The return of the nativists

Govts should not aim to either censor history or rewrite it

The Tamil Nadu government’s reversal, within a week, of its decision to change the spellings of 1,018 places with traditional names to align more closely to their Tamil pronunciations highlights the essential pointlessness of nativism. The new names, picked by an expert committee based on recommendations of district collectors, have evoked mixed responses, mostly on account of the complexity involved in changing the Anglicised spelling of Coimbatore to Koyampuththur, or Vellore to Veeloor, or Egomore to Ezhumbur. 

Now, the state government is working on aligning transliteration standards and a new list is expected in two or three days. Apart from