Clamour for renaming Shimla as Shyamala

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, October 19

The renaming of Shimla after a local deity, Shyamala, by the right wing kicked up a storm on Friday. Historians termed the move “misleading and senseless”. Shimla has witnessed major historical events and most of its structures have made it to the heritage list.

“Renaming it makes no sense. There is no documentary evidence that it’s name has been derived from the deity,” said Raaja Bhasin, a writer and member of INTACH, a heritage NGO. Bhasin has penned a couple of books on colonial history of Shimla. “It will serve no purpose as Shimla is now an internationally renowned hill station,” he added.

The city has witnessed events like the 1972 Simla agreement between India and Pakistan, Simla Accord of 1914 and Simla conference of 1945. The government changed its spelling from Simla, as pronounced by the British, to Shimla in 1974.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (Pravin Togadia group) and Health Minister Vipin Parmar are in favour of the name change.

“We will take up the issue with Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur shortly to restore the ancient name of the hill city as Shyamala,” said Aman Puri, state president of the VHP.

“We had also sent a representation to the former Chief Minister, Virbhadra Singh, in April, 2016 and got a good response from him. But then the issue was never discussed,” he added. Puri said they did not have modern revenue papers to support the VHP’s claims, but there used to be a temple of Shyamala near Kali Bari. Locals used to call the village as Shyamala, a form of Goddess Kali. The name was changed by the British in the 19th century to Simla as they could not pronounce the word properly, he said. Parmar said there was no harm if Shimla was renamed. AHP leader Manoj Kumar said the city should be renamed to preserve the culture.