Mumbai: The Maharashtra government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, has approved a plan to rename eight Mumbai railway stations, replacing their British-era titles with more appropriate local names.
Rahul Shewale, a Shiv Sena MP from Mumbai South-Central, has been a strong supporter of this modification, which seeks to more appropriately reflect the cultural legacy of the city.
This move is in line with a pattern of renaming in the city, which includes the renaming of Elphinstone Road to Prabhadevi, Oshiwara station to Ram Mandir, and Victoria Terminus to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The action is part of a larger movement to reconsider the effects of colonialism in public areas.
The Stations on the Central Railway Network Set for Renaming Are:
• Curry Road to Lalbaug
• Sandhurst Road to Dongri
• Cotton Green to Kalachowki
• Dockyard Road to Mazgaon
• King’s Circle to Tirthankar Parshwanath
On the Western Railway’s Network, the Changes Include:
• Marine Lines to Mumba Devi
• Charni Road to Girgaon
• Mumbai Central to Nana Jagannath Shankarsheth
The suggestion has generated discussion and has already been forwarded to the Centre for Mumbai Central. The creator of the Khaki Heritage Foundation, Bharat Gothoskar, is against these modifications, claiming that they remove the historical context. He makes the point that some names—like Charni Road and Marine Lines—are derived from historical and geographical features in the area rather than being colonial. In the meantime, stations like Grand Road and Reay Road—names associated with British governors—remain the same.
The Elphinstone Road station, which was formerly called after Lord Elphinstone, the Governor of the Bombay Presidency from 1853 to 1860, was renamed Prabhadevi station by the Union government in 2017. This modification is in observance of the adjacent Prabhadevi temple, a noteworthy cultural icon. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a historic railway station in south Mumbai and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was renamed in the same year. The station, formerly called Victoria Terminus after Queen Victoria, was renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) after the epithet “Maharaj” was added, strengthening the station’s ties to the venerable monarch of the Maratha Empire.
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