ADI BANGA, NOT 'WEST BENGAL': CORRECTING THE PARTITIONED WRONG AND RECLAIMING CIVILISATIONAL IDENTITY

Names are not neutral. They carry history, memory, and legitimacy.

- SIDDHARTHA DAVE AND ANIKET MAHAPATRA

The name West Bengal is not just an administrative label—it is a partition scar. It constantly reminds us of a mutilated geography, of an amputated civilisation, of the forced division of Bharat Mata in 1947.

Why should Bengal, one of Bharat’s oldest civilisational heartlands, continue to bear this burden? Why must its very name announce to the world that it is merely the “western” fragment of a whole that no longer exists within Bharat’s borders?

It is time to set this right. The correction is not cosmetic, but civilisational. The true name of the state should be Adi Banga (আদি বঙ্গ)—“The Original Bengal.” This is not a renaming. It is the rectification of a historical wrong. It is reclaiming what partition politics attempted to erase: that the essence, the origins, and the custodianship of Bengal lie in Bharat, not elsewhere.

WHY 'WEST BENGAL' IS A WRONG THAT MUST BE CORRECTED

Partition left behind two anomalies. One was the creation of Pakistan. The other was the naming of Bharat’s side of Bengal as “West Bengal.” This term is a colonial hangover, a daily reminder of division. It freezes Bengal into a permanent “half,” suggesting incompleteness and inferiority.

No other state in Bharat carries such a name. Odisha is not “West Odisha.” Punjab, after partition, is not “East Punjab.” Why then must Bengal bear this suffix of loss?

Correcting the name to Adi Banga (or simply Bengal) is an act of narrative healing. It tells the world that Bengal is not a fragment but the authentic, original, eternal custodian of the Bangla civilisation.

ADI BANGA: THE CIVILISATIONAL RATIONALE

The term Adi Banga is deeply rooted in our civilisational consciousness. Adi means original, primordial, and eternal. Banga has been the name of this land since Vedic and Puranic times, often paired with