From our Leader- Indian Newslink Digital Edition dated September 15, 2023
Venkat Raman
Auckland, September 15, 2023
Over the past week, since the word Bharat appeared on name plates and official invitations of the central government in Delhi, rumour mills and speculative machines have been doing overtime.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi comfortably (and perhaps authoritatively) sat behind the nameplate Bharat (instead of India) as he represented his country in chairing the G20 Summit of leaders of as many countries. Invitations to the Gala State Dinner, the gold-embossed Menu and almost everything relating to the international conference came under the ‘Bharat’ reference.
The Opposition Parties, led by the Congress Party slammed the move as ‘divisive while Mr Modi and his colleagues prepared to place a Motion in the special session of Lok Sabha (the Lower House of Parliament) later this month. It will be carried since both Houses of Parliament are dominated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Serious, but healthy criticisms
While the expression of dissent is the right of every individual in a democracy, the arguments of some leaders, otherwise considered wise, have been utterly political.
Shashi Tharoor, who is a vociferous critic of the British Raj (the name India, by the way, is associated with the Colonial Rule), tweeted, “While there is no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat,’ which is one of the country’s two official names, I hope that the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with ‘India,’ which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries. We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognised around the world.”
On the face of it, the speculation across the country has been that Mr Modi decided to revert to ‘Bharat’ as the official name of the country to counter the Opposition which has forged an alliance to fight the general election due next year- and the group is called, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ or I.N.D.I.A.
Those in favour of ‘Bharat,’ say that there is no change in the real sense because Bharat has always been used in almost all Indian languages to mean the Nation.
The Bharat Connotation
The country has been described as ‘Bharat’ in all the ancient scriptures, and as mentioned earlier, in all the Indian languages.
“Bharata Varshe, Bharata Kande” are expressions that have been used in the Sankalpa (as a preamble in all religious ceremonies) for thousands of years. The term Bharata has been used to describe the region, which consists of a large part of the present-day Asian Continent. According to scholars, ‘India’ was the name given by British colonisers, and the name predates colonial rule by centuries. India comes from the river Indus, which was called Sindhu in Sanskrit. Travellers from as far away as Greece would identify the region southeast of the Indus River as India even before Alexander the Great’s Indian campaign in the Third century BCE.
The name Bharat is even older, occurring in ancient Indian scriptures and according to some experts, it was used as a term of socio-cultural identity rather than geography.
Critics of Modi say that the motive behind the switch over to Bharat is “an attempt to erase the memory of the Mughal and British rule in India and already, the names of many cities and areas have been changed. These are attempts of the Hindu nationalist movement.”
Speculation galore
According to the Economist, speculation has been rife in the Indian capital since Mr Modi’s government announced that it would convene a special session of Parliament to discuss and vote on the issues of name change. It said that the guessing game has settled on two possibilities.
“One is that Mr Modi and his BJP will change the country’s name in English from India to Bharat (which is already the name in Hindi). The nameplate Mr Modi sat behind as he negotiated with G20 leaders at a Summit over the weekend has added fuel to that theory. The other guess is that Mr Modi intends to reorganise the electoral calendar, so that India’s never-ending carnival of state and federal elections henceforth take place all at the same time, once every five years. In either case, the change would serve a project Mr Modi has been pushing from the start: trying to centralise and homogenise a staggeringly vast and diverse country.”
These statements appear to be stretching the argument beyond the boundaries of reason.
Doesn’t a country have the right to change its name?
Some examples of change
At home, New Zealand is now being prefixed with Aotearoa and there have been calls to make this a singular name to refer to the country. There have been healthy and oftentimes heated debates on this issue but there could eventually be a consensus.
Many countries in recent decades have changed their names citing political, geographic and religious reasons. Turkey became Türkiye in 2022 “to represent and express the culture, civilisation, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way,” as its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
In January 2020, the Netherlands dropped the name Holland as part of a rebranding campaign.
The government said the Netherlands better represents the country as open, modern and inclusive.
The government of the Czech Republic prefers to call it Czechia, saying that it is easier for the country to be recognised at international events and in its marketing campaigns. “I use the word Czechia because it sounds nicer and shorter,” President Miloš Zeman said in 2019.
During the same year, the Republic of Macedonia officially became the Republic of North Macedonia.
The name change occurred during political disputes with Greece and was used to distinguish the country from the Greek region of Macedonia.
In 1989, the Junta military in Burma changed the name of the country to Myanmar, which was acknowledged by the United Nations.
In 1980, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe- there is a long list of such changes.
The Final Word
And here is the clincher.
More than three years ago, a Delhi-based man filed a Public Interest Litigation before the Supreme Court pleading for an amendment to the Constitution to change the name of the country to Bharat.
“Such an amendment will help the citizens of this country get over the colonial past,” the plea said.
The Apex Court did not rule in favour of the petitioner but asked the central government to treat the plea as a representation.
