MODI caused a furor amidst his countrymen by using a Sanskrit word in dinner invitations for attendees of the two-day G20 summit hosted by New Delhi. When the summit kicked off, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s placard at the G20 summit on September 9, 2023, referred to India as “Bharat”, raising speculation of a change of name for the South Asian nation. Taking a cue from her Prime Minister, India’s President Droupadi Murmu referred to herself as the “President of Bharat” in a dinner invitation for a reception of G20 leaders, sparking controversy. India has also been referred to as Bharat, Bharata, Hindustan – its pre-colonial names – in Indian languages and these are used interchangeably by the public and officially, although the Indian Constitution refers to it as India as well as Bharat.
Modi sat behind a table nameplate that read “Bharat”, while the G20 logo had both names – “Bharat” written in Hindi and “India” in English. It is not a coincidence that New Delhi hosted leaders of major economies for the bloc’s summit at a new, $300 million conch-shaped convention centre called Bharat Mandapam, opposite a 16th-century stone fort. Bharat Mandapam is a ground scraper type of building which functions as an International Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC) at the India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) complex located at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India. The main supporters of the name Bharat are the militant extremist Hindutva group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the ruling junta, the BJP that claim that the name “India” was given by British colonists. Historians opine that the name predates colonial rule by centuries. The RSS and the perpetrators of fanatical Hindutva have been aspiring for the establishment of Akhand Bharat (Greater India) since 1947.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress Party, currently touring Europe, stated that Narendra Modi’s plans to change the country’s name from India to Bharat is “absurd”, adding that the government’s plan to change the name is a diversionary tactic, to distract the people’s attention from the wrongdoings of the BJP. The Congress Party leader has accused Modi of favouring big industrialists and sought an investigation against the billionaire Adani, who controls the Adani Group, for alleged financial violations. The Adani Group, which runs seaports and airports across India, has recently been in the limelight after an investigation revealed it used offshore tax havens to drive up its share price.
Gandhi is in Europe to meet European Union lawmakers, human rights defenders and the Indian Diaspora in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Norway. In an interview to international media, the Congress leader informed that the BJP government has “panicked” after twenty-eight parties formed a coalition in July to fight the general election slated to be held next year on a common platform named INDIA – an acronym for Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance. Possibly, Modi’s tactic maybe a kneejerk move to derail the name of the alliance – INDIA – which is rapidly gaining popularity by changing the name of the country to Bharat and making a desperate attempt to appeal to their hardline Hindu nationalist voting base.
Critics have accused the Modi government of human rights violations and democratic backsliding. Persecution against Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities in India has caught the global limelight in recent years. While the United Nations and humanitarian groups have condemned New Delhi’s actions. Hindu nationalist groups have been accused of carrying out attacks on minorities, with hundred of Muslims lynched since Modi’s coming to power in 2014. In the near past, the BJP has changed the names of Indian cities that originated in colonial rule, but also with Muslim heritage, as part of a right-wing Hindu nationalist effort. In 2022, the presidential palace’s Mughal Gardens was renamed Amrit Udyan. In 2018, the city of Allahabad, founded by Mughal emperor Akbar, was renamed Prayagraj, while Mughalsarai, a historic railway junction nearby, was renamed Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction, after a Hindu nationalist leader.
The efforts to use the name Bharat over India have thus led to accusations that this is part of BJP efforts to erase heritage and evoke a solely Hindu past in a nation that has long been regarded as an example of secularism. “Bharat” is ironically a Sanskrit word not Hindi and is drawn from the words “Bharata” or “Bharatvarsha.” It is believed to originate from Puranic literature (a class of Hindu sacred writings from around 2,000 years ago) and from the epic Mahabharata. The Puranas describe Bharat as the land between the “sea in the south and the abode of snow in the north.” Social scientists have referred to Bharata as a religious and socio-cultural entity and not a political or geographic region, and Bharata is also the name of an ancient king from legend who was the ancestor of a Rig Vedic tribe, and who were considered to be progenitors of all people in the subcontinent.
Shashi Tharoor, a politician in the Congress Party, expressed his view on Twitter, “While there is no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat’, which is one of the country’s two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with ‘India’, which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries.” Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), also criticized the BJP: “The country belongs to 140 crore people, not to one party.” The name India came from the river Indus, which was also referred to as Sindhu in Sanskrit. And while Bharat is considered an even older name, travellers from regions as far as Greece referred to the land as India even before the arrival of Alexander Great’s armies in 3rd century BCE. Logically, Pakistan should have been named “India” since Indus flows through it but our founding fathers preferred “Pakistan”, now Modi wants to get rid of name “India” for his own reprehensible aims.
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
Email: sultanm.hali@gmail.com
