrywide drive to rename several towns in a bid to resurrect India’s Hindu past.

Earlier this month the BJP government in northern Uttar Pradesh state renamed the holy town of Allahabad located on the banks of the Ganges river as Prayagraj, the ‘purer’ Hindu name it was known by over 500 years earlier.

Around 19 of 29 Indian provinces ruled directly by the BJP or in coalition with regional parties are considering similar name changes to project a more Hindu character to urban India.

Mr Puri, of Simla's VHP, said he was of the view that the British had a problem pronouncing Shyamala and changed its name to Simla, which endured till well after Indian independence in 1947.  

In January 1972, as part of the reorganisation of Indian provinces Simla became Shimla and the 7,400 feet high Himalayan town has been known that way ever since.

The VHP is also demanding that the equally charming, but smaller hill town of Dalhousie, 200 miles north, which is named after a Scottish marquis who served as India’s governor General from 1848 to 1856, be renamed. The VHP wants it to be named after Subhash Chander Bose, a well-known Hindu anti-British revolutionary.

Similarly, they want the grand former residence of British Governors General and Viceroys, now the state-run Hotel Peterhoff, in Simlato to be named after the 5th century poet Valmiki, who wrote the Hindu epic Ramayana.

But the Opposition Congress Party that headed the Himachal’s provincial government until late last year, and opposed Shimla’s re-christening, has ridiculed plans to change its name.

“The focus should be on resolving Shimla’s myriad problems like its chronic water shortages and rising unemployment and not on changing its name,” Congress Party spokesman Naresh Chauhan said.