The Naming of Cats is a Difficult Matter

Religious sensibles in the Indian state of West Bengal have petitioned to forestall the horrid risk of syncretism among the larger Felidae. A zoo lion named after the Hindu deity Rama was moved from the neighbouring state and renamed after the Mughal emperor Akbar; worse yet, there is now the perilous possibility that a lioness who retains her own Hindu name may be forced to share an enclosure with this polluted creature. Besides proclaiming its concern that permitting such impropriety would amount to blasphemy and a direct assault on the beliefs of all Hindus, the nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad has called for a precautionary ban on naming animals after religious figures, because the sensibilities of people who regard leonine nomenclaturial miscegenation as a direct assault must clearly be very sensible indeed.