Beijing Is Baijnath, Nanjing Is Nandigram: We Asked AI For Indianised Names Of Chinese Cities And…

This came after India slammed China for assigning ‘fictitious names’ to places in Arunachal Pradesh, saying the state remained an integral part of Indian territory.

We asked AI about Indianised names for Chinese cities. (AFP/File)

In a playful twist amid a serious geopolitical row, we asked AI to give major Chinese cities an Indianised spin, with amusing results. This came after India hit out at China on Sunday for assigning ‘fictitious names’ to places in Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the state remained an integral and inalienable part of Indian territory.

The controversy stemmed from China releasing a list of so-called “standard” names for multiple sites in Arunachal Pradesh—referred to by Beijing as Zangnan. These areas include 15 mountains, five residential areas, four mountain passes, two rivers and one lake. Each location was assigned a name in Chinese, accompanied by detailed latitude and longitude coordinates.

“India categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India. Such attempts by China at introducing false claims and manufacturing baseless narratives cannot alter the undeniable reality that these places and territories, including Arunachal Pradesh, were, are, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” the Ministry of External Affairs.

Indianised Names For Chinese Cities

Amid the controversy between the two countries, we asked AI about Indianised names for major Chinese cities. Here are the results we got:

• Beijing – Baijnath (evokes Indian temple towns)
• Shanghai – Shankhai (rooted in ‘Shankar’)
• Guangzhou – Ganga-jyoti (river + light, echoing Guangzhou’s Pearl River heritage)
• Shenzhen – Shantivan (peaceful forest, keeping the ‘Shen’ sound)
• Chengdu – Chandrapur (moon city, a common Indian toponym)
• Xi’an – Shivaan (close phonetics, with a divine Indian twist)
• Nanjing – Nandigram (village of joy, echoing ‘Nan’)
• Hangzhou – Haridham (holy abode, keeping the ‘Ha’ sound)
• Tianjin – Tejasnagar (city of brilliance, inspired by ‘Tian’)
• Wuhan – Vishwanagar (means global city, echoing ‘Wu’ with ‘Vishva’).

While AI-generated twists may offer a moment of levity, the real-world implications of such naming exercises remain anything but humorous. Last year, India had similarly rejected Beijing’s “preposterous” attempt to rename 27 places. China has undertaken similar exercises in 2017, 2021, 2023 and 2024, often coinciding with periods of heightened border tensions; the first such move in 2017 came after the Dalai Lama visited the state.

These exercises test the thaw in India’s ties with China after bilateral relations deteriorated following the 2020 Galwan clash, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelling for the SCO Summit in China and holding a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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