A group of Shiv Sena workers on Thursday forcibly changed the nameplates at the 126-year-old Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) near Kala Ghoda to Mumbai Natural History Society. After the party’s action, the board of directors of the BNHS decided to replace Bombay in the institute’s name with Mumbai.
About 10 Sena workers entered the BNHS office at about 2pm and uprooted the letter B from the institute’s nameplate. They also pasted a white paper with Mumbai written on it over the word Bombay and submitted a memorandum to the institute’s management demanding a change in its name.
“We had given them a similar memorandum a few months ago,” Sena leader Anil Desai said. “But they did not act on it. So we gave them another memorandum today. Our workers uprooted the nameplates and replaced them with Mumbai in the name.”
Justifying the act, Desai said, “If someone does not pay attention to our demands, our workers behave in their style.”
The management of BNHS has decided to replace Bombay with Mumbai. “We will hold a meeting of the directors of the institute and propose a change in name. We have no problem replacing Bombay with Mumbai,” an official of the institute said.
Inspector Shirish Desai of the Colaba police station said no case
was registered in the matter because the Sena workers only handed over a memorandum to the institute.
In May 2008, Sena workers had uprooted the name Bombay Dyeing outside a showroom in Parel. The party had also demanded that Bombay be replaced with Mumbai in the names of the Bombay Stock Exchange and Bombay Gymkhana. All these institutions lie within a kilometre of each other. The Sena also wants the Bombay high court to be renamed the Maharashtra high court.
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