A lot, apparently.
I left Madras in late eighties and came back to Chennai couple of years back. The new name has been in vogue for about 8 – 9 years now and the younger generation knows the city only by the new name. But even now there is lot of noise being made about the name change. Recently, the elected representatives of Tamil Nadu passionately debated about the name change. No one argued for going back to calling the city Madras but wanted some very popular ‘brands’ that carry Madras in its name to switch to ‘Chennai’.
Lot institutions (both public & private) like the city corporation, development authority and the likes have long switched to Chennai. Madras Corporation is now Chennai Corporation and Madras Metropolitan Development Authority (MMDA) is now Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA). But several other institutions like Madras University, Madras High Court and Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) still carry the legacy name. So the esteemed legislatures wanted these institutions to switch to Chennai in their title. They passionately argued for several hours on this ‘critical issue’ spending several hundred thousands rupees of public money.
So, what was the outcome?
Tamil Nadu Government deliberated this ‘important’ issue for several weeks spending more of the public money and rejected the demand of the legislatures. Needless to say the demand for name change came from the opposition.
Logic
Government responded that Madras High Court, University of Madras & MRF are known worldwide in its current name and ‘brand equity’ is quite considerable for them to discarded.
Applying the same rational, I wonder how the name of the city was changed in the first place. After all Madras is still known worldwide and there is quite a ‘brand equity’ in that name. Madras name would have come handy particularly now when the city is competing for IT investment dollars with Bangalore and Hyderabad.
BTW, why is the Chennai airport code still MAA? Shouldn’t that be changed as well? What was New York airport code before JFK?
Ram,
ReplyDeleteGood Post,
Not sure why these silly things like "Name change" etc..are top in the agenda of the Politicians.!
I've blogrolled you .
Name change was unwarranted as it has resulted in lot of confusion. changing the name of educational institutions like IIT Madras, University of Madras would mean that all international universities which recognize such degress should also include the new name in their approved list....this might result in lot of hassles for potential applicants. changing the airport code from MAA might increase the workload for lot of companies (airlines, courier companies etc) as they use MAA as their point of reference. lot of maps and books still state Chennai with the word Madras in brackets so that people know the old name.
ReplyDeleteMRF doesn't have an expansion any more. they started out doing rubber tyres....but now they are into a whole host of things....like Funskool toys. hence their name is just MRF....there is no full form.
Thanks Narayanan & Kaps
ReplyDeleteFrom a pure marketing, visibility perspective change of 'brand names' take a toll. The cost is on several fronts 1)re-branding cost 2)lost opportunities 3)time and so on..
But interestingly companies and even cities around the world seem to be doing it for reasons best known the marketing gurus. Some city changes that come to my mind are 1) Lennigrad -> St. Petersburg 2)From the German name -> Gdansk (Polish city) 3)Burma -> Myanmar 4)Trivandrum -> Thiruvanthapuram etc.,
As wisemen say, Time takes care of most of the thing/s and that is certainly true in the case of 'name changes / re-branding'. I have an intresting story vis-a-vis University of Madras <-> Anna University. I will blog it (as What's in a name-II?) in a few. Please review and comment.
While travelling in my Madras city, I found that there were many blue color boards with the city name written in capital letters as MADRAS.
ReplyDeleteI want to know whether there is any government order where we can still mention the city name as Madras instead of Chennai.
Ravi
ReplyDeleteMadras is officially 'Chennai' now.. If you see lingering signs of 'Madras'.. they must be old..
But then, I have come across folks who still refer to Chennai as Madras.. Time will slowly change that..
Well, If you don't like british names or anything done by british then, why do you still celebrate Jan 1st as New year? We have seperate Tamil New Year right? Why don't you destroy the high courts, railway tracks constructed by british & reconstruct from the start? Sound stupid right... Same way, It sounds stupid to change from Madras to Chennai when both co-existed without any problem. Now , only Chennai exists . where's my magnificent Madras? My DOB Certificate lists it as Madras. A'm I born in a city which does not exist? These changes promote regionalism & not nationalism… which will ultimately result in a separate Country ThamizlNadu(Once known as the State of Madras).
ReplyDeleteWell, If you don't like british names or anything done by british then, why do you still celebrate Jan 1st as New year? We have seperate Tamil New Year right? Why don't you destroy the high courts, railway tracks constructed by british & reconstruct from the start? Sound stupid right... Same way, It sounds stupid to change from Madras to Chennai when both co-existed without any problem. Now , only Chennai exists . where's my magnificent Madras? My DOB Certificate lists it as Madras. A'm I born in a city which does not exist? These changes promote regionalism & not nationalism… which will ultimately result in a separate Country ThamizlNadu(Once known as the State of Madras).
ReplyDeleteDear Ram,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Info.
Well, The old boards are different. They still exist in the city with fading colors except for the evergreen city name 'Madras'.
I'm speaking about the blue color boards found in Hardware stores...which are new and specifically write Madras as the city .
Hail those stores :)