I am not protesting against governments renaming roads. Governments have always renamed roads, monuments and institutions. Kingdoms did it. Empires did it. Colonial administrations perfected the art. Independent India has continued the tradition with admirable enthusiasm. The Congress did it. The Left Front did it. The Trinamool Congress did it.The present Bbharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of West Bengal is doing it now. And I believe that all governments, understandably, enjoy leaving visible signatures of their arrival through street renaming more than anything else.So let us agree that this is not an argument against renaming.What concerns me is something entirely different. It is the recent declaration, reportedly made in the state assembly, and outside it, by the chief ninister that no Mughal, Pathan or British rulers’ names would remain on Kolkata’s signboards (with the exception of Sister Nivedita). The proclamation raises a larger question that deserves serious reflection.To whom does Kolkata belong?The question is not just whom the city belongs to administratively. That answer is obvious, and I mean that when speaking historically. But whom does Kolkata belong to intellectually? I ask this simply as a citizen who loves Kolkata with the irrational loyalty one reserves for ageing parents, fully aware of its flaws, regularly exasperated by it, but stubbornly unwilling to abandon affection.Because cities, particularly cities with nearly four centuries of history, are peculiar creatures. They do not belong entirely to governments – any government – that temporarily governs them. They belong to those who inhabit them and perhaps most importantly, to posterity itself.Also read: BJP Government Confuses Its Suhrawardys, Renames Kolkata Road Honouring Surgeon After Gopal PathaIn that context, street names are never neutral things. They are not merely navigational conveniences helping bewildered cab drivers or travellers distinguish Ballygunge from Gariahat or old Cornwallis Street from present-day Bidhan Sarani. Names are repositories of memory. Governments rename roads not simply to correct geography but often to reshape public memory to their advantage. It has always been considered an easy tool for influencing public opinion.But a gentle question may still be asked. Can the state become the sole editor of our collective memory? Because Kolkata is not a blank slate awaiting periodic ideological repainting by each passing government.This city is not merely a municipal corporation negotiating drainage failures, illegal constructions and periodic political lectures. She is alive: vibrant and vivacious. She is a layered civilisational archive. Her streets preserve sedimented memory, fragments of generations who lived, traded, governed, built institutions, quarrelled over ideas and occasionally misgoverned spectacularly.A road name is not always an act of celebration. Sometimes it is simply evidence. Not every historical name survives because we morally endorse the person concerned. Sometimes names survive because history happened to pass through certain individuals, communities or institutions.Cities function as layered historical records. The moment governments begin deciding which fragments of history deserve remembrance, the city ceases to be a record. It becomes a curated museum. And museums, as we know, reveal less about history than about the curator’s preferences.The controversy surrounding Suhrawardy Avenue illustrates why caution is necessary, though I do not wish to dwell on the road itself. My discomfort lies not with this single road, but with the larger principle now being articulated.If foreign names disappearIf foreign names are to disappear from Kolkata’s roads, we must first ask, what precisely do we mean by foreign? If Mughal names are now suspect, how precisely are we defining that historical category: dynastic, cultural, religious or something else altogether?Take Wajid Ali Shah. A Muslim ruler. Certainly not Bengali. Certainly not indigenous to Bengal. Yet, exiled by the British, he transformed Metiabruz and enriched Indian performance culture and Kolkata’s culinary traditions. Do we erase him as Mughal or Muslim or do we remember him as a victim of colonial injustice and a patron who reshaped Kolkata’s artistic life? If he is a problem, so are Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari and Munshi Premchand’s eponymous short story. And Kolkata biryani, of course.Also read: Bengal’s New Political Order: Dietary Policing, Vigilantism and Economic ShocksTake Tipu Sultan. Do we remember him primarily as a Muslim ruler? Or as a fierce opponent of British expansion? Which identity takes precedence? And who decides? What happens, then, to lands bequeathed by his descendants and enjoyed by various high-profile clubs of the city even today?History, unfortunately, has never been known for neat ideological compliance.Then take the case of Scottish watchmaker David Hare. A foreigner beyond dispute, yet few individuals contributed more profoundly to Bengal’s educational awakening. Would nineteenth-century Bengal have looked the same without him?James Prinsep was a colonial official of the East India Company. Yet he deciphered the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts and helped recover ancient Indian history. Should gratitude now be considered historically inconvenient? William Bentinck and the abolition of sati. The orthodoxy of society had then rigorously objected to it.And this is where the argument becomes complicated. Because unlike many Indian cities that evolved through long indigenous continuity, modern Kolkata herself emerged precisely through foreign encounters. This city was not built by one culture, one community, or one political imagination.History resists purityFor nearly three hundred and fifty years, Kolkata was shaped by Armenians who established some of the earliest mercantile networks. By Jewish traders who transformed commerce and philanthropy. By Chinese settlers whose communities remain woven into the city’s fabric. By British administrators who imposed colonial structures and created institutions that continue to define the city. And by Scottish engineers, Greek merchants, Portuguese traders, Anglo-Indian musicians, Marwari entrepreneurs and countless unnamed migrants who arrived carrying fragments of elsewhere. The very DNA of Kolkata is composite. Syncretic.If foreignness itself becomes the criterion for removal, one must ask, gently and respectfully, without excessive inconvenience to officialdom, what exactly remains of Kolkata’s own making? And here lies the deepest misunderstanding. History cannot be purified retrospectively. Kolkata, I suspect, resists such efforts.Also read: In Bengal, a Railway Hawker Dies by Suicide as BJP Govt’s Eviction Drives ContinueTake Writers’ Building. Entirely colonial. We are, in fact, discussing returning the Secretariat there. Take Victoria Memorial. An imperial monument built to honour an empress. Should it disappear? Take Fort William. Take Raj Bhavan. Will renaming them somehow make their architecture less colonial? One imagines the city herself quietly smiling at such optimism.But consistency presents even greater difficulties. If foreign inheritance is now suspect, perhaps a larger committee may eventually be required. Not merely for roads. For cuisine and culture. Should the fish fry be reviewed? Its origin is certainly not indigenous. Should the Dimer Devil face scrutiny, given its suspicious resemblance to the British devilled egg? Oh, for the record, samosa and jalebi came from Iran, long ago.I am sure Park Street’s Christmas decorations might become complicated henceforth. What about Nahoum’s cake? Should the Chinese breakfast in Tiretta Bazaar be reconsidered for excessive civilisational ambiguity?What happens then to William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht or Henrik Ibsen? Are they to be quietly retired from Rabindra Sadan and the Academy of Fine Arts? Should city bookstores stop stocking Kahlil Gibran and Mahmoud Darwish?I entirely understand the desire to honour indigenous icons and forgotten patriots. This is legitimate. Necessary even. Roads named after extraordinary Indians deserve celebration. But sweeping declarations about a city’s historical and cultural inheritance require humility and a nuanced understanding of history. Unlike electoral politics, the history of a city is not a zero-sum game.Cities survive everyone. And therefore, governments, however well-intentioned, must exercise caution when dealing with inherited memory. Because the uncomfortable truth is simple. Governments administer cities. Cities are held in trust by them and never in ownership.History owns them. The maturity of governance is measured by that understanding.Devasis Chattopadhyay is a narrative history writer, columnist and author of Harry Hobbs of Kolkata and Other Forgotten Lives.