In line with the central government’s initiative to erase colonial legacies, the Indian Army changed the name of Fort William, the headquarters of its Eastern Command in Kolkata, to ‘Vijay Durg.’
Confirming the change, Wing Commander Himanshu Tiwari, Chief Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Defence (Kolkata), stated to India Today TV that the renaming was approved in December 2024.
“The directive was issued in the second week of December, though an official announcement is still pending. However, we have already discontinued the use of ‘Fort William’ in internal communications,” Tiwari stated.
The historic Fort William was constructed by the British in 1781 and named after England’s King William III.
The new name, ‘Vijay Durg’, however, is inspired by the ancient fort on Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg coast, which was an unyielding naval stronghold of the Marathas under Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
