What is in a name?

By Isaac Harold Gomes

Kolkata, Sept 7, 2023: On September 5, India’s President Draupadi Murmu sent out dinner invitations to foreign delegates (heads of state) who will come to New Delhi to attend the G20 summit. The dinner card read: “The President of Bharat requests the pleasure of ……….. on Saturday, September 09, 2023 at 2000 hours. Venue: Multifunction Hall, Level-3, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.”

As soon as this news was out, speculation began that Narendra Modi’s government was going to change the country’s name from India to `Bharat’ ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. There was also a surmise that the special session of Parliament on September 18-22 has been called on to pass the constitutional amendment bill to this effect.

And with that possibility, the gossip mill went on the overdrive about the future of the name ‘India’ used in various projects, programs and slogans of Prime Minister Modi.

For example, the conjecture on the possible renaming of various state-owned institutions namely, The Reserve Bank of India, Port Trust of India, Airports Authority of India, Coal India, Steel Authority of India, Atomic Energy Commission of India, Indian Space Research Organisation, Geological Survey of India, the Election Commission of India.

Speculation is also rife on the possible deletion of the name India from passports, Aadhaar, PAN and voter cards. However, no official statement has been made by the government so far. This studied silence has actually fuelled the speculation.

For the first time in the history of independent India, the term “President of Bharat” has been used in an official invite to heads of state. The traditional “President of India” has been replaced. This sudden change from India to `Bharat’ has caused all the commotion in national politics. This has given rise to the question: “What is the sudden urgency to change India’s name?”

The opposition wasted little time in attacking the BJP on this issue. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote in X-A (formerly Twitter) on September 5, “So the news is indeed true. Rashtrapati Bhawan has sent out an invite for a G20 dinner on Sept 9th in the name of ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’. Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: “Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States.” But now even this “Union of States” is under assault.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal questioned whether the Union Government would change the country’s name again if the opposition alliance rechristened itself “Bharat” from I.N.D.I.A.

Incidentally, the BJP camp stirred into action after the official debut of the anti-BJP alliance ‘I.N.D.I.A.’ (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) in Bengaluru on July 18. The Prime Minister lost no time in linking ‘I.N.D.I.A.’ to militant organization ‘Indian Mujahideen’ and the banned organizations ‘Popular Front of India’ and SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India).

He also said that the British too had the name `India’ in its East India Company that subjugated India into a British colony. He also took a dig at the Congress slogan ‘Indira is India’ during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister.

Is the clamour for “Bharat” in line with the RSS policy?

A section of political analysts believes that the Modi government’s ‘possible initiative’ to change the name of India to Bharat, is in fact a follow-up of the RSS’s old contention on the ‘India vs Bharat’ theory. The Sangh Parivar has always linked the name ‘India’ to British colonialism. Whatever the Indian constitution says, the RSS leaders argue, the name given by the British is against traditional culture and the spirit of ‘Akhand Bharat’.

A section of the opposition feels that this ‘Bharat Bhakti’ campaign of the BJP will reach a crescendo before the Lok Sabha 2024 elections. It feels that the abolition of Article 370 in Kashmir and Triple Talaq, the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, followed by the high pitch for ‘Bharat’ to replace India after and the formulation/introduction of ‘Uniform Civil Code’, could be the high points of the BJP camp’s campaign.

The upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram will be a trendsetter of BJP’s campaign on these lines.

Speculation over name change of “Make India” or “India First” – pet slogans of Modi

But this clamour for change of India’s name to Bharat, will also impact the name of Modi’s ‘Make in India’ project, and also his oft repeated slogan ‘India First.’ He also talks about ‘Designed in India’ (defence equipment design) and ‘Digital India’ in various world forums. According to sources, BJP MP Pravesh Verma may introduce a ‘Private Member’s Bill’ in the ensuing Special Parliamentary session (18-22 September), with a proposal to drop the word ‘India’ from the preamble of India’s Constitution.

There are also questions about whether a renamed body will conduct the 2024 Lok Sabha polls instead of the ‘Election Commission of India’. Apart from this, there are speculations whether the word ‘India’ will be changed in various government documents. Questions have also been raised about how long and costly the process of removing the name ‘India’ from passports, Aadhaar cards, photo voter ID cards, PAN cards and government letterheads will take and huge cost of this exercise.

The Supreme Court of India and Prime Minister Modi did not support the abrogation of “India”

In 2015 Niranjan Bhatwal from Maharashtra filed a public interest litigation (PIL) demanding constitutional amendment to repeal the name ‘India’ and replace it with the name ‘Bharat’. But in 2016, the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court T.S. Thakur and Justice U.U. Lalit dismissed the petition and declared that every citizen of the country has the right to use both the names ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’.

Incidentally, before the above 2016 verdict, the Modi government had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court in November 2015 stating that Article 1 of the Constitution contains both the names ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’. Therefore, there is no need for a change in the name `India.’ Article 1 of India’s Constitution says, ‘ India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.’ This means both the names ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ have endorsement of the Indian Constitutional. As a result, the two Supreme Court judges dismissed the plea to scrap the name ‘India’. They said, “Such pleas are meaningless.”

Mamta attacks the Center

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lamented that the name of the country is being changed. She said this is unnecessary as the whole world knows our country as `India.’ “Why is the sudden urgency?’ she asked. She alleged universities and major historical monuments are being renamed. The history of the country is being tampered with.

If the country’s name is changed from India to Bharat, what does it mean for the constitution? Article 1 of the Constitution which sets the tone for the entire constitutional framework, starts with both ‘India’ and ‘Bharat.’ If the name of the country is changed, it would require an amendment to Article 1.

According to constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary, any change in name from Republic of India will require several amendments (The Economic Times September 5, 2023).

The name India has been derived from the Sanskrit word “Sindhu” (the Indus River). The term “India” adopted from Greek “Indikē”, later transitioned to Latin. Later, the Romans embraced the Greek term, leading to widespread usage. Ancient texts have references to the name “India”. For instance, Megasthenes, in his piece “Indica” during the 4th century BCE when he was an ambassador to the Mauryan Empire, gave detailed accounts of the nation under this name.

The Achaemenids used “Hind” for the lower Indus basin, which later merged with the suffix “stan” to form “Hindustan”. The British Empire preferred “India” to “Hindustan.”

It appears the question asked in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet” doesn’t hold good anymore and we are heading for parliamentary tug of war and may be a final verdict by the Constitutional Bench.