Use of ‘Bombay’ irks Sena

The Wadia Group, owners of the iconic Bombay Dyeing textile mills have ventured into real estate by launching Bombay Realty. Seeing red at the firm’s advertisement being displayed at Girgaum Chowpatty in the first week of October, members of the pernicious Shiv Sena removed the poster and replaced it with one that read "Mumbai Realty,” reported Mid Day on October 6, 2011. "We have always demanded that people call this city Mumbai, not Bombay. We declared Mumbai as the official name for the city a long time back. This has been accepted by most of the companies as well as government organizations, and they have made the necessary amendments,” Sena’s vibhag pramukh for South Bombay Pandurang Sapkal told MM. Along with party worker Raj Porkar, Sapkal informed the evening paper that he "went and replaced it with the new poster in the wee hours of Wednesday (October 5).”

That same afternoon, officials from Bombay Realty removed the Sena’s handiwork and reinstated the original poster reading "Bombay Realty.” Sena workers hit back, covering the poster with a white cloth marked in black Marathi lettering, sending out a clear message that it would not tolerate the use of the old name of the city. Mid Day mentions that 20 Sena supporters had been arrested in May 2008 for agitating outside the Bombay Stock Exchange. They had also painted "Mumbai Scottish” on the walls of Bombay Scottish School where Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s grandchildren studied, and knocked down Bombay Dyeing boards outside the company’s showroom in Worli.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, some experts who deal in Bombay Dyeing shares opined to MM: "Why should they change the (firm’s) name? They have been using the name Bombay Dyeing for the last 132 years.”