Think before renaming the Capital

We wonder what sports minister M S Gill had in mind when he suggested that the capital of India should be renamed Dilli. Of all the problems the city must deal with ��� like congestion, pollution, electricity and water supplies, and sanitation ��� before presenting itself to the Commonwealth as a worthy host for the games, name calling surely is not one of them. Besides, the authorities would also have to consider the huge costs that could be incurred in terms of changing official stationery, stamps and signboards in these economically challenging times. After all, we would then have a Government of Dilli, Dilli Police, Nai Dilli Municipal Corporation, Dilli Metro Rail Corporation, Dilli Daredevils, not to mention the countless other government and private bodies that would have to also make the relevant changes. No doubt it would be easier to spell and pronounce Dilli than Delhi but there are wider ramifications to consider. Particularly the fact that there is already a national capital called Dili, albeit in East Timor.

That city of some 1.5 lakh inhabitants will surely feel bereft if a much larger city of a much larger country suddenly appropriates their name, merely adding another ���L��� as the differentiator. More so since the spot was christened Dili by the Portuguese around 1520, at a time when when the Indian entity in question was just a conurbation of forts called Qila Rai Pithora, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Jahanpanah, Firozshah Kotla and Purana Qila, as the original ���Dilli��� supposedly built in the 1st century BC by one Raja Dhilu near Mehrauli had disappeared. Shahjehanabad, the last seat of Mughal power, came up in 1639 ��� after the south-east Asian Dili was founded and firmly settled. If the government goes ahead with the sports minister���s suggestion, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could end up with a new item on his agenda for discussions at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt next month as East Timor may have a thing or two to say.