LONDON: In Nepal they call it Sagarmatha. To the people of Tibet, it is Chomolungma, though the ruling Chinese prefer the variant Qomolangma. When the British first began mapping India, they knew it as Peak B, then as Peak XV. But in 1865, to honour the surveyor-general of India who first mapped it, Peak XV was given the name Mount Everest. And Everest the mountain has remained throughout much of the rest of the world to this day.

Now China is launching a fresh effort to outlaw the name Everest. Accusing British colonialists of “raping the sacred mountain of Tibetans by giving it a false name”, Chinese newspapers are calling on the world to “respect Tibetans” by using the 50th anniversary of the first ascent next year to recognize the mountain henceforward as Qomolangma.

At first sight, the proposal does not seem unreasonable. There are, after all, lofty precedents for such renaming. The highest point in Africa, the summit of Kilimanjaro, which was once known as Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze, properly became Uhuru Peak. The world’s second-highest peak, once Mount Godwin-Austen to the British, has become K2 (ironically this also dates from imperial survey days). But doubts about the new proposal soon creep in. If Everest is unacceptable, why should the world not prefer the Nepalese name to the Chinese or Tibetan one? Who are the Chinese, of all people, to accuse others of raping Tibet? And how is the “English language hegemonism” of which China complains worse than its Chinese language equivalent?

We hold no great brief for the name Everest, though it has to be said that the word has a fine ring to it. But the answer is to live and let live. If people prefer Chomolungma, let them use that name. If others want to stick with Everest, let them do so, too. We have no problem with diversity, though the Chinese may. In the end, the world’s greatest mountain is surely more important than any name that mere mortals give to it.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.